Connecting Librarian

I can’t believe its been3 weeks since VALA 2010 finished.  But it has been and in the wake of all my notes from the conference and inspired by some excellent summary blog and twitter posts from fellow conference attendees, here are my key reflections from VALA 2010.

1. Discovery layers

It doesn’t matter what vendor you use these days, a discovery layer will sit over pretty much every library system and open your content to your users in a new and exciting way. Academic and State Libraries have already implemented this software and public libraries are starting to. And it sits on top of your website to give the integration between the website and catalogue that our users expect and that librarians have been seeking.

I never realised the range of offerings available until I chaired the Vendor session which demonstrated a wide range of the offerings available from different companies. If you don’t already have a discovery layer in place or in process, you need to be looking at them now.

2. Metadata

I have heard talk about metadata for well over a decade.  Til now, I thought it was the domain of repositories, archives and the like. After VALA2010 I can finally see its relevance for my own library’s web content, which is neither archival nor relating to repositories in any form.

So add another thing to the list of things to do.

3. Semantic Web

Linked data and the whole concept of the semantic web is moving from a concept to a reality in small ways.  Its fascinating to watch this evolution, from concept to working tools. Its early days yet, but there will be a lot more interesting developments in these areas in coming years, which I will be watching for with continued interest.

4. Mashups and APIs

I always thought that APIs really belonged to the realm of programmers or those with some programming knowledge/skill, of which I have a minuscule amount.  After listening to Paul Hagon at the L-Plate Series at VALA, that misconception has been corrected. I have already been planning with APIs without realising it (its only Google Maps, but hey, its still an API) and Paul pointed out some great tools to help us get into some more serious stuff. It’s time to play!  Thanks Paul.

5. Trove

This new service from the National Library of Australia is very cool and I look forward to learning more about it and seeing how we can better utilise it and promote it to our users.  There was several papers on Trove, so check them out to find out more about how it was created and exactly what it can do.

6. Open source

Is more widespread than I had ever thought about. But when I did, realised that we are using so much open source software already – it runs our Internet servers and our browsers, as well as much of our communications.  Is it that big a step for us then to start using open source software for other purposes? It’s already proven its worth in those areas listed.

7. Twitter and Blogging

Twitter was the new kid on the block at the last VALA conference.  This year, it made its presence felt big time.  It was a great back channel to what was going on in other sessions, a guide to what was worth checking out and a great way to network with other librarians, both at the conference and following along from outside.

Much to our delight, the hash tag #vala2010 was in the top 5 twitter tags in Australia the week of the conference, hitting number 1 on the Thursday – the last day.  It was also a great delight to finally meet all those twitterers I had only known online before then and to meet and start following twitterers that I met there. I think that I have started following at least another 20 people since the start of the conference.

Keep up  the good work all – you make working on computers all day all the more interesting and what you share is  entertaining, informative and useful in turn.

Twitter probably outdid blogging in terms of content sharing this VALA, but it still had its place for the detail on content. Being a conference blogger myself, I really appreciate the depth that I can get from a blogger’s reports. They are also a great teaser for the papers that I may want to go and read in full. The papers BTW are freely available from the VALA website – well worth checking out.

8. Networking

It was the best conference ever, for just spending time with other like-minded library staff.  The social events were great for this, but it was even happening whilst waiting for sessions to start, or during the breaks. It was wonderful sharing thoughts, ideas, feedback and what you’re up to, with other enthusiastic librarians (and others), who speak the same language.

9. Presenting

I was fortunate enough to present two papers, and get away with it, lol.  Both my papers, presented with two different co-authors were well received much to my amazement and relief. I have had several people follow me up with questions on both papers since, much to my delight.

Writing a paper is a difficult enough process to begin with, but then trying to present that paper in a snapshot presentation is even more so. I learnt a lot from other presenters at VALA about how to engage the audience and even how to present so that you retain their interest.

10. VALA Conference Committee

I was a member of the conference program committee this year, but the role we played was so small, compared to all the work put in by the VALA committee in general. These guys all have regular jobs and real lives, yet put everything into getting this conference off the ground, running as well as it did and responding to issues quickly and efficiently as they arose.

Alyson Kosina, the backbone of VALA is an amazing lady, who you should take a moment to meet and chat with. You will walk away enriched. David Feighan and Bart Rutherford, the Conference Chair and VALA president respectively, were endlessly everywhere, managing, listening, participating, anticipating and in Bart’s case, presenting one paper when the speakers couldn’t get here in time. Dedication personified.

I really enjoyed working with them in the small role I played and learnt a lot. I very much look forward to more opportunities to be involved with VALA.

And amazingly, this blog posts has ended up with 10 reflections. That was not my intention, it just developed that way.

Thanks to all my co-conference attendees for helping to make it the best conference I have ever attended.  Bring on #VALA2012!

I am about to celebrate 4 years of Connecting Librarian and its interesting that it is coinciding with an interesting time in my life, when my professional and personal balances are concerned.

Since I attended the Aurora Leadership Institute in February this year, I have been thinking more seriously about my profession and where I want to go with it. I absolutely love being a librarian and love my job. I also love my family with all my being. I have been able to balance these two passions quite successfully by working part-time for the past ten years – since my eldest was born.

But now I find I want to do more with my profession. Not that I have been quiet or anything (lol). I have presented at lots of seminars, a few conferences and am starting to get a few things published and I’m enjoying all that immensely and have made a lot of professional contacts and good friends out of that. But that’s feeling like its not enough anymore. I want to do more as a librarian, see if I can make more of an impact on our profession and in a library service and I can’t do that as well as I would like, working part-time at a lower middle-management level position. So that means going back to full-time work and all the impacts that would have on me and my family.

I love what I do, let’s make that clear. So I guess it seems a bit selfish to want more. Maybe that’s one of my struggles.

The other is my family, in particular my kids. I made a decision after Aurora that I would start looking for full-time employment, at a more senior level in 2010. That would give my husband and I time to adjust to the idea and for me to help get the kids ready for the change. The problem is that they’re already keen for the change (although I’m sure they don’t understand all the implications), its me that’s struggling with the concept.

We have been getting the kids ready by letting them take some more responsibility – in the main, in getting to and from school by themselves.  When I don’t work, I had been dropping them and collecting them from school – they in now doing that for themselves (with a lot of checks and balances in place of course – I’m still a neurotic mother ).  They are loving it. They keep asking me when they can go to the next step.

I’m the one who is holding back, because I’m going to miss this so much.  I know its going to change anyway as they grow older and become more independent, but I find that I am trying to hold onto this moment in their lives as long as possible. Again, what you would expect from a mother, but not what I would have expected of myself.

Although I have the greatest respect for stay-at-home mum’s, I knew early on that it wasn’t something I could do. By the time I had been home 6 months with my newborns, I was going stir crazy.  Working part-time has given me the best of both worlds and allowed me to be a better mother as a result. For that I am truly grateful, to both my husband  and my workplace for giving me the opportunity to do this.

So 10 years on, its time for a change and time to deal with all the struggles it entails. I know I can make a difference in my profession and I know there will be differences at home, I just hope that we can all adapt to it as we have done in other situations before.

Anyway, as ever, this blog has been a place to help me get my thoughts straight on something I have been mulling over.  If you have gone through a similar process, I would love to hear how you have managed it and whether it has worked out for you and your family – both personally and professionally. An encouragement or a caution if you please – either way they would be much appreciated.

by Homdaum (Flickr - CC Licence some rights reserved)

I have been doing reviews for everything ranging from our library’s main blog to our family Christmas letter which went out with the cards, but realised I haven’t done one for Connecting Librarian.  So here’s my year in review as a librarian and a preview of what is already planned to occur in the New Year.

2008:

• Continued working as Information Librarian at my library, but with an even greater focus on our website and virtual services.  Pretty much all of my off desk time is now web related, not much in the way of traditional reference service for me anymore- apart from direct customer service when rostered on desk.  And very happy with the lot of it, having lots of fun and learning so much.
• Had a chapter on public libraries and information literacy, based on what I learned from my study tour, published in the book “Information Literacy meets Library 2.0″.
• Had an article on my study tour, a then and now review of how public libraries are using Web 2.0, published in the November issue of the Australian Library Journal.
• Spoke at several seminars and conferences, including a co-presented paper at the ALIA Dreaming conference and one of my own at the New Librarian’s Symposium.  As a result, I met a lot of great people from right around the country, from leaders in our profession to enthusiastic new librarians. It was an honour to meet each one.
• NLS4 gave me an opportunity to present on something other than my study tour or Web/Library 2.0.  I spoke there on keeping up-to-date with the profession.  It was a challenge to cover new material and I appreciated both the challenge and the opportunity to do so.

2009:

• My library is building a new website and we will be doing it in house using Drupal. I am very excited about this project, as I will be one of the key people involved in it.  It will be a huge learning curve, but one I am very much looking forward to being on.
• I have been selected to attend the Aurora Symposium in February.  I have the great honour of being able to attend, alongside some workmates and library friends and look forward to learning alongside them, as well as learning from key thinkers in our profession.
• We will be reworking our joint paper from ALIA Dreaming to be published as an article in another library journal.
• I will continue to be involved in the conference planning committee for VALA2010 – working with an amazing team of dedicated librarians.
• I will also continue both this blog, blogging at Libraries Interact, on 2 of our libraries four blogs and on the Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 blog when I can.

So its been a busy year professionally and looks to be the same next year.  I have really enjoyed my professional development and engagement this year and look forward to continuing and developing it into 2009.  Aurora will play a key part in what direction I will take in future, so stay tuned as I let you know as soon as I do.

In the meantime, I hope you have had a great 2008, both professionally and personally.  My New Year’s wish for you is that 2009 is much bigger and better.  Happy New Year!

I have learnt a lot about writing in the nearly 3 years that I have been blogging, much of which I haven’t realised until I started writing for other avenues.

I am in the process of finishing up one conference paper, reviewing a journal article on the basis of peer review and researching for another conference paper. Both conference papers have to be submitted for publication in the proceedings, so a full paper is required.

Lesson number 1 – writing is not as easy as it may seem. Or rather, good writing isn’t. I have come to the conclusion that I need to be inspired, or at least greatly motivated to be able to write half-way decently. Which probably explains why my blogging tends to be sporadic, rather than regular posts, as I am not always motivated to write.

Lesson number 2 – I can write when the pressure is on, but generally its not very good. Point in case, the paper I am polishing now I had trouble starting, but I got it down. When I went back to review it, I was amazed to see how bad it was – of course, I went back to in a time of motivation, so I was seeing it through more creative and critical eyes.

Lesson number 3 – good writing will take you over. When I feel like writing, I will write everywhere. So not only am I working on those three things, but I’m blogging here and I will be going off to post on some other blogs as well, with items that have been sitting in my to-do pile for a while.

© 2008 Digital Inspiration

Lesson number 4 – I can be as temperamental as any artist. Writer’s block seems to happen for me on a regular basis and in those times (with arm across forehead and dramatic flair) I just can’t work!

Lesson number 5 – Distractions are a problem only if my writing motivation is lacking. If I’m having trouble writing, then anything will distract me, but television and a book – any book, are key distractors. When I’m motivated, nothing will distract me, in fact it will be hard to keep me away from the computer.

Lesson number 6 – I create best on computer. I learnt to touch type in high school, one of the best skills I ever learned. Now, all those decades later and still with a healthy typing speed, I find I write better with the keyboard than with pen and paper. My fingers type well with the thoughts flowing through my head and they don’t get as tired as they do if I am writing the same amount with pen and paper.

Lesson number 7 – I review better on paper. Again back to the paper I am polishing. It was created on computer, but when I went back to re-read it, I was better able to do so on paper. Then out came the red pen and I went to town on it. Don’t know why that is, but that’s the way it is.

Lesson number 8 – I have to believe that what I am writing will be good. I can put out some good content, not from the very word go obviously, but I can get down what I want to say in a way that people call relate to. Not that I am anywhere in the same league as great authors, in either the wider publishing world or even the library publishing sphere, but unless I believe that I can communicate in a way that people will be engaged by, then its not going to happen at all.

Lesson 9 – I am enjoying writing more than I thought I would. Despite the anxiety caused by writer’s block and fast approaching deadlines, when the mood takes me I really enjoy putting my hands to the keyboard and creating content. Not that I think I would ever make a career out of it, but rather it gives me the ability to express my passion for what I am doing and to share that with an audience who hopefully relates to it.

Lesson number 10 – there will be many more lessons as I continue to learn about writing. I am very fortunate to have a range of opportunities to hone my craft. As I continue to look for and take up these opportunities and learn from my experiences and those of others, my writing will continue.

So these are my learnt on the fly lessons. Would love to hear of your writing experiences and other lessons you have learnt. By doing so, you help me with lesson 10! Thanks!

Infotoday now has the Presentations from Computers in Libraries 2007 on their website. So if you are interested you can check out the presentations from pretty much all the sessions at CIL, including the slides (with my speaker notes) and references from my paper “Libraries building community and Library 2.o initiatives in Australia”.

I am amazed and honoured to see that my paper was blogged about by Connie Crosby (great gal who I had a lot of fun spending time with) and my interactions, both at CIL and at other times have been blogged about all over the biblioblogosphere.

Which leaves me with my final dilemma for which I need your help. I actually wrote the full text of the paper on which the slides and final presentation were based. I would like to also make that available for anyone who is interested, along with anything of relevance I can dig up from my past or produce in future. Do I put them on a specially created page on my husband’s business’s website, do I create a wiki for my professional dealings and put them there? This is all very new to me and I’m not sure which way to go with it. Any thoughts, suggestions, etc on how I can resolve this issue would be greatly appreciated.