I’d like to point everyone to the new blog ricklibrarian. Rick is the Head of Adult Services at our library and loves to read. From his page, it is:

a review of books, websites, movies, or anything worth reviewing with comments about libraries and librarianship

Rick writes thoughtful reviews for the library, so I know that these will be good. Subscribing to the ricklibrarian atom feed could seriously help you with your Readers’ Advisory work!

The Delft Public Library (yes, in Holland) has joined the flickr group “Public Libraries.”

Side note: Check out the openbare bibliotheek delft website. It has an RSS feed, it has a great color scheme, I’ve seen no other library website look so hip (tho it is a bit broken in firefox). My favorite part of the site is the chat box on the front page. It employs the awesome metaphor of owls for the librarian and an eared worm for patrons. Wait a minute…

I hope they offer library paraphernalia with these guys on them, because they are on the level of Hello Kitty cuteness! Aside from liking the way it looks, of course I think it is great that they are making themselves available in this way.

Thursday I attended a presentation by Jenny, see the title above. I brought by laptop and blogged a play-by-play of the action, but haven’t posted it because her presentation will be online as soon as she recovers from the nasty bug that seems to be going around the Chicagoland area.

Instead, I think I’ll show a few things I’ve worked on since I saw the presentation. I was familiar with the majority of tools she talked about, had even considered how I might use employ them in the library, but got the spirit to get going only after seeing the presentation. Jenny was very ill throughout the presentation, but inspired the crowd anyways.

-First, here’s the photostream of the Thomas Ford Memorial Library on flickr.

-I also started a flickr group called Public Libraries to encourage more to try flickr. Like Jessamyn mentioned, the Thomas Ford Memorial Library and the Rutland Free Library are flickr friends. Awesome!

-The following picture is the most interesting to come up today.

If you click through to flickr you’ll see that it is a display of new materials and I’ve put two notes on the photos and added links into the catalog. I’m not 100% how this is going to be used, but I like the idea of highlighting certain materials through more than just formatted text, or the image of a book cover. There might be a way to clearly display some book titles through a photograph. It would be fun, and I think a connecting thing.

Since the library website is based on Movable Type, we can use flickr to easily post photos to liven up pages. (When looking at a photo of yours, it is a two click affair to send it to a blog). I think with this, and a redesign of some elements of the page, I can improve the site’s look and perhaps content arrangement.

-Rick and I spent a few minutes talking about the new thomas ford memorial library del.icio.us account, explored the implications of its metadata/tagging and looked at how displaying a del.icio.us rss feed works on a webpage. I finally took the time to play with a few RSS -> HTML (or at least javascript) scripts and was pretty pleased by Feed2JS. I used it to display the links tagged “recipe” on our staff exchange. I figure that sharing recipes might be a good way to get more staff interested in del.icio.us. Here’s what it looks like (in beta):

We also talked about displaying our entire del.icio.us feed as an ‘interesting links’ page. It’s free (as in not work for us) content for our site. RSS -> HTML will be good to use with our flickr feed as well. This code cocktail can provide our library’s site with fresh graphical content.

Besides these applications of social bookmarking tools, I like the idea that the library has a presence on flickr and del.icio.us. At this point I’m not quite sure to what this presence will amount, but it sure would be neat if people started monitoring what we were bookmarking and to teach patrons how.

I got a few emails asking, “What’s not to get about Ranganathan?” so I thought I’d proffer some info about my graphic. In 1989 an art student started a sticker campaign with this image [click for big]:

Throughout the 90s the image became somewhat of a skateboard/graffiti culture trope, was plastered everywhere, and inspired many andre the giant bootlegs. This Ranganathan one seemed natural.

When I started library school I thought that the “reference interview” was something librarians made up so they’d have something to write articles about. Was I ever wrong!

I really enjoy seeing the way reference transactions unfold. The neat thing about doing reference via IM is that you’re left with a record of it to look over.*

patron: hey whats up
me: hi
me: have a question?
patron: what do u mean
me: this is the thomas ford memorial library….we have a s/n in case anyone needs to ask a question, renew a book or whatever
patron: oh ya do u have any books on the American Revolution
me: yeah, are you looking for fiction or are you doing a report?
patron: ya
me: do you have a particular topic about the AmerRev?
patron: maybe about where the wars took place like a map
me: ok, i can find you a book on that, or i can see if i can find you a webpage that might have some info…
patron: k
me: which would you like?
patron: could u save a couple books for me
me: yeah, no problem. i can put them at the reference desk (the back desk) for you. what name should i put them under?
patron: [gives name]
me: ok, will do.

…
me: laters
patron: bye bye

Overall, this seems to be a decent reference transaction. One thing I noticed when marking up the text is that I typed many more words than my patron. Kids are accustomed to using the new varient of English that they’re unknowingly developing through IM and SMS, adults are accustomed to their old guard English. Just like I can tell from two IMs whether someone pinging me is younger or an adult (or somewhere in between), I’m sure that kids can tell that I’m not quite one of them (even though I IM on a daily basis).

Any ideas about the little prelude to the question? Was this patron feeling me out, seeing if the library really was using IM? Perhaps this is equivalent to this type of common F2F exchange:

me: Hi, what can I help you with? Are you finding everything okay?
patron: Yeah, I’m okay, thanks.
(pause)
But you know what? Where would I…
me: (thinks – heh, got another one!)

The ellipsis in the IM transaction is bonus link to a bit more of our conversation. Check out how excited this patron was at the possibility of games in the library!

*This feature of IMs also needs to be taken seriously when it comes to privacy concerns.

Brian didn’t give me permission to publish a portion of his email, but I’m so excited about it I’m going to throw caution into the wind. He wrote [emphasis mine]:

Rule number 1: Don’t send out IM reference fliers to every middle school and jr. high classroom on the same day!

Had to have been at least 100 IMs in the first 2 hours after the kiddies got home. For a while, I had about 20 IM windows up at once.

I’m at a loss for words thinking about how outstanding these numbers are. I look forward to hearing how this will play out in the future. Congrats Brian and Homer Township Library!

[update: welcome MeFi, especially other members of the MeFi Librarian Posse. you might have seen my posts under the name ArcAm. cheers!]

It is true that being available through IM will impact your workflow, just like adding telephone and email reference did. Take a look at this post I saw from our internal staff communication blog:

Sunday afternoon

At one point this afternoon, I had had 3 walkup, 3 phone, and 3 IM reference questions.

Some might say, “That’s quite a bit going on.” That’s not false, but the statement shouldn’t have any negative implications. In other words: How cool is it to have more people using the library?

This evening, I was approached with an interesting reference question. The patron asked, “How can I send an SMS to a mobile phone in Norway?”

Consider yourself warned: As SMS increases in popularity in the United States (it has already become fully integrated into the continents of Europe, Asia, and Australia) our patrons will have questions about it. There are statistics about SMS in the US which tell us use is on the increase, but that’s not how I know more people are using it. How do I know then? I nearly fainted when I recieved a text message from my mother one day out of the blue (even if it said something like “gdjjm”” – i don’t think she quite knew how to press the buttons to change letters).

If you want to get up to speed, or have some staff that need to learn about this here is a decent Introduction to SMS.

Previos posts on walking paper about SMS

• RefSMS
• a thought on sms

Bonus SMS Links

• Insights into the Social and Psychological Effects of SMS Text Messaging” [pdf]
• Text Messaging: More than Just an Add-on to Cellphone Plans

In, the February 2005 Cites & Insights Walt has a number of interesting comments responding to some of my posts here. I’m extra glad he quoted an earlier post of mine where I said “More on that later.” It is nice to have reminders!

The issue at hand is the role of libraries in their communities’ usage of technology. Answering some questions will help us explore the issue.

1. What would it mean for a library to lead their community through new info technologies?

and

2. Why should libraries get involved with leading their community through new information technologies?

1. The important thing to mention here is that a library can’t help the community it serves with technology by simply buying technology. As nice as it would be to install a wireless network, do VR, buy 10 of the latest widgets and call it a day, we can’t do only that. Simply buying technology and using it themselves won’t do the trick either. The answer to question one above is education. Libraries should demonstrate their expertise with information technologies by writing articles about new technologies on their websites and newsletters, and by offering classes. Chances are that someone at your library is a RSS junkie, or a blogging fiend, and would do a great job sharing their passion with people in your community. If a library happens to be looking for a project, they could consider contacting local organizations (government, park district, theatre, gardening club, genealogy/history groups), and set up infotech consulting sessions. Groups probably have all kinds of questions about how they can use the Web, wireless, photo-quality printers, digital cameras (and more) and libraries can help them!

2. Part of your library’s mission statement is (or should be) meeting the information needs of your community. Clearly, helping your community with new infotech is an aspect of meeting their information needs.

Aside from this, it is incredible PR for your library to be seen as the go-to place when it comes to questions about infotech. Being a community leader is a good way to get positive recognition. With positive recognition comes being valued, and increased use of your vital and active library. Whoop!

In Practice
This is fine and dandy on screen, but how does it play out in real life? We’ll see. This Spring we’re going to be offering at least two advanced classes/information sessions for patrons.

Web Logs and Really Simple Syndication: Getting the most out of the Web and publishing to it.

What is Wireless? Information on wireless networks and how you can use them.

When I have the presentations written, I’ll be sure to post them here for others to use. Once they transpire, I’ll be sure to write about the outcomes. Go out on a limb and report back too!