Tag jenny

Entries 16 Total

there’s a stranger in the library!

Jul 5, ’08 9:57 AM

I suspect that the majority of library users out there are repeat visitors. They’ve gotten over whatever barriers to service we erect and have made the library a part of their lives. I’ve been able to recognize, at least by face if not by name, most of the people coming to the points of service I’ve worked in libraries.

I’ve also noticed people’s library use getting deeper as more time passes. Perhaps at first they come in to to simply check out a DVD or use a computer. After more visits during which the relationship is grown they’re more apt to talk about the book they’re checking out, or ask for some help.

This makes sense. Engaging strangers in smalltalk is one thing, but in a library setting there’s often little motivation to go beyond that. So besides being friendly and open, how can libraries and librarians build relationships with people?

Museum 2.0 has some advice that certainly pertains to in-house (and online) library services:

Creating a place for participation is not enough. To design spaces that encourage participation, you have to find ways to offer users mediating objects, rules, and events, and enough non-uniformity to allow intimate moments to slip through. And the hardest part? You have to do it in a way that feels accidental, surprising, and authentic. Otherwise you just become another guy in a bunny suit, people hurriedly passing by.

I’m immediately reminded of the Thinkering Spaces that Jenny Levine has been posting about. The bit about “mediating objects, rules and events” makes me think that libraries should offer more content (maybe specifically story) creation projects for people in the library.

See the rest of the post at Museum 2.0 for her list of “list of conditions for non-compulsory participatory encounters with strangers.”

Comments (2)

there’s a stranger in the library!

Jul 5, ’08 9:57 AM

I suspect that the majority of library users out there are repeat visitors. They’ve gotten over whatever barriers to service we erect and have made the library a part of their lives. I’ve been able to recognize, at least by face if not by name, most of the people coming to the points of service I’ve worked in libraries.

I’ve also noticed people’s library use getting deeper as more time passes. Perhaps at first they come in to to simply check out a DVD or use a computer. After more visits during which the relationship is grown they’re more apt to talk about the book they’re checking out, or ask for some help.

This makes sense. Engaging strangers in smalltalk is one thing, but in a library setting there’s often little motivation to go beyond that. So besides being friendly and open, how can libraries and librarians build relationships with people?

Museum 2.0 has some advice that certainly pertains to in-house (and online) library services:

Creating a place for participation is not enough. To design spaces that encourage participation, you have to find ways to offer users mediating objects, rules, and events, and enough non-uniformity to allow intimate moments to slip through. And the hardest part? You have to do it in a way that feels accidental, surprising, and authentic. Otherwise you just become another guy in a bunny suit, people hurriedly passing by.

I’m immediately reminded of the Thinkering Spaces that Jenny Levine has been posting about. The bit about “mediating objects, rules and events” makes me think that libraries should offer more content (maybe specifically story) creation projects for people in the library.

See the rest of the post at Museum 2.0 for her list of “list of conditions for non-compulsory participatory encounters with strangers.”

Comments (2)

Gaming (& Gadgets!) Night at Computers in Libraries

Apr 2, ’08 11:01 AM

What: Gaming (& Gadgets!) Night
Where: CIL 2008, Jefferson Room
When: Sunday, April 6th, 5:30-8:00 pm
How much: FREE
Who: You and other people interested in gaming

Jenny Levine and I have given a few gaming workshops at past Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences. After the sessions we’ve opened up the room to anyone interested in playing some games and/or learning about gaming. It’s proven to be a popular and really fun time, so this year Information Today has turned the post-workshop gameplay into a featured event. With refreshments even!

Computers in Libraries 2008

We’ve assembled an impressive array of games!

Systems: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, and Xbox 360. We’ll also have two Nintendo DS handhelds.

Games: Wii Sports, DDR, Hotel Dusk, Guitar Hero III, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wario Smooth Moves, whatever you bring, and Rock Band.

Since we’ll have three systems going at once, we’re opening up the option of an honest to goodness tournament with prizes. You probably want to know which game, huh? Well, it’s up to you. Sign up in the comments here or at a page we’ve created on the CIL08 wiki titled CIL08 Gaming Night to play Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or DDR. We’ll play whichever game gets the most signups!

In addition, Chris Harris is bringing some modern board games. Bring your own games, bring your latest shiny, new gadgets, and we’ll see you Sunday night!

Comments (29)

Gaming (& Gadgets!) Night at Computers in Libraries

Apr 2, ’08 11:01 AM

What: Gaming (& Gadgets!) Night
Where: CIL 2008, Jefferson Room
When: Sunday, April 6th, 5:30-8:00 pm
How much: FREE
Who: You and other people interested in gaming

Jenny Levine and I have given a few gaming workshops at past Computers in Libraries and Internet Librarian conferences. After the sessions we’ve opened up the room to anyone interested in playing some games and/or learning about gaming. It’s proven to be a popular and really fun time, so this year Information Today has turned the post-workshop gameplay into a featured event. With refreshments even!

Computers in Libraries 2008

We’ve assembled an impressive array of games!

Systems: Nintendo Wii, Playstation 2, and Xbox 360. We’ll also have two Nintendo DS handhelds.

Games: Wii Sports, DDR, Hotel Dusk, Guitar Hero III, Professor Layton and the Curious Village, Wario Smooth Moves, whatever you bring, and Rock Band.

Since we’ll have three systems going at once, we’re opening up the option of an honest to goodness tournament with prizes. You probably want to know which game, huh? Well, it’s up to you. Sign up in the comments here or at a page we’ve created on the CIL08 wiki titled CIL08 Gaming Night to play Rock Band, Guitar Hero, or DDR. We’ll play whichever game gets the most signups!

In addition, Chris Harris is bringing some modern board games. Bring your own games, bring your latest shiny, new gadgets, and we’ll see you Sunday night!

Comments (29)

school libraries and myspace

Sep 14, ’06 10:16 PM

We’re all aware that some academic and public libraries have been using MySpace (see Jenny’s post about the recent US News article too!) to remain relevant and market themselves, but what about school libraries?

It being a hot-button issue and certainly blocked in 99.999% of schools, I imagine school librarians would have a heck of a time getting any sort of admin approval for this. I can hear the conversation. “If we have a MySpace, that’ll *condone* kids visiting the site and it will connect them with molesters!” Right. Because they’re not using it anyways. God forbid there’s any positive influence or education by example going on.

But I digress. Please let me know if you know of any school libraries (or schools in general) with a MySpace account. Thanks!

Comments (13)

fire, brimestone, and questionpoint

Jun 22, ’06 2:26 PM

All I could think about while Rick and I tested the latest version of OCLC’s QuestionPoint virtual reference software was Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.

The wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow.

I seriously can’t imagine how we’re going to give our users a good experience with this software. Sarah Houghton did a great job of listing her issues with QP in her post New QuestionPoint Flash Interface: LiB’s Review. I’m not patient enough to make such a list, but I can say that this software is designed with the librarian in mind, not the library patron. And all of the extra megabytes of software seem like cruft. It may have placated me a bit if, say, all of the testing we did with sending info from our databases worked well, but no such luck. I’m afraid that virtual reference software is still an expensive and cumbersome solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Jenny sums up another feeling of mine in her post about the Homer library getting good (print) press for their use of RSS and Flickr:

It’s easier to cut our funding when we’re just the nameless, faceless “library” than it is if they see happy, smiling taxpayers.

I’m afraid that big, multi-state virtual reference projects turn us into the “nameless, faceless” question answerer that Jenny mentions. People are less likely to become excited library supporters if they’re serviced by strangers. When people in Western Springs send an IM to thommyford , they know they’ll be chatting with someone from the TFML. The next time they choose to visit the library in person, they can say “Hi” and shake hands.

Comments (6)

real time conference reporting

May 3, ’05 10:52 AM

Michael and Jenny are attending and speaking at the super-hip conference Syndicate, Aggregate, Communicate:
New Web Tools in Real Applications for Libraries, Companies and Regular Folk.

I’m not there, but at least Michael is giving me an idea of what is going on.

Comments (1)

language

Mar 28, ’05 4:21 PM

One of the best moments at Computers in Libraries 2005 for me was when I was completely stumped by a question from the audience during our IM presentation. I was talking about the shortened version of English that can make up the majority of an IM conversation. I had the image of a (staged) conversation with Jenny displayed, chock full of abbreviations. Someone in the audience asked what a particular group of letters meant (aaf) and I hadn’t the faintest clue.

Not wanting my point (that communication via IM is very viable) to be washed away, I mentioned to the audience that even though we didn’t know what the letters exactly meant, we still could understand through the context of the message, what Jenny was trying to say.

Anywho, experts agree that `Netspeak’ [is] doing more good than harm to English language and there might not be as many misspellings and abbreviations as we think.

Comments (4)

MLS Tech Summit – “Social Bookmark Services: What Does It All Mean?”

Feb 20, ’05 11:00 PM

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.

Comments (4)

MLS Tech Summit – "Social Bookmark Services: What Does It All Mean?"

Feb 20, ’05 11:00 PM

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.

Comments (4)