I can't get the volume right on the Abrams video clip - too distorted. I would love to hear his time-saving ideas. I bet he gets to make his own schedule. Most librarians don't have this luxury, however. I wonder how many librarians would be allowed to watch YouTube on the public desk!!! Perhaps we could all be issued iPods and then we could watch while we are roaming (another idea that bit the dust - see also Seattle Public).
Why am I doing this? Because it's a well-thought out training program that has been tested and adapted. Because there is support for it. Because I am curious about many of these things. I wish we had more statewide programs like this. How about 23 RA things on a stick??
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
#2 - What is Library 2.0?
I have read extensively about this in the last year. I fall somewhere in the middle between the "Webtamers" (i.e. Michael Stephens, http://www.tametheweb.com/) and the Annoyed Librarian (http://www.annoyedlibrarian.blogspot.com/), who waxes poetic about "Twopointopians".
Re the Blyberg post - what bothers me is the assertion that we need to "make libraries relevant". Well, my library is pretty darn relevant in the community. Can we make it MORE relevant. Of course. Can we attempt to bring people who don't yet feel it is relevant into the library? Of course - but the idea that people aren't already coming in droves is ludicrous here. I'd love to get some things like RA blogs going - but it's not the "staff" who are slowing this down. And why does the library's mission need to be "fundamentally" changed? Also, I read somewhere recently that Millenials DO use the library frequently, so I'm not sure about that assertion either. Yes, there are a lot of issues coming down the pike which will need to be dealt with - open source software and catalogs is a big one. If you asked me what the big fundamental change in the last decade for the library has been, however, it's been the Internet's presence, and not just for "reference work" or "content". The behavior issue has been the biggest, and that is the one that "leadership" has failed to accept. There is a library in this state which has (or perhaps now had) an institute for the library of the future. Well, the library of the future was present in several of the branches, in which security guards were needed. THAT was the real future, until management realized it and started to do something about it. Librarians don't have much time for 2.0 stuff if they spend most of their day dealing with Internet-related behavior problems.
Re the Blyberg post - what bothers me is the assertion that we need to "make libraries relevant". Well, my library is pretty darn relevant in the community. Can we make it MORE relevant. Of course. Can we attempt to bring people who don't yet feel it is relevant into the library? Of course - but the idea that people aren't already coming in droves is ludicrous here. I'd love to get some things like RA blogs going - but it's not the "staff" who are slowing this down. And why does the library's mission need to be "fundamentally" changed? Also, I read somewhere recently that Millenials DO use the library frequently, so I'm not sure about that assertion either. Yes, there are a lot of issues coming down the pike which will need to be dealt with - open source software and catalogs is a big one. If you asked me what the big fundamental change in the last decade for the library has been, however, it's been the Internet's presence, and not just for "reference work" or "content". The behavior issue has been the biggest, and that is the one that "leadership" has failed to accept. There is a library in this state which has (or perhaps now had) an institute for the library of the future. Well, the library of the future was present in several of the branches, in which security guards were needed. THAT was the real future, until management realized it and started to do something about it. Librarians don't have much time for 2.0 stuff if they spend most of their day dealing with Internet-related behavior problems.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
#18 YouTube
I discovered YouTube last fall when a fellow librarian sent me a link to a music video created by a fan of a miniseries which this libn and I were smitten with. It was fascinating to see how much "stuff" was on YouTube. I also began to notice YouTube links in the many blogs I had been visiting (posting on a few). I was blown away to find entire episodes of TV shows - added, I might add, in 9:59 increments, I suppose to get around copyright somehow. I watched an entire 2 hour British comedy this way. This was BEFORE the Democrat's YouTube debate; when Jon Stewart made some snarky comments about how only young people could actually see YouTube on an iPod or MP3 player and that many people didn't know how to enlarge the screen - well, I realized that I didn't - I had watched the entire show in the little preview size. Was I embarrassed. This is how I pick up most of my technology.
I admit feeling superior, however, when I showed my younger, IT-professional brother how to find stuff. He was looking for an Internet-based Romanian music station. I asked him what kind of music was typically "Romanian"; he mentioned "manele". So I typed that into YouTube and we found all sorts of examples. He was blown away. "I thought that was just for the "kids" at work watching dumb TV commercials", he said. Smirk.
None of this would have been possible had I not bought a macbook last summer and gotten wireless access. No wonder I read less in 2007 - or at least in book form. My wireless reception is REALLY GOOD on Saturday nights, when only geeks are using it.
I admit feeling superior, however, when I showed my younger, IT-professional brother how to find stuff. He was looking for an Internet-based Romanian music station. I asked him what kind of music was typically "Romanian"; he mentioned "manele". So I typed that into YouTube and we found all sorts of examples. He was blown away. "I thought that was just for the "kids" at work watching dumb TV commercials", he said. Smirk.
None of this would have been possible had I not bought a macbook last summer and gotten wireless access. No wonder I read less in 2007 - or at least in book form. My wireless reception is REALLY GOOD on Saturday nights, when only geeks are using it.
1. Getting Started
OK, I have set up my blog. I of course made a huge mistake by not setting this up before I registered, and the blog name I chose was already taken. When I went to that URL, I was a little surprised to see something rather, shall we say, soft core. It would have been filtered out in any case . . .
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