I am visiting family in Kailua, Hawaii this week. Usually, I do actually visit family members, but this time around, it’s not working out as expected: Brother’s entire family is away, and I’m cat- and betta-sitting (and using his wi-fi.) Mother’s caregivers now come 6 1/2 days a week, and she sleeps a lot, anyway. Aunt contracted a case of bronchitis, and her care home quarantined her – 35 other residents of the home are also sick – so I haven’t been to visit her yet. Don’t want to bring the virus home to Mother, and don’t want to infect myself for the trip back home. Cousin probably won’t come by for a visit this time, because his wife … well, you get the picture. I’m bored in Hawaii!
Kailua Library's reference Hawaiiana collection
So – I walked over to the Kailua Library and offered to perform a few hours per day of volunteer service for them. They agreed, and, to my very great surprise, set me to weeding the Hawaiiana reference collection. It was a surprise, because many of the titles are locally published and are not reviewed in the mainstream journals – I haven’t kept up with local publishing for over 20 years, so felt uncomfortable pulling some titles that were very outdated – didn’t know whether there were any newer editions, nor whether the library even had funds to purchase them if there were. But the staff there were encouraging, and I filled up a book truck.
Picky details that only a shelver or librarian would notice: Sacramento Public includes the year of publication as the last line of the call number – easy to spot old titles at a glance. Hawaii does not, but apparently felt the need for an easier way to check than by looking at the verso of the title page, so recently began typing the date of publication on the ownership label on the flyleaf.
Nice touch: Neil Diamond piped over the intercom during the morning. Happy working music, before the library opens.
Public OPACs require a login on startup, and although all branches have public Internet computers, only a couple of libraries offer wi-fi. The State cannot afford it, so branches must fund it out of their own budgets or with Friends’ funds.
Geodetic Marker, Lanikai
Finally, The SPL Underground Librarian mentioned geocaching and USGS markers. Here’s the marker from Lanikai (Alala) Point, pictured above. It’s been there almost as long as I’ve been on this earth – used to ride my bike past it several times a week as a kid. Details are on the datasheet.
SPL Home Page: I’m really glad the webmaster put a link to the “legacy” web site in the footer of the new web pages. I’ve used it several times when I couldn’t find something I thought should be there. By noting the “breadcrumbs” in the menu lines near the top of the screen, I’ll know where to find it next time.
Mango: Not related at all to 27 Things, but I’ve been working on a project to put a link to Mango Languages in the records of our audio language learning materials. Once it’s completed, patrons will be able to click through to Mango from any record and “start learning this language now!”
Twitter: This was an acquired taste. At first, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to reveal TMI about my personal life. However, as I acquired friends and followers, it was much easier to have meaningful conversations. In the course of this 27 Things project, one staff member invited the 27Things team to follow him on Twitter, so I created a library account. After this project is completed, it will be renamed to eliminate the reference to 27 Things. It’s been fun following RAN’s tweets and ELk’s, too.
Thingfo: I tried! I created a Thingfo, because I’m all about efficiency, but WordPress does not allow me to add the widget to my blog. Score one for Blogger! Anyway, although it seems like a good idea to have all your social info in one place, I’m not quite ready to spout the contents of that stream on my blog. So it’s just as well WordPress is not javascript-friendly in this case. I think I’ll pass on Thingfo and live with the “follow me on Twitter” widget.
Wrapping up
27Things has been a welcome break from “work” work. I truly enjoyed exploring web sites and applications I might not have tried, and likewise discovered I would not use some of them – but now I know!
I would certainly like to do it again – maybe featuring fewer than 27 things – with different applications. There are so many more to explore! This project has also inspired me to write self-directed and video tutorials for our databases – hope to work on that during the summer.
And finally, I hope my co-workers will keep blogging, because I’ve really enjoyed the online conversations, insights, and opinions of all who participated. Talking about changes, about our model for service, about concerns and questions can only be good for SPL, and sharing personal interests has added a dimension to work relationships that was missing before. Let’s continue, shall we?
Experimenting with the Ubuntu sound recorder – made a short 10 second recording. The Dell Mini’s sound is atrocious, even after spending 20 minutes adjusting the mic and sound settings; I don’t think it’s the mic because people say they can hear me very clearly on Skype, but playback through the speakers is undecipherable. Attempted to upload the file, but WordPress says it doesn’t meet the security guidelines. Back to the drawing board.
As we work through our 27 Things, we’re beginning to see them applied to library service enhancements. For example,
As an experiment, our collection manager is soliciting comments on a new (to SPL) product by placing description and link on a wiki page (week 7) and inviting staff to try the product and add a comment to the wiki. This is actually much better than sending email comments to one person, because everyone can see all the comments and consider things they might have missed.
At least one library has set up a Twitter account (week 10) and is tweeting information about its public programs.
Another library has embedded an enticing video (week 9) into the online event calendar inviting families to attend a toddler program.
None of this would have happened if staff hadn’t been encouraged to try those Things and discover they are not so daunting, after all! Good stuff!
I’ve been pretty media-shy up to now, preferring to write instead of recording audio or video messages. But after seeing how easy it is to listen to podcasts, and how easy it was for our 27 Things team to create the podcasts and videos for the exercises, I’ve decided to use the capabilities of software I already have to embed podcasts into my blog posts.
Last summer, a friend introduced me to Goldwave Audio, a free download that can take input from a record player (remember those?) and then edit out all the hisses and pops to create an amazingly clean digital recording you can burn to a CD. I transferred cuts from an album the Al Nobriga Trio made in the late ’70s that was never published on CD, and was so delighted to hear my brother’s voice again! (He played bass for the group.)
Long story short, this weekend I’m going to use the voice recording capabilities of Goldwave to create a podcast. If it works, I’m going to take my laptop to Hawaii and ask my mom to record some of her stories and memories. It will be interesting, to say the least!
As for using our digital catalog to find downloadable materials – I’ve been downloading audiobooks for about a year now, and listening to them when I walk. Last spring when I was practicing for the Avenue of the Vines half-marathon, I went through about 3 titles, the most memorable being “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.”
My family doesn’t have a history of video – we tend to take only snapshots, and lately, people have been hard to catch. I decided to look on YouTube for something other than people. We’ve been having an ongoing discussion at home about whether we really need a dog (no), so I looked online for a cute dog video to enjoy. This one shows a Kerry Blue Terrier like one I used to have playing with a skateboard. Enjoy!
I’m writing this post in Zoho Writer. Specifically, I am trying the “post to your blog” feature. Although the WordPress post editor is functional, it looks as though Zoho brings more to the table in the formatting area, for example:
Inserting a table
inserting today’s date
emoticons
Special characters Ψ Ω Ý β
find-and-replace editing
undo button
There have been times when I’ve wanted to do more formatting than Blogger could handle, and this might be a good way to add some pizzaz to Blogger or WordPress posts.
After doing the readings, visiting library wikis, and watching the videos I have developed a new respect for wikis at a vehicle for organizing knowledge. I’ve been avoiding them because I didn’t have a clear idea of how I could apply this platform in a work setting. Procedures manuals were the only thing I could think of, and yet such a manual for internal processes should not be made available to outside viewers. Subject guides, especially topical ones, can be quickly compiled and made available. The content can be linked to searches in our catalog, web sites, blogs, and other pages in the wiki.
In the course of visiting the Blogging Libraries wiki, I discovered another couple of bloggers I want to follow, and was also gratified to see our own grandCENTRAL listed there in the California section!
I also noticed there isn’t anything organized about Sacramento Public Library in the Sacramento Wiki. Now that we’re web 2.0-savvy, shouldn’t we be checking to see what is – or is not - “out there” about us and taking charge of it? I would challenge all our 27-Things participants to add content to the Sacramento Wiki if the conventions for adding content were’t so different from PBWiki, where our 27 Things wiki is located. But if you’ve a mind to play with it … I’m just sayin’ …
As with Delicious, I had already created an account with Technorati over a year ago and “claimed” this Annot8tions blog, but I didn’t ever go back. Tonight I was poking around and I found a new blog to follow: Across the Great Divide. I read the Invisibility post and was hooked. I claimed a couple more blogs just to complete the exercise, but I have no illusions about becoming a mover and shaker in the blog world. My blogs are ranked way down there, and that’s ok with me.
As for the future of librarianship, I noticed that the suggested OCLC article was published in 2006, generations ago in Internet Time. However, there are timeless ideas embedded throughout, this being one of them:
No profession can survive if it throws its core principles and values overboard in response to every shift in the zeitgeist. However, it can be equally disastrous when a profession fails to acknowledge and adapt to radical, fundamental change in the marketplace it serves.
The key is to be keenly attuned to trends and to anticipate correctly which will work harmoniously with library core principles to make the library’s collections and expertise most accessible to its constituency. Not easy.
I’ve believed for several years that the telephone (cell phones, to be more precise) will become the communication medium of choice between patrons and libraries. Not just to renew items, get hours, or talk to someone, but also to use the catalog and databases, to place holds, to pay fines, and to share information with friends. I believe what we should be doing is figuring out how to make our catalog and databases small-screen-friendly, and to offer services that work with cell phones. This might be creating program feeds, providing text reference service, pushing bibliographies, texting call number info for individual titles or providing maps and driving directions. Cell phones are getting “smarter” every day; we should be looking for ways to exploit their capabilities.
I’ve been a fan of Delicious for a long time. I maintain both a personal account and am a contributor to Central Library’s account on behalf of TELIS (telephone reference.) It comes in handy when callers need a web site fast and you know it’s bookmarked: just type in your tag and you’re there! I like that the bookmarks are not tied to the browser on a single computer, but are accessible to me no matter which computer I use. I also like the tag bundling feature. I’ve created a few bundles that I think might be useful for upcoming computer classes offered here.
Although Delicious is a social site, I have not used its social features except to link my own bookmarks with CEN’s in a network. Selfish, I guess, and maybe just a little private about my personal bookmarks.
