Pathfinders / Research Guides / Subject Guides

Stephen Abrams mentioned this post on iLibrarian that I somehow missed. Because I’m working on revising one of our pathfinders/research guides, I’ve been looking out for alternate ways to create web-friendly guides – both in terms of users and of revisers. The iLibrarian post is a descriptive list of platforms that includes Squidoo, del.icio.us, LibGuides, and Koonji. There are so many choices now, I feel like the puppy with too many toys. He can only carry one at a time, so he picks up one, spots another, drops the one and picks up the other, and ends by not playing with any. I suppose they are all good – so I might as well draw names from a hat. As long as my research guides are all created on the same platform, they should work, right?

What a Great Idea!

Saw this at What A Great Idea.com. This is Step Four of “Stuck?”: Think in Opposites

The Opposite Formula

1. The Negative Definition
   Ask, “What isn’t our problem.”
2. Flip-Flop Actions
   Ask, “What would we never do?”
3. destroyyourbusiness.com
   At GE they ask, “What internet solution can we create that will capture our existing business?”
4. Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
   Ask, “How can we profit from this problem?”

Number 3 resonated with me – it asks the question we’ve been asking ourselves for a couple of years, now, in the library, and which was highlighted at our recent staff training day. Whether our business is books, or information, or community – or all three, what internet solution can we create that will capture our existing – and dwindling – traditional business? How can we wrest it away from the sirens who are delivering substitute services in ways never imagined by libraries?

Asking questions in the “opposite” mode highlights the boxes and ruts we’ve accepted as de rigeur, and SHOUTS at us to ask, as George Bernard Shaw did, “why not?” Libraries must actively dream of things that never were and MAKE THEM HAPPEN!