Time Flies

I’ve just put myself through a gruelling exercise: setting down on paper in a Word document a more-or-less (probably less) detailed history of my relationship with the Internet from the beginning.  It took most of a week!

Apple IIe

Remember Prodigy? Prodigy was the reason we were able to buy our first computer, way back in about 1987. (The 2kb Timex-Sinclair doesn’t count in this context.) Husband wanted to play a war game run from a 5 1/4″ floppy, and the library wouldn’t allow anyone to run personal software on its new Apples.  We answered an ad in the paper and picked up an Apple IIe like this one, with a monochrome monitor, dual disk drives, a Hayes modem and a megabyte of memory for $1100.  Oh, and a zillion software programs and a printer were thrown into the bargain as well. The enlisted serviceman was selling the system at a loss to pay for long-distance charges he ran up by dialing into Prodigy and Compuserve in California from Hickam AFB in Hawaii.  We used that system for many years for games, but also for word processing, accounting, tax prep, and, yes, Prodigy. (Photo used with permission under creative commons license.)

The Internet has grown to emcompass so many activities formerly handled otherwise: correspondence – USPS mail to e-mail or facebook; taxes – paper forms mailed with return-receipt requested to e-filing; portfolio of street maps in the car to a printed set of directions from Yahoo! Maps; research – from the Reader’s Guide to Google, from the card catalog to WorldCat Mobile.

I no longer pay for film processing and mount photos into albums; I send them to Flickr instead, or transfer them to the digital photo frame on my dining table.  I no longer build web sites from scratch by hand-coding; I blog instead. And my bank no longer returns checks nor sends paper statements.  If I want to know how much I’ve got, I go online and log in.

The most gratifying use, for me, is the ability to keep in touch with far-flung family members.  We use e-mail, Facebook, Flickr and Skype to share news, photos, stories, and family history resources.  Twitter has beome my antenna for breaking library news.

So, what’s the next big thing? Guess it will be video.  Then mobile.

Internet Classes at the Library

My class on air travel more or less worked.  It had been untried here in Sacramento since I developed it three years ago.  Now that I’ve actually run through it with members of the public, I’ve got some notes I’ll apply to future instances of this class and to other future classes.

1. The lesson plan is a good thing.  It outlines the minimum competencies of the audience, objectives of the class, preparations needed (I would add particulars for us, like publicity deadlines and entering the class into the online event calendar,) a reminder to include requesting PR for upcoming classes, and a list on one page of every link mentioned anywhere in the lesson.  This makes link-checking before class and selecting links to open in advance in browser tabs much easier.

2. I should have made sure the order of exercises in the audience handout matched the order in the lesson plan.  That little discrepancy caused me to flounder a bit and wish I could have presented information in a more logical order.

3. One of the quirks of our computer booking software causes it to shut down and reboot all the PCs at the top of every hour.  I wasn’t expecting that. I need to build in a break after the first 45 minutes to allow for it and for the time needed to re-log them all in again.

In spite of the flaws in my presentation, the evaluations were all positive! I’m hooked.  I volunteered to teach another class in April.  I’m going to teach them all “How to Search the Internet Like an Expert.”

Caribbean Libraries

Last year in January, my cousins invited me to visit them in Jamaica – so I accepted.  I hadn’t been there nor seen anyone in that side of the family (save for one cousin who has visited me a couple of times) for 40 years!  Everyone who was a teen then, as I was, is now of an age to have adult children, as I do – and some have grandkids!  My mother’s cousins have similarly aged and are now attended by their grown children, as is my own mother. (Flickr set here.)

As for the country, in spite of its natural beauty, I was struck by the long-term damage from previous hurricanes that they have been unable to repair – roads and bridges still washed out, for example.  There is a lot of poverty there, and the crime rate in the city and some other areas is very high.  However, in the countryside the people are like tropical islanders everywhere: friendly, hospitable, and very generous.

As part of his driving-me-around duties, Peter took me to visit the library at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.  We chatted with his librarian friend and compared notes.  I guess academic libraries are pretty much the same, no matter where you go. UWI is automated, has an ILL system among its campuses, but is restrictive as to use of its collection. My cousin used to be on the University’s faculty, so he still has visiting rights to the library.

I am a public librarian, however, so at last October’s Internet Librarian conference, when I saw the videos of Jamaican public libraries made by the Shanachie guys, it pulled at my heart.  I thought it might be an interesting exercise to do some kind of practicum or exchange program and accomplish two things at the same time: spend more time with my family there and learn about their public library system and maybe perform some service for them.

Which brings me to the book I just picked up today through our Link+ partnership: Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century: changes, challenges, and choices. (Information Today, Inc., 2007) .  I haven’t had a chance to crack it open yet, but just a quick scan of the table of contents reveals not much about public libraries in Jamaica, my main interest.  It appears little has been written at all about libraries in the Caribbean since the 1970s.  Should be an interesting exercise.

But Will it Fly?

I’m conducting my first public computer class soon on the subject of “Air Travel”. I created the lesson plan in 2006 as an assignment for an InfoPeople course called “Computer Classes to Go” taught by a librarian from the Hibbing Public Library. I’ve been link-checking and correcting the parts that refer to features of our catalog that don’t exist any more. Basically, I think it’s still a sound lesson.

Hibbing Public Library posts its computer class lesson plans on its web site under a Creative Commons license. This makes it easy to adapt a proven lesson in far less time than it would take to create one from scratch.  (I see tonight that they have suspended their classes due to staff vacanies – too bad!)

If this works, I’ve got some great ideas for future class topics!

Updating our Web Site

The Marketing department and the web team released the draft web site today for staff to play with.  It looks great and is certainly more modern than our existing web site!  However, things have been shifted around and appear in unexpected places, which will require an adjustment on the part of staff.  Before sending in my thoughts, I need to click all the links and try to understand the placement logic.

The one-word categories on the new page remind me somewhat of our first web site, which had some usability issues.  In retrospect, that site doesn’t seem so hard to understand now, though patrons found it very difficult at the time. The most frequent question was, “Where’s your catalog?”  Users are more sophisticated now. It’s staff, that uses the web site frequently and on autopilot, that will need to work on retraining themselves on the new web site structure.

Saturday

Wrapping up my week-in-the-life.

7:15 Follow Husband, who returned from London last night, to airport to return rental car; he drops me off at work and takes our car home.

8:00 Check e-mail; extensively edit list of databases and descriptions that will become content of Marketing department’s new brochure we will be able to give to patrons; hear all about colleague’s wedding in Hawaii; submit my bid for vacation time wanted between April and September.

9:45 Open telephone ref workstations; update Tipsheet to reflect altered hours at two branches due to construction.

10 Phone reference for an hour.  Learn from patron that remote access to one vendor’s collection of databases is not working.

11 Troubleshoot remote access; call vendor’s 24/7 tech support number.  Unable to connect with a real person, so leave message on “after-hours voice mail”.  (Guess 24/7 now means 10/5?) Follow up with detailed e-mail to our tech support and sales reps, including my cell phone number in case either replies on my “weekend”, which is Sun/Mon.

12 An hour in Kids’ Place; introduce mom to Culturegrams and explain how her daughter can use it at home to get more info for her state report.  Mom’s impressed!  Daughter is underwhelmed. E-mail reply to OverDrive user who is having download issues. Work on table of tax booklets available at our 27 branches for telephone ref staff.

1 lunch

2 -5 Reference desk.  Catch up on a dozen routed journals; complete table of branch tax-booklet supply and tax help schedules, e-mail same to telephone reference with instructions to print out a copy for each workstation.  Calls are coming in fast and furious, now that folks have received their W-2s in the mail.

Internet users provide today’s entertainment.  One complains the mouse scroll wheel is not working and he doesn’t know how else to scroll his window.  He’s right, but the mouse is connected, and the buttons work, so I explain about the little arrows top and bottom of the scroll bar, trying not to inhale the strong aroma of marijuana he exudes from his clothes. His hour’s just about up, so I don’t bother to call security.

Another distraught young man claims he mistakenly put a $20 bill into the print manager (which does not accept bills larger than $5), and gets circ staff to open the machine and examine the take.  When the $20 fails to turn up, he asks, “Are you sure there isn’t a shredder in there?” Circ staffer stays cool (full marks for that!) and says, “Buddy, if there were a shredder in there, we’d both be out of a LOT of money!”  Debriefing later, we discover he pulled the same scam earlier at the circ desk about the copy machine.  “I’m late for a Very Important Appointment, so just give me the $20.”  Just wondering: if we did shred $20s and were willing to give him the pieces, what would he have done with them?

5 Turn off all 44+ monitors and the copy machine, and exit the building.

5:15 Husband has still not arrived, and the singing homeless man is taking his sweet time packing up his bags just outside the door.  I decide to call home to see if Husband has left yet and discover I’ve forgotten my cell phone at the reference desk.  Fortunately, there is an event in the Galleria and security staff is still on the job.  I flag the security chief, and he lets me back into the library; I retrieve my phone and exit a second time, just as Husband arrives.  The singing man has also gone. Another week done!