Working Vacation

I’m in Hawaii visiting family. Yesterday, I stopped by the Kailua Library and signed up for a visitor’s card: $25 gets you a card you can keep and use for 5 years! That’s a bargain! (Actually, I was comped, as a former resident and libary employee. Mahalo! The Aloha spirit still lives!) I borrowed a book on Hawaii wayside plants and a trashy novel.

Beautifulcataya’s photo used with permission.

This is the library where I got my start.  It’s just around the corner from our house, a 5 minute walk, and sits adjacent to the fire station, police station, community center and Kailua Elementary School.  I worked here as a Student Helper (shelver) while in college, and as a Library Technician and Library Assistant (yes, in that order) beginning in 1976, 4 years after earning my MLIS.  There was a hiring freeze at that time, too.  My first professional position didn’t come until 1981, 9 years after earning my degree!

Libraries in Hawaii are currently in as dire straits as are libraries elsewhere in the country – flat budgets are being cut even further this year, leading to the real possibility that public service hours may be cut.  Although all branches offer free Internet access, funding for wi-fi must come from each branch’s resources, such as from their local Friends group. Therefore, only two of the 50+ branches currently offer wi-fi Internet access.

Another day this week,  I plan to visit the Main Library downtown and chat a little more about the state of library services in this fair state.

27 Things

I’ve been working with a great team, putting together a “23 Things” style program for Sacramento Public staff.  We’re calling ours “27 Things“, one for each branch in our system.  This week, we’re wrapping it up and we will launch during the first week of April.

Like most other “23 Things” projects, ours is modeled after the original mounted by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties a few years ago. Each person on our team was responsible for adapting two of the “things” for SPL.  Last task will be to divvy up the responsibility for monitoring all the blog entries as staff works through the readings and discovery exercises.  We received an unexpected bit of funding, and will be able to offer incentives to finishers.

Best part for me: aside from totally losing my fear of wikis, was getting to know the playful side of my team mates. The next couple of months will be a trip to remember!

Hokule’a

Hokule'a

It’s 1980, or thereabouts.  I am the head of the Moloka’i Branch Library,  located in Kaunakakai.  It is before the Hawaiian renaissance and sovereignty movements became really active, but nevertheless, there is a lot of Hawiian pride among the people here.  Hawaiians make up an ethnic majority of the 7,000 people who live on the island, which is 40 miles long and only 10 miles wide.  Everybody knows everybody.

Hokule’a has recently completed its first triumphant voyage to the Tuamotus and Tahiti, and now its crew is touring the islands with the canoe and doing educational programs for the schools and libraries.  I am very fortunate that Moloka’i Library was chosen to be one of the places the crew visited.  Will Kyselka, from the Bishop Museum’s Planetarium, told how the navigators came to see him to try to learn more about the stars named in the Hawaiian star chants.  He became interested in the project, and used the planetarium to make the stars regress to the time when Hawaii was being peopled, so the navigators could interpret the star chants and learn more about how the Polynesians were able to sail across such vast stretches of open ocean and find the pinpricks that are the Hawaiian Islands.  He also led the library audience in a rudimentary example of a star chant to illustrate the teaching methods of the ancient Polynesian navigators.

Crew members talked about building the canoe, making its rigging and sails, the food, the social interactions of the crew, the relationship with kumu navigator Mau Piailug. They talked about the loneliness, the fights, the fear, the uncertainty, the absolute necessity of placing all their trust in the skills of the navigator, who had no modern tools available on the canoe.  The audience is rapt. They smile, they nod, they ask questions, they relate the experiences to their own shorter sailing voyages between the Hawaiian Islands.  We all come away with an awe of those who faced the unknown, who faced their fears, and who recreated a body of knowledge that was thought to be forgotten.  I am amazed that a vessel so small and unprotected could have traveled so far on such a wide ocean.

Fast-forward to today.  Hokule’a and her sister canoes Hawai’iloa and Makali’i have made numerous voyages around Hawaii and the Pacific. In fact, Hokule’a has just begun another historic voyage – a training voyage for new traditional navigators – to Palmyra.  They are blogging and tweeting.  Their course can be followed on Google Maps.  They are contributing materially to the knowledge bank and enriching the lives of more people than ever.  They are ambassadors in person and online.  This time I will be there virtually while it is happening.  And best of all, in spite of the weight of the 35 years of significance she carries, Hokule’a still joyfully reaches, teaches, and  plays!   More photos

Hokule’a photo by Nemo’s Great Uncle used with permission.

Wikiwiki Wikis

A couple of years ago, I participated in a “23 Things” class based on the Learning 2.0 program at the Charlotte and Mecklenburg County Library.  One of the Things we had to do was to set up a wiki, which I did, but I had no idea what I would make out of it.  Well, of course, the wiki languished because it lacked focus, and also because I wasn’t sure it was wise to post internal procedures where everyone could see them.  That made wikis not useful for the purposes I originally envisioned, so I all but abandoned it.

Now the shoe’s on the other foot, and I’m helping to create our own “27 Things” exercises for SacLibrary staff.  Wouldn’t you know it, my responsibility was the wiki exercise!  I was reluctant at first, because of my prior experience, but this time, I really had fun setting it up using PB Wiki, creating the internal pages and links, and even making a Sandbox page for staff to practice with.  Now I’m a convert, and can’t wait to see what the staff does with it!

I’m not posting links to our project yet, because it hasn’t been announced to staff.  I will be posting them along with comments after the launch in April, so as to capture the good, the bad, and ideas for improving the next go-round.

This past week, those of us on the planning committee joined the WebJunction Summit, in which veterans of such programs outlined them and conducted a “best practices” debriefing.  We learned all kinds of  things we hadn’t considered: the time it will take to read and comment on our participants’ blogs; brainstorming affordable incentives for completing the program, and expectations for the completion rate (15 – 60%).   Several also mentioned that participants wanted extra time to complete the series of Things, once they got started.  One system left it open-ended and adds a new Thing every so often. All require inclusion of time for staff monitoring, encouragement, help, and constructive feedback.

It was also very interesting to watch the twitter side-chatter as the summit progressed. Others have blogged the summit, too.