eReaders: Practical Help via InfoPeople

One week into InfoPeople’s online course, “eReaders: Practical Help For Patrons,” I’m seeing a pattern: high patron interest in ebooks, high patron frustration with the processes and their devices, high awareness by library staff that we should be able to offer patrons more help, and high frustration on the part of staff with their unfamiliarity with the growing number of different e-reading devices.

In fact, that pattern mimics what’s going on at my library. We’ve coped by hiring Library Technical Assistants whose main job is helping patrons with the online public computers, and helping with other technical issues – like e-reader help.

I’ve already gained two very important pieces of information: a picture-chart of all the available e-readers, and a tip that the user manuals for most e-readers are findable online. If the next three weeks continue as the first has begun, this will be a very worthwhile course.

Flipped!

I’ve been seeing more than a few articles about the new teaching phenom: flipped classrooms. Simply put, “flipping” reverses the traditional teach-in-school, practice-at-home teaching model. Students instead watch instructional screencasts or videos of the lecture before class as “homework”, and receive guided and targeted discussion and practice with the instructor in the classroom.

There is some evidence that flipping is effective in engaging students, in improving grades, and even drop-out rates. My own anecdotal evidence from my first semester as an instructor is that when my lecture notes went up in advance of the class, discussions in class were more productive, and students remembered the lesson well in subsequent class sessions.

Applying this to the library setting, there are all kinds of possibilities. If I required – okay – encouraged – groups to visit the library’s web site in advance of a presentation or program, and gave them certain things to look for, would that increase the effectiveness of the actual presentation? Would that increase traffic on the web site or in-person visits?

For school classes, if I give the instructor a video to show the class before their visit – say, a tour of the library building and introduction to key staff, or a preview of materials they will use for research – would that make the blur of a 5-floor building tour more memorable? Help to focus rambunctious students during a short visit? Gotta try it out!

Tax Season Is Upon Us

It’s an annual rite of the new year. Because of our centralized phone service, all calls for information about AARP’s and VITA/TCE’s free tax prep help at our branches and also for tax forms and booklets, come in to one desk. To serve our callers, I poll all 28 branches about the status of help and forms availability. I place a chart  at each phone workstation and post a copy on our Intranet so it’s also available for our branches. And then we brace for the calls.

Based on 20 years’ experience, at least 50% of the calls we get between now and April 15 will be about forms, booklets or tax help. As it gets closer to the tax deadline and help timeslots fill up and tax booklets run out, the calls will be more urgent and desperate. It makes me feel desperate, too, knowing there will never be enough help to fill the need. The people who call are often those who are elderly and do not have enough computer knowledge to e-file their own returns.

What’s the answer? I don’t know. The IRS is no longer mailing booklets directly to taxpayers. More libraries are declining to carry the forms and booklets, and instead show people how to visit the IRS and Franchise Tax Board web sites to find and print the forms they need. Fewer volunteer tax preparers are willing to set up shop in the library meeting rooms, making it even harder for seniors to get help. E-filing is easier, but some people are unable to complete their returns within the 1-hour time slots available on our public computers.

Any chance we could skip taxes altogether this year? Thought not.

3M Cloud Discovery Station at SacLib

There was a small launch ceremony complete with ribbon-cutting, demo on the discovery station and an iPad by the 3M rep, and SacLib staff standing by to assist patrons with getting the app and downloading their first 3M Cloud titles. One of the attendees won the drawing for a Nook HD –  grin as wide as a mile.

I remember visiting the 3M booth at ALA in New Orleans two summers ago when the company was just about to launch its cloud e-book service, and thinking that 3M had taken every torturous procedure of OverDrive and made them simple. Certainly, our patrons thought so today, as they downloaded the app voluntarily during the demo and proceeded to borrow e-books at once.

I have to say I’m a fan of this new e-book platform. Library patrons can read on their phones, e-readers (except Kindles) and tablets (including Kindle Fire), and there’s even an option to read books on their PCs. It’s plain which titles are available now for checkout because of the big green Check Out button, and returning e-books early is a simple click of red Return button. Titles sync among all of a patron’s devices. Audiobooks are  apparently in the works as a future enhancement. But most importantly, 3M has an agreement with the publishers who pulled their titles from OverDrive, and those popular works are again available through 3M in digital format. Win-win, for sure!

Hey, Teach!

When I was 15 and volunteering in the Central YMCA summer fun “Project” with Bill Suzuki, I decided I wanted to be a special ed teacher. The Project was probably grant-funded and was intended to mainstream students from the target school, Diamond Head School for the Deaf and the Blind, into regular YMCA activities. There were about 15 deaf and blind kids enrolled, many with other disabilities as well.  The work culture at the Y was inclusive and collegial, and I thrived that year as a volunteer, and returned for 5 more years as a paid Counselor.

Fast-forward 6 years to college graduation: no ed courses, no foundation on which I could base a career other than a Bachelor’s degree in German Language. I toyed with an Army career until my dad talked me into enrolling in library school. (How he knew there was such a school is still a mystery to me.)

Fast-forward again 40 years to 2012, and I am finally getting my opportunity to teach – though not special ed. I’ve got some excellent mentors who are providing me with good questions for my orientation, which happens next week. Stay Tuned!

Time Off (Kidding!)

I requested this week off moons ago, without having any plans. I mulled the various possibilities: visit family in Hawaii? Adventure to Yosemite, where I have never been in all the 21 years I’ve lived in California? Go nowhere at all, but “nest” for the week? Do something else?

Turns out, I will be doing a little of a lot of things. Gardening: planting green onions to go with the mint, sage, rosemary and thyme. And watering. Lots of watering in this 100-degree week. Reading: catching up on articles in Toastmasters Magazine and trying to finish “The Serpent’s Shadow” before the due date because there are still 138 people on the waiting list. Coaching: helping Husband purchase, download to Kindle and read a 1044-page novel that was aggravating his carpal tunnel in print format. Getting fingerprinted: part of the hiring process for an adjunct assistant professor position at Sacramento City College. Having lunch with a friend: using a half-off voucher to enjoy a meal at a local restaurant.

Oh, and checking my work e-mail daily.

Having the internet so handily available on phone, iPad and laptop is too seductive. Because they’re always online, it’s SO EASY to mindlessly type in the Outlook Web Access address and handle a couple of messages … check the calendar … preview new appointments …  Why is it so hard to leave work at work?

It turns out, we are able to go out of town for a couple of days. I will be taking the laptop so I can attend a work-related webinar scheduled for this week. I expect to be looking out over achingly beautiful scenery as I learn about a new e-resource for the class I’ll begin teaching at SCC next month.

It’s a good thing I love my job! Vacation is pretty stressful!

There’s An App For That …

I just completed another Infopeople online class, “There’s an App for That“.  (Who would have thought I’d ever be REQUIRED to play in the app store!) This was a challenging class on two fronts:  time and critical analysis.  We students downloaded and examined apps on our personal mobile phones and tablets, and shared our opinions and reviews on a private Posterous blog set up by the instructor.

We looked at apps in four categories: e-book readers & news, productivity, library web sites & mobile apps, and creative & reference apps.  We discussed how our reading and news-gathering habits have changed over the last ten years, and speculated on the future of library services in the next few years.  We compared ways to capture web sites and save them for offline reading on a mobile device.  Sometimes it was a leap to apply what we were evaluating to actual library service. The apps seemed to be more suited to helping librarians use their time and their devices more effectively.

I can, however, see the value of knowing about apps in a reference sense, and being able to refer patrons to an appropriate app when needed.  Keeping up with app reviews is no problem for me – the app store is now my favorite department store – and knowing that our database vendors are now producing apps will help us sell their content to reluctant users. We already have Mango and EBSCO,  and we also use Boopsie so patrons can use our catalog and account services on their phones. I don’t think I would have spent the time analyzing apps for content and usability, were it not for this class, nor would I have considered creative uses for apps in delivering modern library service.  Time well spent!

The Future is Now!

E-books are HOT in Sacramento right now.  It seems like every adult just got – or is getting – an e-reader, and many non-residents are driving into town to get their Sacramento libary cards so they can take advantage of our e-collections.

E-books are hot at ALA this year, too, and one of the most eye-popping sessions was “The future is now: e-books and their increasing impact on library services.”  It looks like there are two movements converging: libraries buying and circulating e-book readers, and the provision of DRM-free e-books that can be read on many devices.

Jamie LaRue contends that “the bullet has gone into the brain of established publishers; we’re just waiting for the body to fall.” This is based on stats he presented showing that established publishers are producing only 7% of published e-books now. With the proliferation of self-publishing venues like Smashwords, it’s easy to get your e-books into the hands of buyers without going the agent/publishing house route. He suggested that one scenario has libraries buying the entire output of an e-publisher, and just deleting the titles we don’t want to keep.

Chris Harris gave a brief overview of the available e-readers, and then Brewster Kahle and Peter Brantley talked about Open Library, which buys e-books (rather than licensing them) and makes them available for loan to the public through participating libraries.

California libraries will soon be participating in Open Library through the advocacy of the California State Library. This will probably put a lot of pressure on publishers and other e-book vendors, and ultimately make the experience easier and more intuitive for patrons who are all thumbs.

Library Ideas, LLC seems to be taking this arena seriously. Freegal is their music download service, and they are just launching a new product: Freading, which will make e-books available the same way its music is: unlimited simultaneous downloads of both new and older titles, but with the DRM that manages the check-out period.

My perfect e-book experience: the titles are discoverable either from within the e-reader or the library’s catalog; they are always available (no hold queue); downloading is simple and can be done from any device; the checkout terms  are clear, and the title can be transferred to multiple devices during the lending period. If I don’t like it, or if I finish it early, I can return it any time during the lending period.

I do not own a dedicated e-reader; I do, however, read e-books on my iPhone during my morning and evening bus commute, and on the iPad while reclining in the La-Z-Boy. I have Nook, Kindle, Kobo, iBooks, Bluefire, FreeBooks, and OverDrive apps installed on both. I don’t like to buy books, because I rarely read them more than once, so if publishers, vendors, and libraries can get it together to create a model that works as well as lending print copies, I will be in e-book heaven!

 

Blogsy

Blogsy just might entice me to blog more often! It’s a new iPad app that can be used to post on several blog platforms, including Blogger and WordPress, the two I use. It includes an HTML editor, drag-and-drop imaging, and formatting tools. Here’s a photo I dragged from Picasa. Ain’t it purty?

I’m thinking the image handling will make it so much easier to blog on the road. I’m going to see Mom in Hawaii next month, and I’ll want to share photos with far-flung family members.

What would be REALLY spiffy is the ability to connect iPhone to iPad and drag photos from the phone into a post! Just think how that would change liveblogging!

E-books: Hot! Hot! Hot!

Half of Sacramento must have received e-book readers for Christmas, judging by the number and type of tech-help and information questions we’re receiving by phone this month.  It’s been a stretch for our staff to answer them, and our Tech Aides and Technology Librarian are often overwhelmed by the volume of questions referred to them.

I’m torn between wanting to know about ALL the devices our patrons have, and being satisfied with knowing about reading on my iPhone/iPad.  I’m developing an aversion to having too many devices, in my old age, much to my great surprise!

It seems like they all perform in a very similar manner, and therefore should be able to handle the e-books we offer through OverDrive.  But life is not simple – where’s the fun in that?