PVLD Director's Blog

Blogging Sabbatical

The past couple of months that have been extraordinarily busy and issue-filled, and it's been hard to find the time or energy to write this blog.  Even the other blogs I follow have not been their usual source of ideas and inspiration.

Over the next few weeks I will be away from work for all but a couple of days for one reason or another (a bit of vacation, a couple of conferences, and a week serving as a mentor on a residential leadership development program for emerging library leaders) and I suspect I will find it even harder to find time and energy to write anything interesting or meaningful.

With that in mind I've decided to declare a brief "blogging sabbatical".  I'm not planning on writing any posts between this one and when my upcoming travels come to an end on November 2nd.

That said, I'll still my skimming my usual assortment of blogs and other reading material and I am hopeful that the changes of scenery/routine, the exposure to new energy at the Eureka Leadership Institute, and the opportunity to hear new things and interact with colleagues at the Internet Librarian and California Library Association conferences will reinvigorate me. 

Who knows, I may just have a flash of inspiration that leads me to break my sabbatical!  If not, I'm looking forward to returning to more regular posting in November.  Stay tuned!

Recharging my blogging batteries!

Its been a while since I've felt that I have written a really good, thought-provoking post on this blog.  I really could relate to this post from Logic+Emotion about the challenge of consistently writing really great posts.

I've got more than usual on my plate at work at the moment (budget challenges, union negotiations, issues with our major supplier of books that are resulting in bare shelves and customer complaints, plans for the renovation/expansion of both branches and the associated fundraising efforts, the usual Spring rush of community and legislative activities, negotiations over the proposed redevelopment of the property next to our main library with potentially big implications for us, etc. etc. etc.)

Combine that with lots of houseguests, a string of appliance failures and home maintenance issues, and the normal busy-ness of life and finding time to read and reflect (which for me is a pre-requisite to a good blog post) is a real challenge.

I've also noticed that while I still try to skim my normal complement of library and non-library blogs, they have not been the source of much inspiration lately.  My bet is that some of my fellow bloggers are feeling some of the same pressures I am, but I also think that ideas that seemed new and exciting to me a year ago are less so today.

This blog is important to me, so I'm going to keep at it...but I'm going to try posting a bit less often and putting more time and thought into the posts I do make.

Next week I'm going to be spending the week as a mentor at the Eureka Leadership Institute, a weeklong program for emerging library leaders in California.  I'm hopeful that even though I am there as a mentor and not a participant I will have a chance to reflect on my own leadership abilities and performance and also to recharge my batteries though being in a new environment with a group of energetic young professionals.  I don't expect to be posting much, though!

Hopefully when I get back to work in early May my batteries will be re-charged and you'll see an improvement in this blog....

News from the Public Library Association Conference 2008

Adult Services Assistant Manager Debra Petersen and Branch Manager Jennifer Addington attended the Public Library Association's biennial conference in Minneapolis last week and came back full of ideas and enthusiasm.

They are sharing what they learned and their thoughts on their PLA Minneapolis blog.  Check it out for some great ideas...and keep checking as there is more to come!

I think we might transform this blog into the "PVLD conference" blog as a way of sharing what we learn at the various conferences and workshops that staff attend. 

Twitter for Libraries

People who follow this blog or visit my Facebook page may have noticed that I have been putting information out on Twitter .  A few weeks ago, during a period in which I was sending out "tweets" much more frequently than I have been doing more recently, my kid brother sent me a Facebook message asking "What is Twitter and why are you doing it?".  Good question!

For those who don't know, Twitter is what is known as a "microblogging" application.  It allows you to use either the Twitter website ( www.twitter.com ) or your cell phone to send out very brief (only a couple of lines long) messages, sometimes called "tweets".  You can elect to have these messages appear on Twitter's "public timeline" or use "widgets" (downloadable mini software applications) to have your Twitter posts automatically appear on your blog or Facebook account.  You can also "follow" other people who have a Twitter account and receive their Twitter messages either as messages in your Twitter account online or as text messages to your cell phone.  Likewise, people can "follow" you and automatically receive your tweets on their cell phones or in their Twitter accounts.  Finally (at least as far as my knowledge of Twitter is concerned...there's probably more you can do!) you can set up Twitter so that you are notified every time a tweet containing a certain word or phrase, like "library"  or "Palos Verdes" is issued by anyone.

That answers the question "What is Twitter" but not why I use it!

As an individual, I've been experimenting with Twitter as a way of adding brief updates to my blog and Facebook without having to actually log in to Typepad (my blogging software) or Facebook....and it updates both at once!

As a Library Director, I'm interested in exploring how we can use social networking technologies to offer library services or promote the library.  Back in October I wrote a post about my initial experience with Twitter and some early thoughts about how libraries could use it, and last week I was excited discover how the Brooklyn Museum is using Twitter to promote museum events and activities (sorry I can't remember whose blog pointed me to this one!)

Not only does this allow someone to join Twitter and "follow" the museum, staying up to date on its activities, but the "tiny URLs" (which Twitter creates automatically everytime you include a hyperlink in a tweet) link back to the museum's blog and website so you can get the full story if you want.   And because the tweets appear on the public timeline its another way of letting serendipity work its magic.  Who knows who will find their way to the museum via this path!

A very cool idea!  Now we just need to find the time to set up the PVLD Twitter account and telling people to "follow us"!

The Library of Congress and Flickr

From the Library of Congress blog – the Library of Congress is partnering with Flickr to "help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity." [And thanks to David Weinberger over at Everything is Miscellaneous for sharing the link]

The Library of Congress blogging? Posting to Flickr? Tagging? How cool is that!

I love the idea of The Commons – using Flickr to share the world's public photo collections. We've already used Flickr for our 40families project site, and it would be great to get all of our local history photos into The Commons.

This quote from the end of the post is also great -

"From the Library's perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it."

To Matt Raymond and the folks at LoC – thanks for helping light the path through the social web.

We've been yelped

yelp decal on door
Originally uploaded by Don and Kathy Gould.

Yesterday I was reading Aaron Schmidt's's post on "fun signs" over at his Walking Paper blog.  Aaron posted a photo of a "People Love Us on Yelp" decal and said how great it would be to find one on a library door.  For those who don't know, Yelp is a user review sight where people review all kinds of things, including libraries, and you can search for reviews by location (e.g. all libraries in the 90274 zip code, or all restaurants in San Francisco).  It's a cool site and one that I use often.

When you get 5 good reviews on Yelp you get a decal, and PVLD is proud that it received its decal a couple of months ago - here it is on the door to the Peninsula Center Library building (it's the "red dot" on the left side of the left door - all of the reflections made getting a good photo difficult!), although we have yet to settle on a permanent home.

I emailed Aaron last night via flckr, and was pleased to see this on his blog today http://www.walkingpaper.org/548

We're proud of our 5 star Yelp rating - just wish the one four star review didn't indicate that staff weren't responsive to a customer concern (although it should be noted that we DO allow packaged snacks and covered beverages in the library).  We also recently changed the requirements for getting to be a library card - you need to be a California resident and show a photo i.d., but if the address on the photo i.d. is your current address you don't need to bring in a utility bill.  But now I'm just being picky!

Anyway - we're proud of our positive Yelp reviews, and of the mention on Aaron's very popular blog.

Readability

This tool for assessing the reading level of a blog has been floating around for a day or so, and I thought I'd check out my blog!  I was pretty pleased with this rating - to me it seems to indicate a writing style that's nott too complex, but not too simple either....

Why I Blog

Various colleagues have asked me why I do it…and I sometimes have wondered myself! Back when I started this blog in October 2006 I said in my first post that I wanted "…to create a dialogue - with our Palos Verdes community, with PVLD staff and volunteers, with colleagues in other libraries, and with other interested and interesting people.  I plan to use the blog to share information about what is going on around PVLD and the communities we serve, to share my thoughts about the challenges and opportunities I/we face as librarians, as managers and leaders, and as citizens of today's networked world, and to get input from those who are interested enough to read and respond."

That still is one of my goals, but as the blog has passed its one year anniversary with growing readership, I've been thinking how much I have gained from the experience.

Once you start a blog there is a certain obligation to have something to say! This as much as anything has motivated me to make a real effort to read about and think about issues affecting libraries and librarianship beyond my former rather cursory scans of Library Journal and American Libraries. It has also pushed me to experiment with things like social networking, mobile computing, etc.

Also, writing has always been my vehicle for learning and for developing understanding. There is a famous quote (which I have seen attributed to both Raymond Carver and E.M. Forster) that describes my learning process very well - "How do I know what I think until I see what I've said?" Something about the act of turning thoughts into words on a page or screen helps me turn pieces of information into coherent thoughts and real knowledge.

I came across this quote from Danah Boyd and it crystallized why this blog is so important to me -  "In order to exist online we must write ourselves into being"

That is exactly what this blog has done for me – it has caused me to write my "librarian self" into being. I think the fact that this has been done via an online medium is key. I'm not sure I would have been able to learn as much, think as much, and grow as much as I feel I have in the past couple of years without the blog-driven obligation to have something meaningful to say. I've tried keeping journals, but usually find that when I write for my eyes only there is not the incentive to read or think very deeply or broadly and so what I write is pretty meaningless even to me…and that means that I quickly abandon the effort. It's not that what I write on this blog is particularly meaningful or profound - it certainly wouldn't be worthy of publication in the "old days" of print media - but for me the knowledge that at least a handful of people are reading what I write and my sense of obligation to provide those readers with something meaningful has been a powerful force for personal learning and growth…learning and growth that I don't think would have occurred without this new world of "web 2.0".

I have to think that I am not alone - that among the hundreds of thousands of bloggers, Facebook and MySpace members, and other citizens of the social web are others who are finding their voices and "writing themselves into being"; that among the Flickr and YouTube uploaders those whose learning is driven by visuals and imagery are picturing themselves into being; and that among the World of Warcraft players and 2nd Life avatars those who learn through movement and experiences are creating and playing themselves into being.

In the ongoing debate about Library 2.0 and the relevance/appropriateness of online social networking for libraries and for communities I hope that the profound role that these new ways of interacting can play in personal growth and learning are not underestimated.  They not only are a way to connect people with one another and, often through one another, to information.  They are a way of connecting with ourselves.

Web 2.0 – from knowledge to understanding

I've been intrigued me for some time with Web 2.0 -- the interactive, "social" web -- and its impact on libraries. To date, however, my interest has been at an intellectual level, and apart from this blog and my devotion to Bloglines and RSS, my knowledge has been based more on what I have read and observed than on actual participation. This weekend I had a couple of experiences that took me from "I know I should pay attention to this stuff" to "I actually get it" at an emotional level.

First, I finally got around to signing up for Facebook. I did it because I had read some blog postings and articles about how libraries are using Facebook to reach out to new users and to deliver library services (e.g. virtual reference, links to the catalog, etc.). I'd tried to have a MySpace page before, but found it unrewarding.  With Facebook I quickly discovered is that it is going to be a fabulous way to stay in touch with family and friends. As soon as I set up my account up popped a list of people from my contact list who are already on Facebook, and a prompt asking me if I want to invite them to be my Friend. Among them was my niece, Rachel, who just started college and is living away from home for the first time. I've sent her a couple of emails to see how she is doing, and got either a cryptic response or none at all. On her Facebook page I was able to learn about some of the classes she is taking, and exchange messages using her "wall"…a much more rewarding way of staying in touch! Rachel must have let my sister know I was on Facebook, because the next day I got a Friend request from her…and through that connection was able to add my kid brother as a Friend. Jonathan is terrible about staying in touch through phone and email, but since he is a budding technology entrepreneur and already had a Facebook page I know that Facebook is going to be a great way for us to stay connected.

Then on Saturday my husband saw a news headline on our shared "My Yahoo" home page about a major fire in Tasmania, where we lived for two years. He was disappointed in the online news coverage, and then decided to check YouTube. Sure enough, there were already at least a ½ dozen video clips about the fire, with real time commentary. It was almost like being there.

For me Web 2.0 and social networking have gone from being important things to track professionally, to tools that are making a real difference in my ability to maintain connections with people and places I care about. I believe more than ever that libraries need to understand the power of these technologies and the way in which they are transforming the way people connect with one another. At PVLD we say we are "Connecting People, Information, and Ideas" – we need to understand and use the power Web 2.0 as a fundamental part of achieving this.

Library 2.0 as power shift

After Friday's post about Library 2.0 I saw this – by Kathryn Greenhill of Fremantle, Western Australia, who blogs at "Librarians Matter". I thought her articulation of how 2.0 technologies result in a fundamental shift in power between librarians and users was spot on…

http://librariansmatter.com/blog/2007/09/10/whats-new-about-library-20-shift-in-power/