Librarian by Day

From, you guessed it the guys at Common Crafts

I taught this class last night as part of the series of Internet classes I’m teaching to patrons at MRRL. I was a bit worried going into it, as almost all of the people at previous classes were seniors so I on the handout I added the websites I learned about at Internet Librarian last year.  It ended up being a very interesting mix.  I had some moms with their teenagers who wanted learn about Facebook to monitor their kids profiles, a lady interested in setting up a page for a Non-Profit, and some seniors.  I’m not sure I’ll teach this one again, probably I’ll cover it in Internet Safety that I’m doing later this year or I’ll redirect specifically to parents who want to know what their children are up to. 

It’s hard to teach people about Facebook, I think it’s just one of those things that is really hard to explain.  This is probably the least well done of any presentation I’ve put together. 

Or maybe it’s just me. :-) Like most of us I spent a lot of time checking out new sites and online tools.  Some of them like, twine, zigtag, and brightkite, I play with for a while then drop for one reason or another.  Others stick with me, likeFriendFeed.  I know it’s been around awhile, but I just started playing with it.  There is a lot I like about it, but sometimes it makes me uneasy.  I feel like I’m spying on all these people, I mean I can see their blogposts, del.icio.us bookmarks, Flickr favorites, books they plan to read from Goodreads or Librarything.  Granted I’m probably their friend in all those places anyway and already have access to that information, but now I don’t even have to look for it, FriendFeed brings it right to me (even emails it to me if I want)  Of course there is also the obvious fact that they created the FriendFeed account for just this reason.  But still I feel a bit like a stalker.  Does anyone else feel this way or is it just me?

Or at least social hierarchy.  Last year was my first Internet Librarian Conference, after being in my new position as Digital Services Librarian for only 2 months I hadn’t had an opportunity to meet many people face to face and there were a lot of names I didn’t recognize.  I attended presentations and met people from the likes of Jenny Levine, Aaron Schmidt, Amy Kearns, David Lee King, Michael Porter, Jason Griffey, Amanda Etches-Johnson, TomIpri, Christie Hill, Helene Blowers, Erin Downey Howerton, Joshua M. Neff and many more.  I’m striving to be like these people and one of the things I love about sites like Twitter & Facebook and Blogs is that it allows little ole me to keep in touch and often communicate in real ways with these people.  I can particpate in community and conversations that wouldn’t have been possible with just email or static websites.  Even better, for someone like me who has a hard time putting names with face, most of these have a little picture of the person!

Why am I writing this?  It’s been a rough couple of weeks for me work-wise and I’m remembering all the things I’m grateful for.  My connections in Libraryland, however distance they may be, are something I’m very grateful for! 

While visiting my new local library (not the library system where I work) I noticed patrons talking quietly on their phones.  I was a little shocked because, well, let’s face it, many people are quite loud when on their cell in public.  Then I noticed these little signs.  Awesome! Even better – they’re working! 

Lesson 20 of Library Learning 2.1 has just gone up, which means we’re about a half way through this years lessons.  We’ve got some late starters which is great.  I was a bit too busy at the beginning of the year to offer as much encouragement as I’d hoped to be able to.  I’m also not above resorting to bribes.  Check out these awesome foam swords I got in Target’s dollar bin.  I made sure lots of people know they are in the Box o’ Fun!

It’s goni

Have you guys seen this cool TweetWheel? Go to tweetwheel.com put in your twitter user name and it will generate one for you. It’s interactive too so you can see how all your contacts are connected.

You can see the interactive version of mine here.