Archive for December 2008
Looking back – the year in review
The year isn’t even over and I’m already looking forward into 2009, as far forward as April! I thought before I get too caught up in what’s to come, I should take a look back at 2008. This list is more for me than you, sometimes I get so busy I forget what I’ve been up to, so I’m picking one major event from each month to remind myself of all that has happened in 2008
- January – Library Learning 2.1 kicked off
- February – cohosted a two day Web 2.0 workshop for the state library
- March – attended Kansas Library Camp
- April – Presented at a conference in England
- May – the laptops from my grant arrived enabling the library to offer new patron and staff training, starting me on a 6 months journey of patron training
- June – presented at Mobius (state consortium)
- July – I successfully start my first library meme – A Day in the Life of a Library …. takes off!
- August – cohosted a 4 day workshop on Web 2.0
- September – I brought this idea back from a vacation in Denver, we’ll be using it during our National Library Week celebrations in April 2009
- October – I am tempted to make the Mini my major event of October, but I think I’ll stick with the two presentations I did at the state library conference
- November – the presentations and workshop I did in Malaysia for the International Conference on Libraries, Information and Society,
- December – I haven’t blogged either of these yet – my proposal to start circulating MP3 players at my library is a success and an idea I brought to the Directer for fund-raising is implemented!
Happy Holidays!
What DO you wish your patrons knew?
My local library
I copied this post from The MLXperience to ask you – What DO you wish your patrons knew?
Seattle Books Examiner’s Danielle Dreger-Babbitt took an informal poll of librarians in Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York City, and Portland about what they wish library patrons knew or did. Here’s the shortlist:
1. Use us!
2. We support Intellectual Freedom
3. Be respectful of our library patrons
4. Pay your fines
5. Return your items on time
6. Tell us what you like
7. If possible, check out all materials at once from the circulation desk
8. Please listen to us the first (or even second) time we say something
9. Practice good hygiene
10. Let your librarian know what materials you’d like to see on the shelf
11. The library has almost as many DVD’s as your local video store
12. Hang up your cell phone when you come to the reference desk (or circulation desk)
13. Please be patient with us
14. We like it when you thank us
15. Please respect the desk barrier
16. Come to our programs!
17. Do not leave your child (or children) unattended- for their safety
18. Ask us what we read
19. Ask us for what you really want
20. Enough with the “sexy librarian” jokes
What would you add?
I’d like to add
21. If I’m sitting at the reference desk, please don’t talk to the back or side of my head, it is polite to stand in front of the person you’re addressing.
22. Be an empowered library user, we’d love to show you how to search the catalog, place holds and renew your books online or how you how to use one of our many online resources, just ask!
Using Stories
Last week I attended a WebJunction townhall meeting on Tough Economic Times. I got some good info from it (there are two more coming up if you’re interested). Someone in the meeting said we need to appeal to people’s emotions.
It made me start thinking how we can connect with patrons emotionally to demonstrate our worth to the community. Showing them numbers isn’t enough, we need to connect with them on a personal level. Today I saw this slideshow from Nancy Dowd. She participated in the Pecha Kucha at Internet Librarian and she showed us a video of the type of stories she is teaching Librarians in New Jersey to create. It was a slideshow of still photos with a voice over, and it was it was very moving and effective. It was a great example of how we can demonstrate our worth by tell the stories of real people and how the library has touched their lives.
What 5 blogs do you think are MUST read?
Here is the deal, my RSS reader, its overwhelmed, I have waaaayyy too many blogs in it. I’ve tried weeding (something I’m known for being good at around the library) and I’m still not down far enough. I think I have a new plan. I’m going to unsubscribe to everything. If its good and worthwhile it will find its way back right?
So if you were going to recommend 5 blogs to someone starting a new reader account what would they be?
T is for Training
I am way overdue on this post. Several months back my friend Maurice recognized the absence of a specific forum for library staff to discuss and share information about training, so he created the T is for Training podcast. Every other Friday a group people get together (virtually) to share tips and tricks and discuss training related issues. If you’d like to call in or join the chat session you can find information here. If you’d like to listen to the podcast you can find it here.
This week, among other things, we’ll be discussing Roy Tennant’s Top Ten Techie Traits post.
Other Library related podcasts:
Networked Student
spotted over on The MLsperience
ICoLIS wrap up and thank you
I’ve been back from Kuala Lumpur for over a week but between Jetlag, Thanksgiving and working this weekend I’m still not back to normal (whatever that means for me). However, I want to write a wrap up and thank you post before my memories get too hazy.
I think one of the best things about ICoLIS was hearing an international perspective on many issues that are discussed at US conferences. The Keynote was given by Professor Christine Bruce from Australia, the following panel included speakers from Singapore, Iran and the US (me). Despite differences, it does seem, for the most part, we all have the same problems and are looking in the same direction.
I also taught a post conference workshop to about 30 people.
The conference was a great experience and I’m very thankful to everyone who made my attendance possible!
