Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Week Seven : Thing 17
This was NOT a pleasant experience. Very frustrating trying to do such a seemingly simple thing. Several sets of directions without any being clearly written. That's my big thing about technology...i need clear directions. I really am not stupid but I do wish that just because a step is obvious to the person writing the directions doesn't mean that it's going to be obvious to the person reading them. Over my lifetime I have written A LOT of procedures and no matter how well thought out YOU think it is when it comes down to the "doing" of it by the person for whom the procedures were written it can turn into a whole 'nother animal. Then again, I've worked a full day and am into my, what, 11th hour of straight time at work. I'm probably so tired that i couldn't comprehend the directions to tie a shoe.
Week Seven : Thing 16
Wikis
I love Wikis. I've been a big fan of Wikipaedia from the very beginning. But then again, I was a big fan of pathfinders too! To me a Wiki is like one great big collaborative pathfinder. That is, an informative guide that can lead you to many places. It is wonderful to see the myriad ways that people are using this idea of collborative information sharing. Talk about being pertinent to librarians, aren't we all just walkin'-talkin' Wikis? Before HCPL decided to do the Learning 2.0 thang I had already thought that using a wiki as a way to create a living breathing Branch Manager's handbook was the way to go (now having the time to do it is the problem, yes, it's that old time thing again that I keep ranting about.) Heavy sigh...
I love Wikis. I've been a big fan of Wikipaedia from the very beginning. But then again, I was a big fan of pathfinders too! To me a Wiki is like one great big collaborative pathfinder. That is, an informative guide that can lead you to many places. It is wonderful to see the myriad ways that people are using this idea of collborative information sharing. Talk about being pertinent to librarians, aren't we all just walkin'-talkin' Wikis? Before HCPL decided to do the Learning 2.0 thang I had already thought that using a wiki as a way to create a living breathing Branch Manager's handbook was the way to go (now having the time to do it is the problem, yes, it's that old time thing again that I keep ranting about.) Heavy sigh...
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Week Six : Thing 15
Learning 2.0 and the Future of Libraries.
To everything there is a season. There is nothing new under the sun. To thine own self be true.
My first "job" working in a library was in elementary school. The librarian would let me behind the desk and stamp my classmates' books with due dates. Pretty darn low tech. No bells and whistles, just you and the books and the worlds contained within. That was the truth of that library in that time. It was about reading, information. It was about opening and expanding the mind beyond everyday existence in order to grow a person, to invest in their, and thereby, the world's future. Scroll forward to undergraduate school where I worked in the Music Library. This was a place of exploration. Once again a place to expand oneself but it was also a place of "social networking", a place to meet friends, to talk, to share, and to drive the librarian crazy. (That woman deserves sainthood for so good-naturedly putting up with our crazy antics). Moving on, I worked in the cataloging department in the medical/health sciences library in a univesity setting. Technology was just making it's way into libraries. We were using OCLC and those big bulky terminals. The emphasis on this library was providing needed information pure and simple. Access and speed of retrieval were the driving factors. Same for the serials department I worked in at another University. More technology was available for serials management. In both University situations the transition from print to digital was not easy, not because we objected to it but because the technology was not improving access or increasing speed. Print was faster and more accurate. The technology had not developed sufficiently to be an improvement over the paper systems. Moving forward to working in law libraries. In this environment I was on the cutting edge. I saw the need for information at the speed of sound was a constant for attorneys. Technology could do this I felt but the attorneys were not sold on it. When I implemented the first access to the Internet in the entire law firm in my library I was told by the managing partner that I "shouldn't be anticipating the needs of the attorneys" that they "would just let me know when they needed something". Through training, one-on-one's with the attorneys, publishing an in-house newsletter, and proving to them that this was the way government agencies and courts were going, I finally turned them around until they were clamoring for everyone to have access. Years have passed with my seeing technology more and more important in libraries. I see decisions made for the sake of technology rather than to expand on the essence of the library. Perhaps each library and each librarian needs to ask themselves these questions when faced with making a decision about technology, or where they should spend their moneis, or how they should build and design their buildings; what is our truth, are we supporting that truth, and are we "marketing" our truth? What drives our decisions; zeitgeist, the need to justify our existence, or our truth.
To everything there is a season. There is nothing new under the sun. To thine own self be true.
My first "job" working in a library was in elementary school. The librarian would let me behind the desk and stamp my classmates' books with due dates. Pretty darn low tech. No bells and whistles, just you and the books and the worlds contained within. That was the truth of that library in that time. It was about reading, information. It was about opening and expanding the mind beyond everyday existence in order to grow a person, to invest in their, and thereby, the world's future. Scroll forward to undergraduate school where I worked in the Music Library. This was a place of exploration. Once again a place to expand oneself but it was also a place of "social networking", a place to meet friends, to talk, to share, and to drive the librarian crazy. (That woman deserves sainthood for so good-naturedly putting up with our crazy antics). Moving on, I worked in the cataloging department in the medical/health sciences library in a univesity setting. Technology was just making it's way into libraries. We were using OCLC and those big bulky terminals. The emphasis on this library was providing needed information pure and simple. Access and speed of retrieval were the driving factors. Same for the serials department I worked in at another University. More technology was available for serials management. In both University situations the transition from print to digital was not easy, not because we objected to it but because the technology was not improving access or increasing speed. Print was faster and more accurate. The technology had not developed sufficiently to be an improvement over the paper systems. Moving forward to working in law libraries. In this environment I was on the cutting edge. I saw the need for information at the speed of sound was a constant for attorneys. Technology could do this I felt but the attorneys were not sold on it. When I implemented the first access to the Internet in the entire law firm in my library I was told by the managing partner that I "shouldn't be anticipating the needs of the attorneys" that they "would just let me know when they needed something". Through training, one-on-one's with the attorneys, publishing an in-house newsletter, and proving to them that this was the way government agencies and courts were going, I finally turned them around until they were clamoring for everyone to have access. Years have passed with my seeing technology more and more important in libraries. I see decisions made for the sake of technology rather than to expand on the essence of the library. Perhaps each library and each librarian needs to ask themselves these questions when faced with making a decision about technology, or where they should spend their moneis, or how they should build and design their buildings; what is our truth, are we supporting that truth, and are we "marketing" our truth? What drives our decisions; zeitgeist, the need to justify our existence, or our truth.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Week Six : Thing 14
Technorati, like a lot of Internet tools, is a snapshot of cultural zeitgeist. By perusing the favorited, to searches and top blogs I found it interestingly equally divided between techno-geeky and the Brittany Spears/Paris Hilton stuff. Top searches was pop celebrity gossip while favorite blog and top blogs favored the techie category. I personally don't see myself spending anytime in the new future with Technorati, unless bedridden for like 2 years and ran out of things to do.
Week Six ; Thing 13
At heart I'm a cataloger. Early professional experience in librarianship involved lots & lots of cataloging. Such as original cataloging of hundreds of nursing theses (that's how I could tell that I was a cataloger at heart, I actually enjoyed doing it.) I haven't done any "real" cataloging in a while and I miss it. What I don't miss were the limitations of the LC subject headings. They drove me crazy. They were archaic and rigid and everything tagging isn't. That's why I love tagging. Finally subject headings that are personal and flexible. They can evolve as language evolves and keep pace with the world. Now when it comes to Del.icio.us, well, I find it cumbersome and find IE favorites suits my needs and I'm not that interested in peering into others "filing cabints". I barely have enough time to straighten my own.
Week Five : Thing 12
Rollyo
Not the most intuitive tool but can definitely see the potential in streamlining research. Kind of reminds me of the old "Dogpile" in the pre-Google days.
Not the most intuitive tool but can definitely see the potential in streamlining research. Kind of reminds me of the old "Dogpile" in the pre-Google days.
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