Information Wants To Be Free

I’m sure those of you who have ordered Social Software in Libraries are wondering when your books will be coming. Believe me, I’m more anxious than anyone to see the new and pristine version (see this post for background on the first printing snafu). I have been assured by John Bryans, Editor-in-Chief of Information Today Books, that the book should be done at the printer within the next week and should be available for shipping by late May. The book will be available sooner from Information Today than from Amazon.com, so if you just can’t wait to get your hands on it, you might want to go with Information Today.

Either way, I hope you find it useful.

I’m coming to the point in my year when things really start to get crazy. I’ve got in the neighborhood of six or seven talks coming up in the next seven weeks. I have a book chapter on librarians and library services being embedded into online courseware due at the end of this month for an ACRL book on the future of the reference desk. I am also developing a four-week-long online course on social software for InfoPeople. The exact title of the course is Web 2.0: Connecting with the Community Using Social Software and it’s designed primarily for those who do (or are interested in) outreach, marketing and PR work. The course is totally free for librarians in California, which is something I’m really excited about. It’ll be fun to teach another class on social software and to get some experience on the instructor side of using online courseware (in this case, ANGEL).

So with all this stuff going on, I’m actually taking a vacation, which is probably the only thing keeping me sane at this point. On Wednesday, I’m leaving for a wonderful week in New Mexico, one day of which will be spent at the AISTI Conference in Santa Fe, which I’m speaking at. It seems like most of the folks speaking at this conference have PhD’s so it ought to be a bit different from most of the conferences I speak at. I plan to really unplug on this trip and will not be checking e-mail or answering my phone throughout. Heavenly!

The morning after we get back from New Mexico, I’m heading off to the Catskills for a few days with my parents and my brother. We’re going to be scattering my grandfather’s ashes. While he died in Florida, the Catskills was his favorite place in the world and the place he felt most at home. It’s where he deserves to have his rest and I’m happy to have the chance to honor someone who has meant so much to me and whom I still think about every day. Adam and I met just before my grandparents moved to Florida, so he never got to visit the Catskills with me. I’m really looking forward to showing him all the places that are special to me; that I’ve known and loved for as long as I can remember. It ought to be quite the trip down memory lane.

I’m finishing my trip up in Utica at the ACRL Eastern NY Conference, for which I’m the keynote speaker. The day after we get home is May 23 and my 30th birthday. I know my two friends who are turning 40 and 50 respectively this year have laughed at me, but I really do see this as a turning point in my life. I’ve always thought of my 20’s as the years that I can avoid being serious, can avoid exercise and can avoid thinking about having a family. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but for me, I’ve always considered 30 to be this cut-off point where I need to get my priorities straight. I’ve started questioning the directions my life has taken and I’m not entirely happy with how unbalanced my life is. I realize that I can’t keep going the way I have been — with the constant projects, writing and speaking — and still be happy and healthy. It’s so hard to say no to amazing experiences and honors, but I’m going to have to learn how in order to have anything that looks remotely like a life. People ask me how I can do all the things I do and the truth is that I’ve almost entirely given up “time outside of work�? for my career over the past 18 months. It’s something I wouldn’t recommend for anyone.

I can’t complain about where I am at (almost) thirty. I’ve written a book. I’ve spoken at conferences all over the place. I own a home. I have the best husband in the world. I have amazing friends. I’m part of a profession I love. I’m really an incredibly lucky person. But I think there comes a point in all of our lives where the balance between work and family/friends/health becomes really messed up and we have to make some changes. I was inspired by what Greg Schwartz wrote about finding that balance himself six months ago and realized that I would likely have to do the same soon. It may involve making difficult decisions but, for me, that’s what being 30 is all about.

For my friends… don’t worry about me getting too serious. I promise never to stop putting ponies with monocles in my talks and will wear a Halloween costume at Internet Librarian (which falls on October 31st). While being 30 means a shift in priorities for me, one of the things I want to make an even bigger priority is having fun. Life’s too short to be working all the time.

I have always enjoyed reading books and articles about certain places written by foreigners. Whether it is the British writer Jonathan Raban writing about America, the early 20th century British adventurer, Freya Stark, writing about “Arabia�?, or American journalist, Adam Gopnick, writing about Paris, there is something special in their writing that comes from seeing things through fresh eyes. When something is your everyday reality, there are things you take for granted or don’t even notice anymore. Or when you’re a part of something, it’s hard to see the big picture. Sometimes we need a de Tocqueville to show us what is right in front of our faces.

Perhaps this is why I was so taken with Michelle McLean’s writings about American libraries on her recent study tour. Michelle is an amazing librarian from Australia whom I had the pleasure to meet at Computers in Libraries this year. But I had already met her virtually through her writing. Michelle managed to get a grant that allowed her to do a study tour of innovative libraries in the U.S.; primarily in the East Coast and upper Midwest (wow! how do I get one of those grants?!?!?). She spent about a month here, visiting such libraries as the Princeton Public Library, PLCMC, Ann Arbor District Library, and the Thomas Ford Memorial Library. Her notes on each library are incredibly detailed and offer readers an excellent view into the facilities and services at these libraries. In many ways, I learned much more from Michelle’s impressions of PLCMC than I could have from reading a year’s worth of Helene Blowers’ excellent blog. While Helene offers all sorts of interesting insights, Michelle looked at the nuts and bolts of what PLCMC offers. And because she’s looking at all this through fresh eyes, she’s seeing the things that are amazing there, some of which are probably “old hat�? at this point for Helene.

So check out Michelle’s amazing study tour and maybe learn a little more about what makes these innovative libraries so special. And subscribe to her blog, Connecting Librarian, because it was a great resource even before the tour and certainly will continue to be so in the future.

Ok, enough of my very rusty and pathetic French.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading up to beautiful Montreal for the Quebec Library Association Conference. I’ll be giving a talk on the afternoon of May 4th entitled Building Collaboration with Wikis (the description — in English and French naturellement — is available in the program).

If you’re planning on going to the conference, let me know! I know no one there, so I’d love to have someone to eat lunch with at the conference. Or if you have any tips on “must-sees�? in the city, I’d love to hear them. Adam and I aren’t staying long, but we plan to spend a good part of the day on Saturday walking around the city before heading home.

And, no, I will not be giving my talk in English and French!

In Please, Not Another Wiki Casey Bisson complains about the proliferation of wikis:

Perhaps I cringe at any suggestion to create a new wiki because I wonder why that content can’t be published on an existing wiki. Perhaps I cringe because I wonder if the proprietary motivation to create a new wiki is itself in conflict with the community nature of wikis. Perhaps anybody can have a blog, but it seems to take a whole community to raise a wiki.

I can’t say I disagree. Often, when people talk to me about creating wikis about very specific aspects of library and information science, I suggest that they just add a section to the Library Success Wiki. It’s not that I hate competition. It’s because I know that, more often than not, the other wiki will not get used very much (unless it is a directory project a la Blogging Libraries). And I know that we’re all better off having a smaller number of wikis that really get used than a lot of wikis that get lightly used at best. This doesn’t mean that I don’t root for many of the niche wikis to (speaking of that, go add to the LISauthor Wiki!), but I know realistically that we are all better off with more people focused on fewer wikis.

I’ve seen a lot of examples of niche wikis, both inside and outside of the library world. I understand why people would want their own wiki. It’s a good experience to install the wiki, develop content, an organizational scheme, etc. And those of us who have blogs are so accustomed to creating unique blogs to fill a niche. While that does work well in the blogosphere, it doesn’t work in the wiki world. Maybe also people don’t feel comfortable carving out a space of their own in a wiki created by someone else. However, this is what a community wiki is all about. They belong to all of us.

Wikis are all about getting large numbers of people to collaborate and share information in a single space. It’s about strength in numbers. If we “let 100 wikis bloom�? we each get a smaller pool of people contributing to each of them. We’re much stronger coming together in a single space to do that. That way, people only have to remember one URL, they only need to create one account or profile, and they would feel a lot more connected to a single community than they would to a bunch of wiki communities. A wiki that doesn’t get many edits or is only edited by the person who creates is does not look like something others would want to dedicate their time to. People would rather dedicate themselves to editing a wiki that is vibrant, constantly changing and reflects the views of hundreds or thousands of people. Let’s stop reinventing the wheel and find ways to adapt what we already have. This isn’t my wiki; anyone can come in and work to make it what they want it to be or to develop a large space that they can make their own. Wikis are infinitely expandable.

Obviously there are certain topics that wouldn’t fit into the Library Success Wiki. Maybe they’d work in LISWiki, which is more like an encyclopedia for our profession. And certainly I’m not suggesting that people put institutional knowledge within Library Success. For institutional knowledge, you really do need your own institutional wiki. For some very specific local collections, it may make sense to create your own wiki, but not always. It’s just worth considering if your potential collection may fit into an already existing larger collection that people are familiar with and contribute to.

And if there’s something you don’t like about the wiki you want to add to, change it. You have as much right to make changes as the administrator does (other than on the server side). I’d love to see the Library Success Wiki better reflect the needs and interests of the profession.

Because we are so much more powerful together.

Last night, I got an e-mail asking if I’d like to join the LITA Top Technology Trends panel as one of their experts. And it didn’t take me more than 2 seconds to decide that I was going to say yes. Wow! What an honor to be included with such a distinguished group of professionals! The idea of being a prognosticator does cause me a little anxiety (I actually had a nightmare about this last night, complete with me forgetting to prepare anything and Roy telling me I was going to be great) but I am so immersed in this stuff every day of my life, so I think I’ll be able to puzzle out a few trends. No one beats up that groundhog when he’s wrong, and that guy’s always wrong.

I’m glad they are starting to get a more diverse group on the panel. It’s important to include people who work directly with patrons on a day-to-day basis. While Andrew Pace and I have a lot in common, we come from different areas of the library and will have different perspectives. That’s a good thing. It’s also good to have some more social software-y people on the panel since it’s definitely the topic du jour at most conferences.

I know Dorothea has her own good reasons for turning it down, but for me, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I remember watching that same panel two years ago (before I’d even started my first professional job) and just being in awe of these incredibly smart and well-respected folks at the front of the room. Like I said to Roy, this part of my life all seems like a dream. And not the sort where I forget to prepare for a presentation or get chased by the bad guys. More like the kind where the whole world is made out of cotton candy and marshmallow fluff. And I love marshmallow fluff.

Stephen Abram wrote a column for Information Outlook on Learning 2.0 called 15 Minutes a Day: A Personal Learning Management Strategy. So it got me thinking. If I had 15 minutes each day to keep up with technology and libraries’ use of technology, what would I do?

Here’s what I would suggest…

Keep up with just a few blogs that are less about ideas and issues and more about new tools and great applications of technology in libraries. So what I’m saying is, if you have 15 minutes to keep up, don’t read my blog. There are a lot of interesting discussions going on and questions being asked in the blogosphere, but if you have 15 minutes, you just don’t have time for all that. Focus on tools and concrete examples. Here are the ones I’d probably pick:

Librarian in Black
Library Stuff
Distant Librarian (mainly because of my job, but also because he always finds cool things I didn’t know about)
TechCrunch or eHub
Phil Bradley’s Weblog

Obviously the blogs you choose to follow will depend on your interests. For example, if you’re in academia or K-12, OLDaily would be a great resource. And even within these blogs, you don’t have to read everything in-depth. Skim what’s less important and focus on what is really important to you. Only follow links that look like they might be useful. Especially follow links to libraries using cool technologies. Chances are, if something major is going on in the library world, you’ll hear about it from one of these blogs (especially the first two). From these blogs you should hear about interesting new tools and should find lots of concrete examples of libraries using cool technologies.

Once in a while, you may want to chunk four of your 15 minute sessions together and watch a SirsiDynix Institute, OPAL, Blended Librarian or (if you have funding) Education Institute or ACRL Webcast. Some of these Webcasts offer a 1-hour look at a specific technology and how it can be used in libraries. That one session will probably be worth days and days-worth of exploring.

The rest of your time should be spent actually using technologies. Try out some of these things. Create a hosted blog and post to it. Comment on someone else’s blog. Edit a public wiki. Post a photo to Flickr and tag it. Try out Twitter. These are all such easy things to do; each one wouldn’t take more than one or two 15 minute sessions. But the value of actually using these tools is enormous. By using them, you will better understand their possibilities and limitations, their pros and cons. You’ll be better able to decide if this is something you might want to explore further for use in your library. I thought Twitter was a total waste of time. And then I used it and got sucked in. Actually, it’s still a waste of time, but I like it anyways.

After using these tools and seeing examples of libraries using them, you should have a pretty good idea about which ones you think you might be useful in your setting. Those are the ones you should spend more than 15 minutes with, trying to figure out which specific software to use and how to successfully use it at your library. If you find a library that is using technology in an innovative way, why not e-mail them and ask about it? They could probably give you a lot of useful advice on how they implemented it, marketed it, trained people to use it and managed it. Most librarians are happy to share with others in the profession.

One thing to remember: there are a lot of cool tools out there, but you should focus on what you think would actually be useful to you in your professional or personal life. I often hear about tools that I don’t even bother to look at because I know from a one sentence description that I don’t need it. The tools I choose to use at my library are designed either to improve services to patrons or to make my or my colleagues’ lives easier. That’s why we don’t have a Facebook page, a library podcast or a flickr account. I just don’t think it’s a priority here or would benefit our patrons as much as other things we’re doing. Doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be the best thing at your library.

Keeping up in 15 minutes per day? It all comes down to being focused, being ruthless, and aware of the needs of your patrons and your colleagues. I’m glad I don’t have to give up all the great blogs I read regularly, but if I had to, I know that 15 minutes per day is certainly possible.

When we taught Five Weeks to a Social Library, we used Drupal and kind of had to hack it to make it work as a course management system. Too bad DrupalEd wasn’t out yet. But it is now!

The goal of this site is to create a flexible framework that allows for users to set up a social learning environment or a more traditional learning environment depending on the needs of the learners within the site. With this current framework, both approaches are supported.

So cool! But you may get even more excited when you check out some of these features:

# a personal workspace;
# a group workspace;
# the ability for site members to create informal working groups;
# the ability to create formal class spaces;
# a podcasting platform;
# a WYSIWYG text editor;
# wiki functionality;
# personal and class blogs;
# rss feeds for the entire site, individual courses, individual terms, and individual users;
# personal image galleries;
# personal file repositories;
# the ability to create private, invitation-only groups;
# social bookmarking, with searching within bookmark descriptions;
# spam protection;
# assignment calendars by course;
# event calendars for site-wide events;
# configurable user profiles with searchable text descriptions;
# the ability to create lists of “friends�? among site members

This is what open source is all about, isn’t it? I’m thrilled to see tools like Drupal, Wordpress and more being adapted for educational use. We can’t all afford things like WebCT and Angel, and frankly, most of us don’t want to use them. Drupal sure was a lot easier to manage than WebCT!

My good friend, Roy Tennant, has just accepted a sweet job at OCLC, and he didn’t even have to leave Northern CA! I don’t quite understand exactly what he’ll be doing there, but I know that anything he works on is going to be great. OCLC has been making some good hires lately and I can only hope that this will lead to better products, services and innovation.

Roy writes about his new job here:

Certainly change is constant. But there are times of minor changes and times of greater ones. For me and for libraries this is a time of great change. On a personal level, I am leaving the California Digital Library for OCLC. This is bittersweet for me, since I dearly loved my time at CDL and continue to be impressed with the caliber of my colleagues there and what they are accomplishing. But for me it is time to move on to new challenges.

With OCLC I have an incredible opportunity to be active on a broader stage. OCLC is big enough to put libraries on the Internet map in a way that none of us could achieve alone. Open WorldCat is but one example of many. I will be working as a Senior Program Manager with the RLG Programs unit of OCLC Research and Programs. I will report to Jim Michalko, who in turn reports to Lorcan Dempsey. I have met virtually all of the top management team at OCLC and I’ve been very impressed. They know where things are heading and they’re determined to position libraries in a way that will do us the most good.

There are a lot of people I admire in this profession, but none more than I admire Roy Tennant. He is the embodiment of class and generosity (on top of being a first-rate speaker and writer whom I have tried to emulate in both of those arenas). I have been so lucky to benefit from his mentoring, support and friendship. OCLC is damn lucky to have him and I hope they know it.

Congratulations!!!

I got back home from Computers in Libraries yesterday afternoon. The sky was a beautiful blue (still is) and the weather finally convinced me that it might be possible to get my snow tires removed. What a nice change from the weather I’ve been experiencing in Arlington, VA and New York City over the past few days. Before I went to CIL, I gave the keynote at the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s Tech Day (and also got to see my terrific little brother who lives in the city). My slides and links to everything I mentioned in the talk can be found here. The same holds true for my wiki preconference at Computers in Libraries.

So I gave four talks over the past week and I think they all went pretty well. I have no regrets about them, which is probably the first time I can say that. It’s kind of amazing to me that it was just a year ago that I gave my first real conference talk ever, and how much a little 15-minute cybertour struck terror into my very heart. Jenica (an absolute sweetheart, btw) remembered it too:

I was at her presentation last year — the wiki Cybertour — and she was so very very nervous (for no good reason; she was great). And now? Now she’s not the least bit nervous. Which is cool to see, and just, well, a nice thing.

Yeah, it is kind of cool. I think it really shows that anyone can become a good speaker with a lot of practice, a little chutzpah and a real passion for your subject area. I feel more comfortable and learn something new every time I give a talk. Hopefully we’ll see Jenica giving a talk at CIL 2008.

I also had the pleasure of giving a presentation with my partner-in-crime, Michelle Boule on Learning With Blogs and Wikis. We talked generally about how blogs and wikis can be employed in educational settings and then about how we used them in Five Weeks to a Social Library. The slides can be found on our presentation wiki (with the promised pony, of course). We’ve done two major projects together and I would, without hesitation, get involved in any project Michelle wanted to do (even if it was to open an ice cream shop or a pet store). She is a joy to work with and I think our personalities complement each other well in the project management arena. It can be exceedingly difficult to find someone you like working with on projects that much; or at least that’s the case for me.

This was certainly the least I’ve ever blogged during a conference, though I think it was a good thing since I spent more time really enjoying the conference and thinking more about the themes I was hearing and what they meant to my work and to the profession in general. Here are just a few observations from the conference based on the talks I went to and the conversations I had:

On Crystal City and Space Issues

Crystal City seems to be just one big concrete jungle and with the weather being horrible for most of the conference, it was difficult to get to the restaurants (most of which are at least 1/2 a mile away). The hotel rooms are really nice, but the restaurant facilities are not really set up well for a conference. Also, the conference rooms were not great. One was way too small and one had big pillars that made it nearly impossible to see both the speaker and the slides. I also think that there were certain tracks that maybe aren’t as hugely popular as they once were (search engines) and others that are now hugely popular (anything involving Web Design, Community, Social Tools, etc.). Probably it would have made sense for the Web Design track to be in the big room and for the search engine track to be in the smaller room. Pretty much every talk for the Web Design track required an overflow room, and sometimes even that filled up beyond capacity. The things we are interested in as a profession are always changing, so probably it would be good for a reevaluation to take place for next year regarding which tracks to put in big rooms versus small rooms.

Twitter is Great for Conferences

I’m still generally on the fence about Twitter and whether or not I will use it in the long term, but I must say that it is a brilliant tool for conferences. Twitter makes it so easy to keep up with where your friends are and what they’re doing (and thinking) at conferences. Forgot to decide where to meet for lunch with friends? Just twitter a suggestion. Want to let people know you’re in the hotel bar and want to hang out? Twitter them your location. During sessions it made for a fun little back-channel where we could discuss our off-the-cuff impressions. I’m still having fun with it even outside of conferences, but it’s particularly great when you’re collaborating with folks or are in the same place geographically. It’s also great for getting feedback on stuff.

Library Have’s Versus Have Not’s

Maybe I’ve just been living in Vermont for too long, but at this CIL, I felt the growing chasm between the “have�? and “have-not�? libraries reflected more strongly than ever in the presentations. This may just be a reflection of the presentations I chose to go to. I went to a bunch of presentations that discussed projects I was excited about like the building of the new Darien Public Library, the new Cuyahoga County Public Library Web presence, MyOwnCafe, and myhamilton.ca. While listening to people discuss all of these amazing projects, I felt excited by what was possible, but I also started to realize how out of reach they are for most libraries, including my own. It’s wonderful that there are libraries pushing the boundaries and doing such innovative things with tech, but what about those of us who don’t have the money or tech know-how? I came out of the conference feeling like if I wanted a great Website at our library, I was going to have to pay some company big bucks to do it. What really worries me is that some people who don’t know better may think that too.

Most of them time, when I prepare a talk and I know my audience will be diverse, I give it with the cash-strapped small library in mind. The library that has a Webmaster (who is also the reference/instruction/collection development librarian) who uses Dreamweaver. The library that doesn’t have a coder. The library that doesn’t have a lot of money. If we paid a lot for something, I’d discuss low-cost alternatives. If we used server space people might not have, I try and think of alternative ways of doing it. I want my talk to be useful for the moneyed library and the small or rural libraries as well. I really enjoy the sort of talks Chad Boeninger gives, because he usually discusses how he used free and/or open source tools to provide services to his patron population. They’re also projects that almost anyone can actually accomplish with a minimal amount of tech savvy and risk tolerance. I guess my frustrations about this stuff is why I’m writing my column.

Don’t get me wrong, I think all of these talks were great! But if you’re giving a talk on something you’ve done that was costly, required heavy coding, or really wouldn’t work at most institutions, you should provide some takeaway lessons at the end of your talk that would be important for everyone. Ken Roberts of the Hamilton Public Library did that (they were GREAT lessons) and I found it so much more useful of a talk for it. I’m sure I’m in the minority, but I’m not really sure what I was supposed to take away from the Darien presentation. Cool, they’re building a fancy new library that is supposed to be “the first of the new libraries�? with lots of flexible space, redefined reference desk, and lots of new tech. I guess the only thing I really got out of the talk was that we should take nothing for granted; that every assumption we have about how libraries should work should be questioned in an effort to better meet the needs of our patrons. But considering that none of their exciting new ideas about libraries (outsourcing tech services, their book ordering and delivery system, their book processing system, etc.) has been tested, I came out of it thinking “oh yeah?�? I do think what they’re going to be doing is cool, but I guess I didn’t know what to think once it was over.

But How Do We Make it Happen?

Helene Blowers is an incredibly optimistic and positive person. So when she writes that her experience at CIL was “bittersweet�? we should really listen up. Helene writes about how many people she heard from at the conference, who are tech savvy and want to implement all sorts of cool things at their libraries, don’t know how to make it happen due to organizational barriers. It would be great if we all worked in libraries like PLCMC, but, as Helene recognizes, not all of us would encounter such immediate and enthusiastic administrative support for the Learning 2.0 program.

A lot of the talks I went to described projects that I know would not work in my setting and some that would not work in most libraries. While many of them were really cool, I think we need more talks that are specifically about how to make technological change happen, how to convince our superiors that change is absolutely essential, and how to successfully manage tech projects. David King is one person who gives great talks on managing change, planning projects, getting along with IT and securing staff buy-in. I’d definitely like to see more talks on these topics and more general ones on practical uses of tech tools like “how to get people to contribute to wikis�? and “how to manage library blogs so that one person doesn’t end up having to add content regularly forever.�? I often find at conferences that these are the things people are really clamoring for.

I’d love to see an entire day at CIL (or IL!) devoted to this sort of stuff with tracks on Planning, Assessment, Selling Ideas to Colleagues and Administrators, and Project Management (all, obviously, with a techie focus).

Some scary things… some hopeful things

So I came out of Marshall Breeding’s talk on The New Library Automation Landscape feeling just as concerned as, if not more than, when I started. Seems like you either have vendors who are family owned and secretive or you have vendors who are owned by these private equity firms that usually purchase a company so that they can wring a lot of money out of it and do the old slash and burn. Marshall stresses the importance of figuring out what an automation vendor’s business model is and how well they are equipped to cater to libraries as customers. Who owns these companies really affects the trajectory of R&D and service. Marshall doesn’t see the automation market becoming a total monopoly situation, but there certainly has been a lot of consolidation, which has been alarming to many.

On the other hand, open source options have finally become a real option for libraries. the Pines project shows that libraries can band together to develop their own O/S systems that meet their needs. Koha has become more robust and is finally in a place where U.S. libraries are adopting it and it’s a possibility for larger libraries. Best of all, there are companies out there that will manage all this for you. O/S is free as in puppies, so there is still a significant cost involved in one way or another, but the possibilities for continuous improvements in O/S are much more exciting. Open source adoptions are growing and will continue to grow. Eventually I think we will see a sea change that will result in large-scale adoptions or development of open source ILS’ or in closed-source vendors finally giving us what we want.

Are We Really SO Different?

Michelle mentioned that two speakers at CIL discussed young people’s discomfort in traditional employee-boss or comand and control environments. She mentioned “in a recent discussion with my old boss, we were discussing how she, only a handful of years older then I, thrives in a strict organizational structure while I feel stifled and unhappy.�? I just don’t know if the problem is really having a boss and traditional organizational structures. I have worked in an organization where I had a supervisor who was incredibly supportive and collaborative. She provided real leadership and inspiration. I liked having someone I could look up to and she was always willing to listen to my ideas and take them to heart. We both learned from each other. In this organization, she had a supervisor and her supervisor had a supervisor, but there was still a culture of learning where people at all levels realized that they could learn from those above and below them. I never felt stifled; I felt supported.

I’ve also worked in situations where the supervisor/supervisee relationship was not so collaborative. This supervisor felt that her job was only to control and to keep up with what her employees were doing. Other supervisors provide very little in the way of advice, support, and inspiration. They don’t think they have anything to learn from their employees and they are not willing to change their views on things. And in some organizations, while the employees get evaluated by their supervisor, the supervisor never gets evaluated by the employee. There’s no accountability and it just makes the employee feel powerless.

I don’t know if it’s that we have trouble with the traditional organizational structure. I think it’s that we have a lower tolerance for bad organizational cultures, bad managers and bad leadership. This isn’t just a 9 to 5 job to me; it’s a calling. It’s something I love. I want to do great things in my work, so if I feel powerless to make things better, I won’t be happy. I want to feel supported. I want to feel inspired. I want to feel like I can make a difference. I don’t think it’s too much to ask for, is it?

Since so many of us are so passionate about our work (seeing it more as a “calling�? than a “job�?) we do demand more from our work environments, but good managers can get so much more out of us because we are so passionate. That’s the positive side of the coin that doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough. It’s my take on it, at least.

Librarians are Amazing

Seriously, does this profession attract some of the most wonderful people in the world, or what? I am constantly blown away by the passion, generosity and big hearts that surround me at these conferences. Maybe it’s just the people I choose to spend my time with, but I doubt it. Many librarians really do like to share what they know and like to help others in the profession. And there’s no competitiveness; everyone is so supportive of each other. I just love it. I love every minute I spend with these people. Just as Jenica said to me before lunch yesterday, I feel more hopeful when I come back to work after a conference like CIL. Yes, things can get better!!!

All in all, an amazingly fun conference. I learned from the sessions, from my colleagues and from my friends (sometimes all three at the same time!). I always find the ITI conferences the most personally and professionally rewarding and am definitely looking forward to Internet Librarian in the Fall. I miss everyone I spent time with at CIL already! Why do you all (other than Jessamyn) have to live so far away?!?!? One day we’ll all need to break away and start our own super-fantastic innovative library. A library with ponies… with monocles.

Meredith Farkas on Social Software

Originally uploaded by madinkbeard.

I did a lot of blogging at the last two major national conferences I attended. I decided this time, given that I’m giving so many talks, doing the book signing, etc., I would just kind of take things in without writing everything down. I’ll still write about my impressions and may go into some depth on the talks that really inspired me, but I won’t be transcribing everything the speakers said. Lots of other people will, and I’ll try to link to other coverage of anything I write about.

Yesterday I gave a talk on social software and I think it went quite well. The room was so crowded that people had to stand and there was an overflow room. It was kind of shocking to me. I hope I gave a talk that offered people something — whether inspiration or concrete ideas or new tools that they’d never heard of. It’s always hard to meet everyone’s needs considering that some people are totally new to this stuff and for others, everything I was saying was probably “old hat.�? The slides from my talk and links to the sites and tools I mentioned are all available here.

At my talk, I announced the winners of the Flickr Alternative Book Cover Contest. They are:

• Darren Chase
• Kelli Staley
• Ash966 (not sure who this is)

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone who entered!

There were a lot of interesting talks yesterday, but the one I found the most exciting was Ken Roberts’ talk on the myhamilton.ca portal. I will probably write a post on this later on because I found the partnerships his library set up with other community organizations absolutely inspirational. It’s funny how the talks that sound the least interesting in the program end up being the most interesting. Some of it has to do with the content, but a lot of it has to do with the speaker’s speaking ability. The speaking skills at this conference really run the gamut from truly amazing (like almost Al Gore good) to people reading their entire presentation. I know how hard it is to speak well. It’s something that still causes me anxiety and that I am constantly working to improve. But no matter how interesting your content is, if you can’t speak well or enthusiastically, you will not engage your audience.

The most fun always are the conversations that take place among attendees between sessions, at lunch and dinner, and at whatever place people hang out after dinner. So many of us don’t work with people who are really interested in library technologies, so when we come together, it’s like finding our tribe. I feel lucky to have such good friends in this profession, many of whom will one day (or are already) leaders in the profession.

It’s now the start of Day 2 of CIL and I’m listening to Andy Carvin speak about Web 2.0, social software, and blogs. I am a great admirer of Andy’s, so I was actually happy with this last minute keynote speaker switch. I’m glad to see that he is as not ga-ga over the whole Web 2.0 moniker, but still realizes that there are a lot of exciting things are, in fact, going on (a people-powered revolution). He’s talking about blogs and YouTube and what an effect they are having on politics and society. To me, bloggers (especially political ones) are the modern day muckrakers. Even in our profession, think of all the things we’re actually talking about now that were never discussed publicly before or were just taken for granted. It’s a good thing.

My flight’s delayed until 2:20 (I’ve been here since 8:00 am) so I thought I’d blog a few things I’ve been wanting to mention but just haven’t had the time to write a substantial blog post about:

Sarah Houghton-Jan’s amazing Library Technology Report, Technology Competencies and Training for Libraries. Well, I can only assume it’s great (not that I’m angling for a review copy or anything… ok, I am) because of the description I read and because it’s by Sarah whom I trust completely when it comes to this topic. Not nearly enough has been written on this, and it’s nice to see something longer than article-length coming out on tech competencies.

According to the description, Sarah covers –

* how to use descriptions of technology competencies so they will enhance your staff members’ technology knowledge, improve their self-confidence and individual morale levels, help staff provide better service, and transform your library into an institution that continously promotes lifetime learning for every staff member;
* a look at the purpose and background of describing competencies;
* a review of the process of creating descriptions and a look at various types and structures of lists of competencies as well as sample competencies; and
* the implementation process, including assessment and best practices for technology training.

“This work,�? summarizes Houghton-Jan, “is an attempt to fill the gap in knowledge about documenting technology competencies with overall guiding principles, examples of successful projects, and project-management guidelines for those embarking upon such a project in their libraries.�?

I definitely look forward to reading it, even if I have to wait until it’s in Academic Search Premiere.

Another person I think is the bee’s knees, Michael Porter, has come up with the coolest library-related Flickr group EVER: The 365 Library Days Project.

Here’s Michael’s description:

Let’s get as many libraries as we can to sign up for and actively participate in a customized, library friendly version of the 365 project. That would mean that if you decide to participate, you would commit to downloading at least 365 pictures from in, around or about the library you work in, for and/or with. Uploading a picture every day for 365 days in this case wouldn’t be practical for most folks, but committing to 365 images in a year could be done fairly easily. It could also have HUGE value for your library.

Just imagine what a valuable historic document you could create for your library with this project! And while you’re at it, at the end of your year commitment, you could contact your local newspaper and tell them about the project, where they could do a story and print selected pictures that you took over the year. Such a substantive advocacy project! It would demonstrate in very real ways, ways that get lost to many people in your community, that you and your library are doing important work every day of the year!

I love this idea and I hope lots of libraries — public especially — consider taking part. What a great marketing vehicle for your library and a great historical document you would be creating!!! I love the idea of inviting patrons to participate, maybe even creating some sort of contest or event!

I want to applaud my friend Michael McGrorty for standing up to the extremely unfair (and likely unlawful) hiring practices of a library he has applied to multiple times. I think it’s so cool that he is shedding light on this process; I myself would never have the guts or wherewithal to do it. It doesn’t hurt that he used to be an investigator for the Department of Labor. Good luck with your fight, Michael, hopefully it will lead to a healthy dose of sunlight being shined on hiring practices in libraries in general.

Looks like we might even leave Burlington a little bit earlier than expected. Amazing! Hope springs eternal.

And what a season it’s going to be! Last year, I gave my first conference talk ever at Computers in Libraries. Since then, I’ve given around 18 talks and I have 10 talks scheduled between now and the end of June. Insane! And it all starts Friday!

On Friday, I’ll be giving the keynote (another first!) at the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s Technology Day and will be speaking about using social software in higher education. I honestly don’t have a very clear sense of what the difference is between a regular conference talk and a keynote, but I figure if my talk is at least interesting, I’m in good shape. While in the big apple, I’m going to see my brother (whom I haven’t seen in almost 9 months) and meet his girlfriend. Hopefully I’ll get some good food too. Too bad I’ll be on the opposite side of the universe from Zabars and H&H Bagels. If anyone knows of a good place to get bagels and lox in Tribecca…

The next day, I’ll be flying to Washington D.C. to go to Computers in Libraries. I’ll be giving one preconference and two talks there:

• April 15th @ 9:00 am - Wikis: Basics, Tools and Strategies (Preconference Workshop)
• April 16th @ 11:15 - C102: Building Collaboration, Communication and Community Online
• April 17th @ 1:30 - C203: Learning with Wikis and Blogs

I’ll also be signing my book at the Information Today booth on Tuesday April 17th at 5:00 pm. I believe there will be refreshments at the exhibits that evening, so if I’m not a big draw, maybe the wine and cheese will be.

Here’s the rest of my Spring/early Summer schedule:

• May 4, 2007, Wikis: Enabling Collaboration in Libraries, Quebec Library Association, Montreal, QC
• May 15, 2007, Building the Social Library Online, AISTI Mini-Conference, Santa Fe, NM
• May 21, 2007, Keynote - Building the Social Library Online, Annual Conference for ACRL Eastern New York, Utica, NY
• June 24, 2007 10:30-12:00, Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks and Libraries, ALA Annual, Washington, D.C.
• June 24, 2007 1:30-3:30, Finding New and Creative Solutions through Library Think Tanks, ALA Annual, Washington, D.C.
• June 25, 2007 10:30-12:00, Wiking the Blog and Walking the Dog - Social Software, Virtual Reality and Authority Everywhere, ALA Annual, Washington, D.C.

If you’re in the area or are attending one of these shindigs, let me know. I’d love to meet you!

At my school, we used to subscribe to the Science Direct engineering package for our online engineering students. It worked well, but got very little use since most of the engineering classes do not require research. Last year, we were informed that Science Direct was getting rid of the package we were subscribed to and were told that we needed to subscribe to the fancy new College Edition for the physical sciences to keep the journals we currently subscribe to online. Of course this cost more than 1.5 times what we were paying, but it included a whole lot more in the way of content in Chemistry, Physics and Math. Honestly, I wanted to dump Science Direct altogether, since I think it’s not very easy to use and is expensive given our low usage rates, but we decided to go with the College Edition (and probably a good idea because we do need to offer more in the physical sciences, whether they get used or not). Once we were subscribed, I honestly didn’t notice any difference in the interface. It looked exactly the same only said “Science Direct College Edition�? instead of just “Science Direct�?. The interface was just as unusable.

Part of my job is to create persistent links (with our proxy prefix) to articles that are going to be used in online classes. Two of the articles from an online nursing class were from Nursing Outlook. We have a subscription to Nursing Outlook via Science Direct, so I thought I’d just go and create an article-level link to it. I created a link using the Direct Object Identifier (DOI). Here is an example link: http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1067/mno.2000.105248. Unfortunately it did not work. It took us to an Article Locator page which gave me the option of accessing the article from Science Direct or Elsevier Health Science Journals (which we do not have access to). When I click on Science Direct, it takes me to the article abstract, but tells me that I have guest access and will need to pay to access the article. I tried this with and without a proxy prefix (while on-campus) and had the same results. When I called Elsevier tech support 10 days ago, I spent 45 minutes explaining myself and was told that it must be that there is something wrong with our proxy server or that we gave them the wrong IP address (which sounded strange because why would we be able to access these articles by going into Science Direct College Edition directly if our IP address was wrong?). I wouldn’t accept those answers and was then told that they would work on it and get back to me. I ended up sending two e-mails over the next week which I never received responses to. Finally the head of tech services here called our rep who got us an answer… sort of. The person she got to answer us also said it was a proxy server issue. Sigh…

So I called the guy this afternoon who sent the e-mail and again explained the situation. No, it can’t be the proxy server because the link does not have a proxy prefix on it. He finally looked at the DOI and realized that it was not offering Science Direct College Edition as an option in Article Locator — it was taking me to “Science Direct�? which we no longer have access to. So what I thought I was linking to that said Science Direct was actually the package we used to have, not what we have now. So I asked, “how can I create an article-level link that will take students to our holdings of the article?�? The answer was “you can’t.�? He said that there would very soon be better integration between College Edition and Science Direct, but at the moment, there was nothing anyone could do.

Does anyone else think this is insane? Yes, our students can manually go into Science Direct College Edition and find the articles themselves, but they shouldn’t have to, especially when we had the ability to do article-level links when we were paying less. What’s really amazing is how long College Edition has been around and that this seems to be the first time they’ve heard about this problem. Can anyone else with access to Nursing Outlook through Science Direct College Edition try this link and let me know if they can access the article PDF? Just curious.

It’s amazing to me how much we pay for these resources and how little support we get. I even would have been ok with a “I’ll contact _____ department about it and make sure they make this a priority.�? “There’s nothing we can do for you�? should never be an acceptable response.

I just wanted to post a follow-up to the five non-library blogs meme started by Rachel Singer Gordon.

Thanks to people’s posts on the topic (see here for many of them), I have discovered a whole mess of new blogs to enjoy! Here’s a list of the ones that I’ve subscribed to because of the meme:

• HorsePigCow - marketing
• Bloug - folksonomies, IA, metadata
• The Daily Puppy - probably my favorite new blog! So many puppies!!!
• Bob Sutton - workplace culture
• Bokardo - social design for the Web
• FreeMacWare - Cool free stuff for Macs
• HBS Working Knowledge - business, management, marketing, innovation, etc.
• Logic+Emotion - leadership, innovation, marketing, etc.
• Service Untitled - customer service
• The Business Innovation Insider - innovation!
• Thinking Faster - management, innovation, etc.
• Online Community Report - online commnities
• Social Signal Blog - social software, online community

Hmmm…. I don’t know if I should thank Rachel for bringing all this stuff to light or blame her for giving me more to read!!!

And on a somewhat related and unrelated note, I just wanted to say how privileged I feel to be a part of this incredible community of librarian bloggers. If I’d known what inspiration, kindness, generosity, support and friendship I would find in the blogosphere, I would have started blogging many years ago. I’ve definitely found my “tribe.�?

Wow! I’m really shocked that people would name me as a biblioblogger hero, but am even more shocked that Dorothea Salo would actually start a meme (yes, you did it Dorothea!).

I don’t think I could possibly name just five bloggers who have influenced, inspired, challenged and educated me. I’ve learned something from every blog I read, or I wouldn’t read it. But here are some bloggers who really stick out in my mind as being very courageous, funny, inspiring, helpful, etc.

• Jessamyn West and Sarah Houghton-Jan for inspiring me to blog in the first place.
• Dorothea Salo and Rochelle Hartman for teaching me to write what I really think
• Jenny Levine for blazing the trail for so many of us.
• Michael Stephens and David Rothman for their unflagging and infectious enthusiasm.
• Ryan Deschamps, Mark Linder, Walt Crawford, and Karen Schneider for challenging my views on so many issues. Ryan has been questioning me on my blog since back when hardly anyone read me, and I loved having a passionate devil’s advocate to keep me from getting too “comfortable.�? Mark never buys into the common wisdom and always has his thoughtful and unique slant on things that really does often make me change my mind a little. I think I disagree with Walt and Karen as often as I agree with them, but they always make me really think about things.
• Steve Lawson and Josh Neff for not being afraid to say what they really think and for often doing it in a way that makes me smile. Whenever I see posts by these guys in my aggregator, I get excited, because I always know I’m going to read something original, interesting and sometimes even funny. Each of them is one of a kind.
• Michelle Boule for making me laugh and making me think. I barely knew Michelle when I asked her to do HigherEd BlogCon with me, but I love anyone with moxie, and my girl, Michelle has moxie to spare. Little did I know back then how much of an impact Michelle would have on my life.
• Jennifer Macaulay for chronicling her move towards becoming a reluctant mover and shaker. Jennifer, face it, you are going to be a leader in this field whether you like it or not. I could tell that from the first time I started reading your incredibly honest and thoughtful blog posts. One day, we’ll all be able to say, “I knew her when she was saying ‘I’m not a leader, but…’�?.
• Amanda Etches-Johnson and Helene Blowers for being role models for me. When I think of who I’d like to emulate in the library profession (from their career to the way they conduct themselves), these two women immediately come to mind. It’s no surprise to me that both of these women were named Movers and Shakers; the only surprise is that it didn’t happen sooner!
• Rachel Singer Gordon for asking important questions about the profession, library school, gender and the blogosphere.
• Steven Cohen and Paul Pival for showing me (and many others) so much emerging tech, great articles, and much else that I probably would never have discovered otherwise. Paul and Steven are great because they often try out tech and tell us what they thought of it, which is of great value these days when there’s just so much out there. Both of them have really been great mentors to me.
• Karen Coombs for sharing so much of what she has learned in her techie trials and tribulations. She’s a truly open source librarian.
• Jill Stover, Steven Bell, David King and Brian Matthews for making me think so much about marketing, design and user experience. Y’all make me want to go to go get an MBA and go to design school!
• John Blyberg for showing me what is possible with tech skills and vision. I can’t wait to see what he ends up doing at Darien.
• Iris Jastram, Angel Rivera and Chad Boeninger for often making me think about the way I provide reference and instructional services. So many things they’ve written have really made me examine more closely what I do in my 9-5 job.
• Jennifer Graham and Jenica Rodgers-Urbanek for making me smile and just being genuinely kind people (in Jennifer’s case, mostly off-blog, but I also very much enjoy her quirky and varried posts).

There are so many other blogs I love to read and bloggers whom I am fortunate to know. Thank you all for putting your thoughts, ideas, and yourself out there.

Doggles and I joined the Mac cult

Originally uploaded by librarianmer.

This week I have joined not one, but two cults. First, I went and bought a MacBook Pro. It was really about time. I have not been able to update Windows on my VAIO since November, which means that I was using what was essentially a ticking time bomb for all sorts of important work. About 6 weeks ago, Adam bought his own MacBook Pro and once I tried it out, I was hooked. I’d never really understood what was so great about Macs, but it’s really just a conglomeration of little things that make it so much more user friendly (and fun!). And can I just tell you how much nicer it is to use Keynote versus PowerPoint. Holy moley!

Then today, I gave in to peer pressure and joined Twitter. It seemed like my friends were having all sorts of fun conversations (as much of a conversation one can have in that medium) on Twitter that I was not a part of and I started to realize that while I may not like the idea of Twitter, you kind of have to go where your friends are. Well you don’t have to, but then you’d be all by your lonesome. Took me a while to really get into IM too. We’ll see if this sticks (I doubt it). If you’re that curious about what I’m up to, feel free to add me.

See! The sheep recognize me as one of their own!

One thing I have loved about the whole Library 2.0 movement is the push to stamp out the “but we’ve always done it this way�? attitude. I am a strong believer in questioning the common wisdom. So often we do things because of tradition, not because it’s the best way to do it. I think it’s great that we’re pushing libraries to question everything and to frequently assess the effectiveness of their services in light of current patron needs.

While we are doing this more and more in libraries, one place I do not see this questioning going on enough is in library associations. In my rather ranty post last week, I asked people what the logic was behind state library associations compensating out-of-state speakers but not in-state speakers (in most cases, regardless of whether the talk was invited or not). And people keep saying “well, we’d go broke if we didn’t do things this way.�? Ok, I get that, but I still don’t understand why an in-state person’s time is worth nothing and what sort of an incentive that is for quality in-state speakers? My state library association did pay me to speak, and if they didn’t, I would be more likely to speak at an out-of-state conference than my own because I feel that the amount of time I spend preparing and giving a talk should be worth something (unless I am planning on going to a conference already). Even if it’s a small amount of compensation (at least comped registration for the whole conference!), it’s something.

But it’s not just about compensation in state library associations. It’s also about ways to participate. The model in most state organizations is all about committees, and individual contributions outside of that structure are often not supported. How much innovation can happen in a committee setting? How quickly can change occur? Imagine how long it may have taken the ALA to get on-board with wikis if I hadn’t created the first two myself (the second with their seal of approval)? I think they probably would have moved in that direction eventually, but by the time they started creating their own, they had a nice little successful model to look to.

A few weeks ago, an e-mail showed up on the Vermont Libraries listserv about the VLA Newsletter. They mentioned that it was now available online in PDF format. What’s kind of annoying about that is that you still have to print it out to read it comfortably since it’s in a column format. Jessamyn stepped up and offered to volunteer her time to turn the PDF content into HTML and even to use something that would generate an RSS feed so people could subscribe. I was surprised to see that her offer was basically blown off. The response she got was that most people seem to prefer the print version and they probably won’t be able to make everyone happy with their choices. Gosh, if you offer the newsletter in multiple formats, I think you can make everyone happy, and that’s what I said in my response:

I think a newsletter is not just about telling members what is going on, but is also about attracting new members. And if that is the case, it may be wise to think about what formats might attract new, tech-savvy members who are accustomed to reading content online, and perhaps through an RSS reader.

A large number of state library associations are using blogs now to disseminate information. Just a few examples include California http://www.cla-net.org/weblog/mt/archives/cat_californialibrarynews.php, Wisconsin http://wlaweb.blogspot.com/, New Jersey http://blog.njla.org/, and New Hampshire http://www.nhlibrarians.org/. Also, many of the national ALA divisions have blogs now. It’s a great way for pushing timely news to interested individuals. Even if you didn’t want to use a blog to post timely news, you could still use it for your newsletter content. Reference and User Services Quarterly is published in print, in PDF format, and as a blog http://www.rusq.org/ with an RSS feed people can subscribe to. What’s really great is that they allow people to comment on the articles, which creates much more of a timely dialogue than a traditional journal (or newsletter). Obviously, you don’t need to leave comments open if that’s not what you want to do with the blog. You don’t even need to know HTML to copy and paste content into a blog and they are very easy to maintain (certainly easier than static HTML pages). And having a blog will automatically give you an RSS feed for your content. The beauty of having an RSS feed is that people can subscribe to your feed and will not have to remember to visit your site periodically to see if new content has been posted. People can also subscribe to RSS content via e-mail, so they will receive the content in their mailbox as soon as it is posted. This would give people multiple methods of receiving news content from the Vermont Library Association, and I think it would really position the organization as user-centered and tech-savvy (which may be a draw to some librarians who have chosen not to get involved in VLA).

Just my 2 cents (which is about all it’s worth). If I were on the committee and Jessamyn was offering to help with this, I would jump at the opportunity to benefit from her technology skills and her enthusiasm. I think you can, in fact, make everyone happy.

The response to my post and Jessamyn’s was that the person who is involved in creating the newsletter is busy and that she alone will not be able to make everyone happy. I get that and would never ask anything of this person. But the whole point was that Jessamyn was offering to donate her time to put the newsletter into a more online-readable format, so that the newsletter person would not need to do it. We were also told that we should propose to create a technology committee to investigate options, costs, alternatives, and then develop a plan. I understand that this is how things are done, but my gosh, all this for something so minor? All we were talking about was publishing the contents of the newsletter to a blog or a static HTML page. This isn’t some huge endeavor that requires months and months of planning; it’s something Jessamyn could probably accomplish in a day or so.

But this is the model for participation and it sadly does not encourage me to contribute. In spite of the fact that I am not a member of any committee, I have contributed to the ALA, and I have worked hard for the ALA. Maybe it doesn’t look as good on my resume to say that I created the first two ALA Wikis versus having served on committees, but I think I did some good. Maybe I’m just not a committee and meeting kind of person (not to say that there’s anything at all wrong with committees) and that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m not willing to contribute. Unfortunately, Vermont is not not unique in it’s strict definition of how one can contribute to the organization. Maybe one day I’ll find my niche in a committee at the state or national level, but until then, change aversion in organizations will not stop me from contributing to the profession. It might stop me from contributing to the organization though.

Perhaps I’m unique in my attitude and state library associations will never have trouble finding people to serve without changing (or being more flexible in) their model for participation. But perhaps more and more young librarians do want to find new ways to contribute and I do believe that library organizations should question the way they do things in light of the changing needs and interests of their members (or potential members). We should be just as 2.0 in our organizations as we are in our libraries and I applaud the American Library Association for really making an effort to move in that direction (obviously things won’t change in a day, but I see things starting to change). Like Jessamyn, if any Vermont library organization wants my help with technology stuff, I’d be glad to contribute. Sadly, it looks like there probably won’t be an HTML version of the newsletter any time soon, and not for lack of interest or lack of volunteers.

Bad news, folks. Apparently the printer of my book screwed up big time and the book is going to have to be completely re-printed by another company. According to the Editor-in-Chief at Information Today Books, John Bryans, the cover is too dark and at least 60% of advance copies have defective laminate. They are going to pick out the best of the bad batch to bring to Computers in Libraries for my book signing, but, other than that, it’s going to take another five weeks for anyone else to get the book. I’m definitely disappointed, but there’s nothing really anyone can do about it. And I apologize to everyone who has ordered books and was hoping to get them really soon. I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

I had noticed that the book cover looked darker than what they’d e-mailed to me (though I figured things often do look different on the Web) and that the plasticy stuff on the cover was kind of peeling from the edges of the book, but I didn’t know how big a problem it was until John e-mailed me about it.

It’s just been a bad few days. I’ve had the flu since last Friday night. I’m not deathly ill, but just feel systemically awful with fevers coming and going. It’s definitely nice to have a doctor in the house (my husband) when I’m feeling this way, though there isn’t too much anyone can do for the flu. I don’t know about y’all, but I have the weirdest and most stressful dreams when I’m sick. Last night, I was forced to assemble a unicycle (or maybe it was a bicycle with missing parts) underwater. And I am not good at holding my breath. The night before, I was involved in international intrigue and was running from some dastardly international organization (SPECTRE? SD-6? Cobra?) and after that, I had a dream where I was nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actress and was stressing about making myself presentable enough to go to the Oscars (to the point where I was actually thinking about hairstyles). Sheesh! I’ve got enough stress in real life… I don’t need it in my dreams too.

I promise, I’ll be back to my usual self soon. No more “woe is me�? posts. I’ve got a pretty great life; I have a lot more to be grateful for than I do to complain about.

I was beyond thrilled to see the Wired article featuring Helene Blowers’ amazing Learning 2.0 project and model. You know when you make it into something like Wired, you’ve MADE IT. It pleases me to no end to see so many libraries replicating the program to provide accessible and fun technology education to staff and to see Helene getting some well-deserved recognition.

Michael Casey and Michael Stephens also deserve a big pat on the back for their brand-new column, “The Transparent Library�?, (great title!) which will be featured in Library Journal each month starting next week. Both Michaels have given me a lot of food for thought on their blogs, and I can’t wait to read their observations and ideas for creating a transparent library. You go guys!

This has turned out to be a great day after all! Congrats to all of you!