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Jane Dysart posted this in Conferences on April 11th, 2008 My business partner, Rebecca, taught me long ago that feedback is a gift. Thank you Ccomputers in Libraries 2008 attendees for your feedback — in the conference surveys (of which I have only had a chance to read about 150 out of a very very large pile! and I know there will more online at the conference website as well), in person (I do appreciate all your thoughts, ideas, and praise), in blogs (I’ve only had a chance to read a few but check out the fabulous coverage by Sarah Houghton-Jan or the feed on the conference wiki), and in moderated conversations — Greg Schwartz hosted a call-in session,Uncontrolled Vocabulary #37, on the topic of CIL wrap-up. Lots of good discussion and ideas. Love the idea about less paper/no presentation booklet. I have been trying for a few years to do something different with the presentations and perhaps ITI is ready to go green, we’ll see, but I can definitely work on the speaker forms for next year. A suggestion for those of you who receive multiple copies of the preliminary conference program — share them with all your friends, colleagues, and others who may not receive any! Greg, I did hear you and your group compliment me as an “excellent conference organizer” — much appreciated, and I agree with you, we should all toot our own horn more – “vicious or shameless self-promotion” never hurt a librarian as our voices do need to be heard. Another great suggestion on your call during the discussions as stories as a theme
Continue reading In Praise of Feedback
Rebecca Jones posted this in Uncategorized on April 9th, 2008 At CIL on April 8/08 Bonnie Peirce from Dover Town Library, one of Library Journal’s Movers and Shakers and known to many for Library Goddesses blog gave a fantastic session on open knowledge networks as a service model for youth services. Bonnie has initiated the B3OK pilot exploring the possibility of any physical or virtual object/location/space. Check it out. They’ve given kids a physical object they would be interested in – in this case a fossil – with a QRCode, and then let the kids explore all the various connections to pursue their interest in the fossil. This has led to kids talking with other kids locally and all over the world, forming new connections. Bonnie also posed 6 questions that she is posing as they look at the service model for engaging youth in the library —– but, really, these are questions librarians need to be asking about all service models:
how can we enable people’s participation with objects, topics, places, etc….? how can we increase community knowledge, and trigger communication among people? how can we enable their participation in their own communities? will I lose my job today? can I keep the platform open? what stories or knowledge are hidden here that could be shared?
We particularly need to ask that 4th question: will I lose my job today? Am I pushing the boundaries to the edge to question the traditions and norms of what we do and how we do it — cuz the norm of yesterday
Continue reading CIL Tuesday Ah Ha’s!
Rebecca Jones posted this in Learning on April 9th, 2008 Darlene Fichter is one of my favourite people. And I say that with all sincerity. Not only is Darlene a dear friend, she is incredibly intelligent and conveys her deep knowledge of library technologies and tools with humour and insight (check out her blog that I’ve linked to on her name). Now she’s shared a way for us human adults to “get over” the everyday frustrations and anger-moments that too often weigh us down and impede our thinking.
There’s much we can learn from animals — ducks, in this case. Ever watched 2 ducks fighting over a scrap of food in the middle of a pond? They physically bicker back and forth and eventually 1 of them wins. The duck who loses heads for another section of the pond where he/she flaps their wings, splashing furiously, then shakes them self off and goes on their way. Done. The anger they’ve no doubt experienced at “losing” is gone – shaken off.
Now think about how we as humans handle this. We have a verbal fencing session with a colleague, a family member, or maybe just someone in line ahead of us for a coffee……and after the encounter the negative emotions plague us for minutes, or maybe even hours (hopefully not for days!). So the next time you experience this, learn from the duck: flap your arms and let those negative thoughts and emotions go. First of all, it’s just funny to be flapping away – and secondly the actual physical actions
Continue reading Get the flap over it!
Jane Dysart posted this in Learning on April 1st, 2008 Try it. Experiment. Play with it. Learn about it. Do a pilot project or beta test.
Innovators and early adopters (fifteen percent of a group of people according to the Early Adoption Cycle) love to do just this — play with new things, try them out, see how they work.
I love to work with people like this who are willing to try something and learn from the experience.
What if it doesn’t do all that you want?
Leave it on the shelf. Suggest improvements. Learn from it and try something else. Many have said, if you aren’t making mistakes you aren’t trying anything new or you’re not learning (how did you learn to ride a bicycle, to type, or to ski/snowboard?). Rita Mae Brown discussed the definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. Without trying new things we cease to learn.
These things are not new, and I’ve talked about them for years with peers, students, clients and friends, but they came to the fore recently and I wanted to reiterate my thoughts on the subject of innovation, change and learning!
Jane Dysart posted this in Uncategorized on April 1st, 2008 Just listening to Megan Fox, Web & Electronic Resources Librarian, Simmons College Library, on a Educiation Institute web conference. The size of the mobile market is huge and will grow fast over the next few years:
currently 1 billion PCs, 1.2 billion internet users, 3 billions mobile phones US mobile phone market penetration: 84% by the end of 2007, growing more than 100% by 2013 115 billion smartphones shipped; 410 by 2012
The mobile web is growing with lots of content being born mobile which you can find in .mobi sites — there are now a million .mobi domain names including the Fremont Library. Ball State Universities has pages they have developeed from scratch for mobiles. Many library vendors are creating new interfaces for access on mobile device, one now has 90 libraries using their mobile product. SirsiDynix has PocketCirc which is for the use of circulation staff to assist in their work with inventories and statistics. Ready reference to go is popular these days with sites like answers.com which have a mobile interface. You can also take ebooks with you on your mobile deveice. There are many more Web 2.0 services like Facebook, YouTube, etc. available for mobile devices.
Mobile search is now big especially for newspapers as well as answers and facts. Google (www.google.com/m), Yahoo (m.yahoo.com), AOL mobile, m.live.com, and 4Info are being used for targetted answers and facts (information search) like stock prices and local search (ATMS, hotels, etc.). Many of these sites are calling themselves answer engines rather than search engines.
A new business for translating web pages
Continue reading Trends in Mobile Tools
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