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Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on May 1st, 2012 Juanita Richardson, new associate to Dysart & Jones Associates, is candidate for SLA Presidency. Kudos to SLA for running q & a’s to help the membership get to know more about the wonderful slate of candidates.
SLA: When did you first join SLA? What made you decide to join then, and why do you still belong today?
Juanita Richardson with two SLA Past Presidents, Jane Dysart & Stephen Abram, at OLA Superconference
Juanita:
I joined SLA in 1988 when I landed my first job as Assistant Librarian at ScotiaMcLeod (an investment bank) on the advice of my boss, mentor and friend, Angie Devlin. I had been aware of SLA but, being new to Toronto at that time, didn’t realize how strong the SLA community was here. I was – if you can believe it – a very shy young librarian and Angie convinced me that reaching out to the SLA community would be a great way to develop professionally and personally. How right she was! REASON #1: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
In less than a year, I was asked to take on my first “task” within the chapter: I was responsible for thanking our speakers at one of the chapter meetings. The speakers that evening included Stephen Abram, Rebecca Jones and Deirdre Grimes. I don’t remember what they talked about but I certainly remember how nervous I was. I had never done any public speaking before! I had already written out my little thank you speech – completely unrelated to anything
Continue reading Juanita Richardson: Q&A’s for SLA President Candidate
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on April 26th, 2012 This is great!! The news coverage of LiLi: Fraser Valley Regional Library’s mobile initiative (not an app – a loaded car!). We reported on LiLi’s conception last week. Here’s her debut!
The ink on Innisfil Public Library’s Strategic Plan was barely dry when they made great strides toward their Vision of “sparking ideas to ignite a creative and dynamic community.” How? By launching, that’s right “launching” their Strategic Plan with a community party, complete with an Academy Award. Yep, Oscar - the big, heavy gold guy.
Academy Award winner Colin Chilvers, renowned for his creative visual effects on movies such as Superman, Tommy and X-Men, applauded the Innisfil PL’s strategies: “I like helping people sell their ideas,” he said, “These people are trying to bring different things to the library, not just books. I’m happy to be here; not enough people support the library.”
Colin Chilvers, with his friend "Oscar" speaks at the Innisfil PL's Strategic Plan Launch
The Library’s strategies are to position the Library a hub for discovery and exploration, design and construct creative, collaborative space, develop a strong community presence, and cultivate a “hacker ethic,” and foster a culture of innovation. Their unveiling of the Plan touched on all of their strategies — bringing the community together in a fun Saturday evening, with live music, staff demonstrating their 3D printer and digital repository for community history, and Library alive with conversation, interest and laughter. A local business owner spoke of the recent “Let Us Surprise You” community contest in which the Library partnered with Hardie and Company, a local advertising and branding company, saying “I am continuously impressed with the initiatives of the Innisfil Public Library to unify our communities”.
We’ve always admired
Continue reading Oscar-Winner Launches Innisfil’s Strategic Plan
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on April 13th, 2012 Smitty Miller, Community Develop Librarian for Fraser Valley Regional Library (Abbotsford, British Columbia) ”gets it.” She REALLY “gets it.” She “gets” that libraries need to be “in” the community, not just think the community is going to come “in” to the library. She “gets” that community development is about interaction and conversation. She “gets” that the library needs to be a fun, happening place, connecting with people where people are — “at food banks, shelters, senior homes, and other community hubs.” And she’s done it. WOW has she done it!
I had the absolute privilege of meeting Smitty 2 years ago when she’d been asked to lead the Library’s project to bring in a book mobile service. After doing her research into bookmobiles (if you want to know anything about bookmobiles, just ask her — the conversation is worth it – she’s infectious!), she put forth to the Library that developing deeper inroads (ok, the pun IS intended) with the community demanded a different type of librarymobile. Different they got.
This is LiLi – Library Live and On Tour! A “mobile initiative’ LiLi is a 2012 Nissan Cube, designed to deliver the library to people by “shattering stereotypes and misconceptions about library services. LiLi is an adult literacy initiative “targeting folks aged 19+”, first by getting their attention, then prompting conversations, making friends and then offering services.
LiLi, “the coolest little library car you’ll ever see” features: undercarriage glow (oh yeah!!) the back opens to reveal a mounted 40″ plasma digital
Continue reading Now THAT’S a Mobile Library!
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on April 9th, 2012 Great news for those of us that cherish high-quality news and authoritative articles about the information industry: Gary Price and INFOdocket have joined Library Journal! “As it has been in the past, INFOdocket will continue to be the place to find hand-picked news, reports, and links related to the hot library and publishing topics of the day. But now it will also serve as something of a first-pass site, providing context and coverage that will feed into the full reporting coming from the LJ News team.” Congrats to both Library Journal and INFOdocket!
Rebecca Jones posted this in Conferences, Lib, IM, KM on March 30th, 2012 Purdue University’s Management and Economics Library has undergone a complete redesign. Hal Kirkwood, Associate Head of the Library and Tomalee Doan, Division Head of Business Libraries, shared the Library’s experience at CIL2012’s post-conference workshop, Transforming Services & Spaces. Their focus was to create spaces totally aligned with their vision:
And they did so in carefully managed phases.
Check out their prezi. And thanks to Hal and Tomalee for sharing their insights with us.
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM, Planning on March 17th, 2012 Kathy Dempsey, marketing maven of Libraries are Essential, and I are presenting at Computers in Libraries 2012 on ways to “Imagine and Dream Big About Your Library.“ Creating a vision is an action. It is not sitting at tables wordsmithing a slogan. It is about envisioning the future that you, the Board, staff, and senior management want the library to have; it is really no different than envisioning your home – your meal – your career – your life. Yes, things happen, and that’s no excuse not to envision or design your future. Kathy and I will discuss important and successful it is for libraries to get off their chairs, charge their imaginations, don their dreams and stand in the future they want their library — their communities — their campuses — their organizations — to experience. Here’s my slides. Oh – and here’s one of my favourite quotes about the importance of positive futures – and standing in that future. Richard Seymour, one of the world’s foremost designers of seymourpowell says:
“We make the future; it doesn’t just happen. If you stand in the future and, then, draw the present towards you in a series of stepping stones, then, you’re liberated to a view of what’s going to happen that nobody else has got.”
and
“Designers cannot be, by definition, pessimists. It just doesn’t go with the job. We’re supposed to be defining the future, aren’t we? [...] If we can’t see the world as a better
Continue reading Visioning: Stand in that Future
This is a follow-up to “EPL: Extraordinary Public Libraries” describing how Edmonton and Halifax Public Libraries are integrating library services into communities. Thanks Ken Williment for alerting me to an article he & Pilar Martinez recently published in the Swedish BIS: bibliotek i samhalle. Ken, Community Development Manager @ Halifax Public Libraries and Pilar, Executive Director Public Services @ Edmonton, wrote Canadian Libraries: Innovating & Creating Inclusive Services. It details the development of their respective community-led services and Halifax’ asset mapping. At a time when many North American public libraries are touring Europe to learn from the innovative libraries there, it’s great to see a European profiling Canadian innovation.
On the one hand, I’m still a bit amazed — ok, a lot amazed — that it has taken us this long to grasp the fact that “community-led” services should be the heart of libraries’ service portfolios. It’s one of those smack-my-forehead-this-is-so-obvious moments for us as a profession and for the library sector. On the other hand, I’m relieved and delighted that we are on the right track — and that Edmonton, Halifax, Vancouver, Regina & other public libraries are leading and willingly helping public libraries along that track to transition their services from librarian-led to community-led.
Edmonton Public Library's Community-Led Toolkit – available for all
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on March 11th, 2012 Jeff Wisniewski of University of Pittsburg updated the crowd at NYPL’s “Engaging Communitities, Promoting Learning” conferenceon the current state of mobile, and encouraged them to consider the implications for libraries. I adore Jeff – he is intelligent, knowledgeable, articulate, incredibly funny, and a fantastic speaker. Plus – he’s just a great guy. Here’s his main points, which every library needs to consider (and I know if I didn’t get things right, he’ll correct me!):
Jeff, Ruth Kneale (left) & Amy Buckland (right) at Internet Librarian 2011main points, which every library needs to consider (and I know if I didn't get things right, he'll correct me!):
mobile is moving beyond being a utility for connecting people to the library to being a place for integrating content into workflows and processes for people; this integration allows mobile to be a place in which people engage, innovate and build communities; apps no longer just allow libraries to contact people, but now to bring content alive for people new superphones are merging tablets & phones with 5″ screens (imagine the possibilities for libraries) Library Journal’s Patron Profiles are incredibly informative. Among other things, these Profiles tell us that: library users who prefer e-books are more “active library patrons” who visit the library more and read more books 23% of patrons couldn’t get e-books because of technical difficulty, and 44% couldn’t get e-book titles they wanted
Apps Libraries Need to Pay Attention to & Leap Frog From:
TeenBookFinder - produced by Young Adults ALA & to be
Continue reading Mobile Apps: Implications for Libraries
Rebecca Jones posted this in Lib, IM, KM on March 8th, 2012 Actually, EPL.ca is Edmonton Public Library. I’ve referred to it as both “Extraordinary Public Library” and “Engaging Public Library” for its work in truly embedding itself into its communities to do what public libraries are meant to do: make a positive difference for the people in the community. While this is the mission of many public libraries, EPL takes deliberate steps to actually live its mission:
“Our mission is simple. We share! We share with our city, our community, our customers and ourselves. We share stories, ideas and experiences. We share our space! We are Edmonton’s largest lender of all kinds of information and entertainment. Our greatest passion is creating connections that help, grow, inspire and change.”
Last week at New York Public Library’s “Engaging Communities, Promoting Learning” conference developed by Information Today Inc., Pilar Martinez, Executive Director of Public Services for EPL spoke on a panel about EPL’s experiences and then delivered a powerful, packed workshop on the Roadmap for Reaching Out to & Working With Communities. EPL’s Community-Led Service Philosophy Toolkit (revised July 2011) is available on their website. Just by making this rich resource available EPL is demonstrating that they reach out to all communities, including the library community or, for that matter, the social service and public service communities; this Toolkit can and should be used by any organization focused on positive impacts within a neighbourhood or constituency. The excitement was palpable in the room that attendees could freely access this incredible tool after the workshop.
Continue reading EPL.ca: Engaging Public Library
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What’s Impacting Our Future?
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