At CIL2013Brent Leary of CRM Essentials discussed how Amazon uses its data to design and drive customized experiences for customers. Libraries absolutely must mine and use their data in the same way — always mindful of privacy issues – and yet using their funding to create and deliver the best experiences for their residents, students, faculty or clients.
Great talk this morning at Computer in Libraries 2013 from Storm Cunninghamon Libraries as Community Revitalizers!Hi first two books, The Restoration Economy & reWealth, led the way for his forthcoming, Revitalization due out later this year. Storm shared ideas from all his books which have built to the latest message covering restorative development, citizen leadership and crowd technologies. He gave terrific examples which I hope stimulate lots of ideas for future citizen-led, restorative development, using crown technologies to fund and promote libraries as part of community projects! You’ll be hearing more from me on this topic! Watch the video and keep your eyes open for this new book.
This poster was developed by: Sajni Lacey, Student
This poster provides an overview of the discourse currently available on the crisis culture in librarianship and tries to understand why librarians have consistently predicted the demise of the library and librarianship over the past few decades. A brief examination of the literature points to fears over the economy, advancements in technology and communication within the profession have developed this crisis culture. An analysis of what this means for the future of librarianship and what we can do to improve this discourse indicates that librarianship is in a period of tremendous change with enormous potential.
Sunday morning at Computers in Libraries, I listened to Brian Pickman from Evolve Project talk about the library spaces he has helped redesign. I was inspired by his excitement and passion for what we can do with our existing spaces – even when we don’t have the budget for the big reno – to really deliver value to our public. The answer is in engagement. As Brian said: “We are creating fabulous spaces – but are failing to engage. Our new library spaces must allow for patrons and staff to engage.” Even better: our patrons have already told us how to engage them: they want maker spaces to DO things; they want more study areas; they want more open space where they can change up the environment to suit themselves. All we have to do is listen!
5 Keys to Drive Engagement:
Create and Invent – by this, we mean inviting our PATRONS to create and invent. One suggestion for a kids’ space: put up a cork board and use coloured golf tees as pushpins – allows the kids to draw or write anything they are interested in and pin it to the wall. Doubles as free “art”!
Discovery – we can get obsessed about discovery-layer technologies. What about just turning the picture books face out to enable discovery?
Collaboration – a smart table – which operates as a horizontal smart board – offers all the interactivity but around a table to ensure everyone gets to participate!
Interaction – ensure all your seating accommodates teens’ need to cluster together. All you need are a few soft couches!
Innovation – if you haven’t seen the sound egg chair, this is the answer to libraries looking to enable students to plug in their iPods, play on their game stations – all with the surround-sound comfort of their own egg !
More innovation:
Be innovative with your policies. Instead of fining kids for late books, waive their fine if they write a book review / draw a picture about that book that gets posted to your bulletin board. This way, you remove the pressure from the kids to have to ask their parents for money to pay their book fine – which results in the library experience being a negative one instead of the positive one it should be.
Be innovative with your staff involvement. Identify staff by their interests – and make them the resident expert on that topic. For example, if you have a staff member who is particularly interested in cooking, they become that resident subject expert who can be called on to assist a patron who is looking at cookbooks and is wondering about recipes.
Be innovative with gadgets. Brian created an interactive game where kids followed a sphero ball that acted as a guide to the library.
We closed with looking at photos of some of the attendees libraries with Brian offering some quick design fixes to challenges many libraries face:
Challenge: All white walls. Brian’s answer: “WOW! Can you paint those walls? Maybe red? Any colour that won’t make your students think ‘white = school = boring’. ”
Challenge: An overwhelming circulation desk in the middle of the space. Brian’s answer: “Do you LIKE that circ desk? No? Well, then, shrink it down to accommodate only two circ staff who would be standing – and send your other circ person out to roam and engage your patrons!”
Challenge: A large staff office space that really needs to be reintegrated into the main library space / maybe converted to digital resources space. Brian’s answer: “So … the problem really is that your librarian is not on board with that change … even though it would really bring your library into this century and engage your students.” (Comment from the floor: that librarian should realize that there are LOTS of librarians out there …)
Not all library space redesign needs to be costly. Start with what you have. How can that space be re-imagined? Maybe just paint the walls and tables. Maybe buy some new soft, light stools that can be moved around by patrons at their will. Once you’ve gone that far, take another look and think of what else you can re-imagine. Create the fab space – and ensure your patrons are engaged.
We all attend workshops to gain 1 or 2 new ideas that we can actually DO something with. Certainly when we design workshops that’s our intent; we want to ensure participants leave the workshop with something they will act upon. We want the workshop to make a difference for participants.
This poster was developed by: Vincci Lui, McGill University, Macdonald Campus Library
What’s a librarian to do when their annual in-class visit gets postponed due to a packed syllabus? Every October, freshmen at McGill University’s Macdonald Campus are given an overview on how to effectively use library resources and services. Last fall, this usually carefully-timed orientation session was pushed to later in the term -after some students had already attended another library workshop, and well after their first library visit. Find out how the use of flexibly-structured PowerPoint slides and an interactive clicker polling strategy uncovered library misconceptions, empowered students to determine session content, and addressed knowledge gaps.
Yesterday’s Google doodle made me think of reflection and regeneration which is what I see little lizards doing in warm southern climates. They stay very still in the sun, I figure reflecting. How many of us, stop, stay still, don’t answer texts, emails, phone calls, etc. for a few minutes — and reflect or think. And if your children were like mine, they loved to chase these little guys and were shocked when their tails came off — but they regenerate. How do we regenerate? We are coming into conference season, starting for us atComputers in Libraries 2013 in DC next week and Building Smarter Organizations in Toronto on May 14th . I think conferences are the perfect places to take in new and exciting ideas, insights, experiences and practices of colleagues. To reflect upon those insights in our own contexts and take the best and most innovative and regenerate our own services and products. Hope you take time to get the most out of spring conferences, taking the time to reflect and use your new knowledge and learnings to regenerate yourself and the world around you!
New York Public Library does it again. For months we’ve been showing Boards and public library staff the subway station library in Romania with the incredible potential of fully integrating the look & feel of traditional libraries with the flexibility and mobility of digital publishing and QR codes. And now there is New York Public Library’s subway application. We can all see the potential, learn from these other libraries and copy….er…..adopt & adapt these ideas for our own unique situations.
This poster was developed by: Amanda Wilk, Haliburton County Public Library
As with literature, theatre holds the power to take viewers on a journey, in which they are able to witness worlds separate from their own, and gain a greater understanding of the society they are a part of as well as themselves. The reading, acting, and debating of theatrical works is a literary skill that is being cultivated at Haliburton County Public Library through the creation of a Shakespeare Club. This poster highlights the development of this Shakespeare based program, and discusses the important role theatre can play in public library environments.
This is one of the most important presentations I’ve seen on augmented reality, 3D books, & other technologies IN USE TODAY. Yes, in use today. The ways in which these technologies are being used in some libraries – and can be used, AND the impact on metadata are fascinating. Even for you librarians rolling your eyes that you “don’t do” cataloguing or “deal with metadata” watch this. Get over the fact that it is about Bavaria. It is about our profession. He raises the question of whether visual search eliminates the need for metadata. This is a pretty important question – and goes to the core of our profession. Thanks, Gary Price, for blogging this in Library Journal. I would never know about half the things I need to keep up on without Gary and Stephen Abram — two amazing librarians who actually understand the service part and the underpinnings (cataloguing & tagging) of our profession. Get your coffee – or tea – or beer – I don’t care what…..and watch this. The real details start at about 12 minutes, so if you have to, fast forward to that point:
