PALS Plus Blog

On September 10th, librarians will be “slammin’ the boards”–logging into internet “answer” sites and answering questions. Slam the Boards a brainchild of Bill Pardue, a “virtual services” librarian in Illinois is quietly gathering its forces, and I can’t wait to see what happens. My own children are obsessed by Yahoo Answers–they love answering questions, and heaven knows what they are posting in their “expert” voices. So, what a glorious revolutionary thing that librarians–people PAID to provide information–will be posting answers on places that people are asking questions! It is a great marketing campaign–answer the question, and make sure you give your credentials and perhaps a link to a more “authoritative” place to go and ask questions. I hope that PALS Plus librarians take part, showing what awesome reference service we can provide.

I’ve got a lot of work today today. I have to keep on top of what’s happening in Bloomingdale (where they are trying to close the public library), in Passaic (where they have apparently moved from the “gold coast” of Bergen County to my poor little “county-based” system), in my office (which is overrun with paperwork coverring my desk), in my house (where my kids will be after their day-camp ends at 2:30–clearly NOT a daycamp for moms who work outside the home!), etc.

But, I took the time to read my bloglines feeds, and happened upon Garrison Keillor’s latest column.

Keillor says of his childhood library:

in the library, you didn’t have to perform for the librarian. She simply presided over an orderly world in which you had the freedom of your own imagination. The silence was not repressive but liberating: to allow your imagination to play, uninhibited by others.

So, I’m not sure that the silence is really what I want to focus on, but the image of the library as a place to allow your imagination to play, uninhibited by others has me absolutely breathless.

I want to make sure that libraries STAY as the place to let our users imaginations play.

Most of us are familiar with the Chinese curse which says “May you live in interesting times”. (To digress a bit, Wikipedia tells me that there really ISN’T a Chinese curse that says that, but since Robert Kennedy used the phrase in his “Day of Affirmation” speech, I’m going to use it as well!) Living in these times of great change in the web world is both fascinating and frustrating. We continue to play and experiment with new tools so that we can decide (and help others decide) which ones are useful and which ones are just time-suckers. Sometimes we hit dead ends, but we’ve all enjoyed the learning experience.

PALS Plus is about to embark on a learning experience call “Fall into 2.0″, where we follow the Learning 2.0 model and help the staff of PALS Plus libraries navigate the new tools. Logically, it made sense that we use these same tools to design the class. But, there are so MANY tools that I’m confused about which one is best for which thing.

So, the hardest part of “living in interesting times” right now is choosing the right tool. I just saw an announcement that Unshelved is running a 2nd “Pimp My Bookcart” contest, and I want to tell PALS Plus libraries so that we can come up with the winning bookcart. Where will they read it? Most of them are still living in a Web 1.0 world–so sending a group e-mail is probably the best way to get them right now. In October, where will they read it? Many of them will be in the middle of their 2.0 learning, so there will be a few PALS Plus places I can put it, and if they have RSS readers, they’ll know about it or Feedblitz will send them an e-mail telling them I updated the blog or website. If I want to tell them about the 3rd annual contest next June, where will I post it? Perhaps some things will have settled out in that year, and it will be more obvious to me. Or, maybe, the times will stay interesting and I still won’t know.

I spent my evening in Bloomingdale last night. I was there to support the library, as the mayor and council were working on a decision to close the library, paying a neighboring community to provide library services. Although I was able to provide some important information, it turned out that instead of the night being about me supporting Bloomingdale, it became a night for Bloomingdale to support me. I sat there for a few hours and listened to library user after library user explain why the Bloomingdale Library was important to them. The school children talked about it being the place they met their first friends when their moms brought them to storytime. The Middle Schoolers talked about the importance of being able to find research material, and how helpful the staff was in guiding them on their research. They also liked having it be a place they could bike to. A recent PhD recipient talked about how the library was the place she researched her college and scholarship applications, and the place where she researched the company where she is about to begin her first professional job. Parents discussed the importance to their family; local homeowners and realtors discussed the importance of a library to a town. Adult students spoke about the ILL services that the library provided. Senior citizens spoke about the easy access to reading material. As a librarian, I just sat there and let it fill my heart with joy. The Bloomingdale Council voted to bring the issue to referendum, and let the people decide. So, the Bloomingdale Library has a job to do this summer and next fall, marshaling voters to come out and support the library. Not necessarily an easy job, but there were over 300 library supporters at the meeting last night, and volunteers collected over 1,000 signatures. There are lots of things that a library can and should do that the Bloomingdale residents didn’t speak of, but much of that involves needing more space, which they will hopefully achieve someday. In the meantime, library lovers are alive and well in Bloomingdale. Wish them well, and wish them strength as they continue to fight for something they truly believe in.

Christopher Harris of Infomancy fame recently posted a success story about how they used 2.0 tools to make reading a social event for the 6th graders in one of his school districts. Check out the blogpost

There are two things that really hit me: the students LOVED being able to post reviews of their books online and that a simple reward system really worked well for them. (Homemade buttons as social currency!) And, he also thought that the reward ceremonies were important. We’ll need to incorporate that in our own Fall into 2.0 classes!

I’ve recently decided that Technolust is actually a really GOOD thing for me to have, and I have stopped pushing these lustful thoughts down and started thinking about how the new tools (not toys) that I want will increase my ability to be a more productive person or how they will help my libraries become better places. To that end, I recently bought a tablet PC, so that I can actually FIND the notes I take a meetings. (Plus, it’s actually a good lightweight laptop). I’m looking at Blackberries. But, now, I’m dying for one of these:

Microsoft Surface
(I wanted to embed the video, but my Blog and Youtube aren’t working well together right now!)

John Blyberg posted a brief blog about it, and you can see all of the Microsoft videos on Youtube. Think about what we could do with something like this!