Author Archive
Blog Day Bandwagon
So it seems that the Library Garden is celebrating Blog Day a day late — but I really feel the need to give back some link love especially since we got a few mentions yesterday in the biblioblogosphere on the real Blog Day.
I read Pete’s post while it was still in draft mode and feel like I should just post a big Yeah That! to the blogs Pete recommends. But that would be taking the easy way out, so instead I will discuss (in no particular order) 5 entirely different blogs that I read regularly:
- The “M” Word — a blog designed to bring the wonderful world of marketing to librarians. Nancy Dowd works for the NJ State Library as a marketing specialist and as she states in her profile, she is dedicated to showing how anyone can market their library- even with a small budget and staff. 🙂 Nancy’s enthusiam and energy shine through in her posts and she has lots of great tips and advice for everyone who wants to market themselves and their libraries better.
- Something New Every Day I stumbled upon this blog quite recently via a Technorati search and was really drawn in to several of the posts [especially the one on Karen Hyman’s Rule of 1965]. I have had it in my feed for the last few weeks and am enjoying the thoughts and observations of this blogger from Wisconsin. [note: I am not giving link love here simply because SNED listed us in their Blog Day post, I really and truly would have mentioned them since they are the most recently added blog to my feed and since I am liking what I am reading.]
- Also new to my aggregrator is John Klima’s newest blog Library Angst. John worked for me as an tech assistant and library intern while he was completing his MLIS at Rutgers. His first professinal position is a combination of teen librarian and system librarian. His posts on his first attempt at running a summer reading club for teens have been inspiring — he has really given it his all, come up with creative activities and had a good sense of humor about the whole experience. Way to go John.
- The Liminal Librarian: Rachel’s blog began around the same time we started Library Garden and I have been following her posts since Day 1. She “speaks” to me on several levels. I also like how she is not afraid to tackle issues and how she is honest about the struggle to find a balance between career and family. I hope I get to meet Rachel at CIL this year since she was unable to make the Blogger’s Bash in New Orleans.
- My list would not be complete without giving kudos to Pop Goes the Library. I love my pop culture (especially celebrity magazines) and I love how this group blog combines pop culture seamlessly with librarianship. PGTL is not new, but it is certainly too good not to mention.
If I am having a busy day and don’t have time to read all my feeds then I simply check TTW and FRL — they are my two “must reads”. I consider Michael to be a human aggregator who invariably directs me to what I would be interested in reading that day in any event and I love to check up on Karen daily as I never know what I will find (everything from recipes to rants to reviews and beyond).
It was hard sticking to 5 (and I really didn’t since I stuck in 2 extras in that last paragraph). I think, however, I will play by the rules and stick to 5 for my first Blog Day post.
New Flickr Photo Pool for New Jersey Libraries
On August 23rd Sophie Brookover, Robert Lackie and I presented “Better Communication with Web 2.o Tools” for a CJRLC workshop that was attended by their executive board and other key players in the Central Jersey library region. It was a fun day and it was great to see all the ideas generated by the group on how blogs, wikis and other 2.0 tools could be used to expand services and improve communication.
Just before the lunch break Connie Paul, the executive director of CJRLC, suggested the idea that a Flickr photo pool be created to promote all libraries inNew Jersey and asked us to coordinate. The photo pool has been established and is ready for members and the addition of lots of photos that will showcase Garden State library buildings and programs.
If you have photos of New Jersey libraries, please join and contribute at http://flickr.com/groups/njlibraries/
The Wizard of Oz Meets Pink Floyd
It is 8 pm on a Friday night and I am posting live from the reference desk at the same time as we have hugely successful (but oh so simple) program happening downstairs in our community room. The room is packed to standing room only with around 150 people who are all watching and listening to a synchronized screening of the film The Wizard of Oz to the album Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.
If you have never heard of doing this before, do a quick online search and you will find that there are quite a few web sites devoted to this topic — like The Dark Side of Oz and Dark Side of the Rainbow. One of my colleagues took over the desk for 10 minutes so I could go down and experience this for myself. I got to witness the tornado scene and the landing of the house in Oz… and it was awesome (especially with our state of the art surround system cranked to full-blast and the film projected on our giant screen).
In order to achieve the desired timing and effect, you must pause the CD and not start it until the MGM lion roars for the 3rd time. The syncrhoncity really does make you pause and go “hmmmm” even though Pink Floyd will not confirm if the rumor is true that this album was designed to be an alternative soundtrack for Oz. Try it at home if you haven’t already…
Quite frankly, we are a little shocked at how many people are here on a Friday night for this event. We expected maybe 40 or 50 to show up and instead we have a full-house with people of all ages from tweens to seniors. It just goes to show that you never know what will appeal to the community you serve. Kudos to Susan Conlon, our Teen Librarian, for this unique programming idea!
Well Said!
I am bookmarking this brief interview with Dan Nova for reference in future classes, lectures, and workshops on 2.0 — it is concise and clear. In particular, I will be including Dan’s way of explaining the key difference between Web 1.o and 2.0:
You talk a lot about Web 1.0, the Internet boom in the late ’90s, and the next wave, Web 2.0. What’s the difference?
When you look at 1.0, it was really the democratization of access to information. Whether you’re sitting in a Harvard law library or a row house in Dublin or a grass hut in Africa, as long as you could access the Internet, you had access to the same information as everyone else.
And Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 is really the democratization of participation. When you think about the blogs and the wikis and the MySpaces, what’s really happening is now everyone has a voice. Your currency in the 2.0 world is only based on the strength and credibility of your writing or your argument. We’ve gone from where it used to be “If you build it, they will come.” Now it’s “If they build it, they will come.” I’m actually more excited about 2.0 than I was about 1.0.
Just thought I would share in case others wanted to bookmark it too.
Kindergarten Send-Off
The North Adams Public Library has found a great way to commemorate a special occasion — starting Kindergarten!
According to iBerkshires.com, all parents should bring their child in “at any time to meet the children’s librarians, get a library card, and pick out books from the “First Day of School” collection”. In addition, they are having a special event on August 24th that will involve crafts, prizes and food. I love this idea. Read about it here and here!
Clickety-Clack, Clickety-Clack
Just a quick observation and an inquiry for a Friday afternoon.
When we moved in to our lovely new state-of-the-art library a few years back we debated whether we should take with us our one remaining electric typewriter that worked with any sort of reliability. We used to have several typewriters and they were once very popular, but we wondered if we still needed on for public use.
For the last month or so I have been keeping an eye on our one lonely typewriter that is tucked away in a corner on our 2nd floor and am somewhat surprised by the amount of use it still gets. Several times each week I have observed a variety of people of all ages using it for filling out forms, typing letters, and so on. A few people have looked positively relieved when tell them “Yes, we still have a typewriter”. In fact, I find something comforting in hearing the clickety-clack of the keys and knowing that even though we are wired to the hilt with 100+ computers for use by the public we have decided to keep our typewriter for those that still need it or rely on it.
How many other libraries still maintain a typewriter or two for use by their patrons? Is it still in good use or is it collecting dust? I am just curious to see if my observations match those of other libraries.
DOPA Update
The results have been posted for today’s vote. I am not at all surprised by the outcome, but I am a little shocked at the final numbers on the vote. Only 15 Democratic representatives took a stand and said Nay while a whopping 410 gave it a resound Yea. This article posted a few hours ago on ZDNet sums it up better than I can at this late hour.
New on my blogroll
Too good not to share — interesting reading and a great way to promote the work done behind the scenes by special librarians in the publishing industry. Ask the Librarianshas the potential to be a great column on the always fascinating Emdashes blog!
Flickr’s "Tubes" are clogged!
I am sitting here have a good laugh — Flickr is currently down and they have decided to blame it on “clogged tubes“. Instead of just saying “we are down for maintenance”, they have chosen to do something that is both creative and funny for their users in order to make up for it. How cool is that? So, hurry over, print out the tubes and grab your crayons to enter the colouring contest! I would enter but I have zero artistic ability.
The Power of Online Community
Warning: This post is going to be a bit on the personal side. I know that many feel it good practice to keep posts of a personal nature in a separate personal blog (most notably Rory Litwin over at Library Juice) and I tend to actually fall in to this camp even though I blog a lot about MPOW. So, if this is too personal for a professional blog, you can all blame Karen Schneider. We had a great conversation at the Blogger’s Bash in NOLA and she encouraged me to share a bit more of myself on Library Garden and (in specific) this story. Since I can make this somewhat library-related I am posting it, albeit with some trepdiation.
It was two years ago today my husband and I stood before a judge in a Russian court and were declared to be the legal parents of the most precious nine-month old boy who was then living in an orphanage in the City of St. Petersburg. We were finally a family and it was the best moment of my life. As I sit here writing this I am misty-eyed at the memory. I am still in awe 2 years later that this amazing child is our son.
Where does the library connection come in? I have spoken at length with Chrystie Hill about the Libraries Build Comminites project she is doing with Steven Cohen and next week Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine will be in Princeton to deliver a 5 hour hours session to a standing room only audience of their popular 4C’s Roadshow — the C’s stand for Conversation, Community, Connection, and Collaboration”. The words community and connection being key here.
There is a buzz in the profession about libraries building and transforming communities and a part of the library 2.o movement extends that to creating connections online. But, there are still skeptics (I have met them and there are more than a few) who have yet to experience meaningful connection in an online community and have a hard time believing that the connections established virtually can be as meaningful as those established In Real Life (IRL).
I have a story to tell related to the adoption of our son and it is a story about the power of online community and of transforming that virtual connection in to something meaningful IRL. Perhaps my story will help convince the skeptics. I will try to keep this brief, but the story is long so forgive me.
In Jul 2003 my husband and I decided to make our dream of becoming a family a reality by adopting and after much soul-searching we felt that Russia was our destiny. One of the first things I did was sign up with several adoption-related virtual communities and online forums. I joined to seek information and in the end found the best support network that I have ever had in my life. If I had not joined these virtual communities and found suport during our long and arduous adoption process, I am not sure I would have made it — and I really mean it.
We received a referral for a beautiful baby boy in February 2004 and made our first trip to meet our son in early April. We were told we would be back in about 4 weeks for our court date. We got home and 2 days later, before we had unpacked, we got a call saying that we should come back in 10 days.
On April 19th we went to court and everything fell apart. The details are not relevant to this story, so lets just say that we got caught in the middle of a political struggle and our adoption proceeding was halted after one of the most confusing and agonizing hours of our lives. It was devastating and there was nothing we could do to it change before our visas expired, so we ended up spending our wedding anniversary flying away from Russia and every mile across the Atlantic was another mile between us and our son — a little boy whom with whom we had already bonded and who had a nursery waiting for for him back home in NJ.
It was then that I experienced the power of virtual community. My online friends, several of whom lived in NJ and had become IRL friends by this time, rallied behind us even though we had known them for but a few months. They understood in a way that no one else could what we were feeling. They knew the raw emotion of going to court in Russia where adoption proceedings can and often do go on for hours. They could understand like no one else the shock of despair at having the proceedings halted. They understood how this baby boy was already fully our son in our hearts if not our home.
Those that had made the journey to Russia or were in the middle of it understood the emotional and physical investment and were able to support us like no one else could. Our family, friends and colleagues tried their hardest and were a big help, but it was the online community that got me through some of my deepest moments of despair. Every single day without fail I got an IM, email or phone call from one of my “forum friends” — they made sure of this. When I was having a hard time functioning, they kept me going. One friend sent me the poem “Kisses in the Wind” and I ended up repeating that poem every night for it allowed me keep believing he would come home.
My husband and I did not give up, though some told us we should. We knew he was meant to be our son. We filed appeals, jumped through hoops, redid paperwork, and did everything else we could so that we would be allowed to go back for another court hearing. At times we were told he would never be ours, but we couldn’t give up. Finally, 10 weeks after we stood in court for the first time, we got “the call” that we had another hearing and a mere 9 days later we were on a plane to Russia for the third time.
Our 2nd court hearing was surreal and nothing like the first — it was like being in the twilight zone. I actually don’t remember much as I was just hoping I wouldn’t pass out from nerves, but I will always remember the moment when the judge returned after what seemed like an eternity from deliberations and declared us finally to be the parents to the child of our hearts. The sadness of our long months apart faded and only joy remained.
It is incredible to me that two years has gone by since that day — it seems like so long ago and just yesterday all at the same time. July 14th is a day we celebrate in our house as “family day” and it is now one of my favorite days of the year as we do something special as a family — just the three of us.
The friends that I made from a variety of virtual communities are some of my closest friends IRL to do this day. Many live in NJ and we get together frequently for special occasions and regular play dates. Two of the children in our group from NJ share an even closer connection with my son — all 3 were born within 3 weeks of each other and they all spent the first nine months of their lives in the same room at the same baby home. These 3 happy active toddlers were in a Russian orphanage together as infants and now they are growing up together in NJ thanks to the power of online community.
Okay, this is the longer than I thought it would be but I don’t how to shorten it and describe the impact that online community had on my life. I feel like I should draw some insightful conclusions, but at this point I want to mostly let this post stand as a tribute to power of community and connections — and to the little boy that I just kissed while he slept soundly in his crib… the same boy that I used to blow kisses to in the wind and whom I feel blessed every day to have in my life.
Library Garden 
