Author Archive
2.0 — Tiresome Already?
I have wondered how long it would be before we started seeing mainstream backlash against the 2.o meme. A few minutes ago I found Too tired of 2.o, a June 26th editorial by Steve Fox of InfoWorld in which he first declares:
First the “next wave” moniker was clever, then it was useful. Now it’s just plain annoying.
He later states:
Enough already. The label 2.0 has become so overused that it is now a tic, a reflex action, a device that gets trotted out because someone thinks it sounds both hip and techie. And it did — for a while. Now it’s tired.
Mr. Fox does clarify to say that he is okay with Web 2.0 as a term and in fact it is all the other 2.o talk that is making him tired.
I can’t say that I agree with him on all accounts (or even most), but I have been concerned that the overuse of 2.o would eventually lead to this type of reaction. Will Library 2.o as a term suffer the same overuse backlash from our profession? Just some food for thought from me during my lunch break.
Movin’ on Up
Nope, not to a deluxe apartment in the sky … but I did get a promotion today and feel the need to share my news. I am really excited about my new position and am looking forward to having some new challenges and projects to tackle. Here is the announcement that came from Leslie Burger to our staff this afternoon to make it official:
I am pleased to announce that Janie Hermann has been appointed as the library’s program coordinator. During the next few weeks Janie will be working side by side with Sue Roth to ensure that we make a smooth transition when Sue retires. Janie brings a great deal of experience to the programming position not only with the terrific work she has done here with the technology programming but also from her work in planning several NJLA conferences. Please join me in wishing Janie all the best in her new position.
I have some very big shoes to fill in accepting this position. Sue Roth has done an outstanding job as our program coordinator for the last 7 years and there are literally very few areas that Princeton Public Library has not yet covered in the breadth of our programming efforts under Sue’s guidance. She is a woman of endless ideas with the ability to transform her ideas to reality. As well as a good steady offering of traditional programs such as book discussion groups and author events, we have had everything from a “summer dance blast in the stacks” to opera performances — we even had a “librarypalooza” one year. I will miss working with Sue, she has been my unofficial mentor for the last several years, and I wish her all the best as she embraces new opportunities and roles in retirement.
I will still be supervising the technology training program in addition to my new responsibilities. My time at the reference desk will be cut significantly, but I will still be out on the floor at a public service desk connecting with the community for 8 hours per week. Exciting times ahead as I make this transition. Now I am just waiting on Leslie to post the Chief Innovator position so I can apply 😉
World Cup Final @ PPL
I have finally found the time to upload the photos from Sunday’s final game of the World Cup to my flickr account. It was an amazing afterrnoon with a capacity crowd , lots of loud cheers, collective groans and a sense of community.
I tried to do a few head counts, the numbers varied over the course of the afternoon. We had somewhere around 100 or slightly more for the better part of the game, but during the final 30 minutes later in the afternoon we had well over 150 if you count those watching the flat screens in the lobby.
I did some informal “investigative reporting” while I was at the game. I spoke with 10 people and 7 of the 10 were hoping for Italy to win (and this was likely indicative of the crowd given the big cheer at the end of the game).
1 older man told me he read about it in the newspaper and thought it sounded like a great place to watch the game.
2 younger men said they heard about it from a friend and came because their apartment didn’t have air conditioning.
1 woman said she came because her husband wanted to watch and she wanted to get out of the house. She floated in and out of the game with the kids (taking visits to the other parts of the library and downtown) and was mostly there to see the final winning moments.
The crowd was diverse in gender, ages and nationalities. It was a true slice of the community we serve.
After the game ended and the crowd was dispersing I watched to see what happened. About 1/3 left almost immediately, another 1/3 hung around, mingled and talked about the game, the final 1/3 went to check out materials, use the computers, or engage in some other library activity.
I am not a big soccer fan but I had a great time at this game. Maybe we should consider a Super Bowl party…
Soccer + Serendipity = Success @ PPL
Princeton Public Library has recently discovered that the axiom “the best plan is no plan” can sometimes be applied to outreach and programming at public libraries. We have had a unique experience for the last several weeks surrounding the World Cup — it is a story of serendipity, an unintentional buzz campaign, and common sense — it also has elements of a smart mob and lots of use of the old-fashioned grapevine method of communication.
In the early June Chris Ducko, our building manager, had a request from a patron if they could watch the afternoon match of a World Cup game somewhere in the library. Our high-tech community room was not being used, so Chris turned it on for him. The next day he came back with a few friends and from there the crowd continued to grow through word of mouth around town. We had suddenly become THE place in town to watch soccer! In fact, by the time we reached the match between France and Brazil we had a large crowd of about 70 who had gathered to watch and cheer on their team.
We had done no marketing and we had no plan to do this … but it was making people happy, so why not do it? I was at the reference desk on Thursday afternoon on the 2nd floor and I could hear the cheers coming clearly from our first floor community room.
We have a great community room with a large movie size screen of about 16×16 feet, a state-of-the-art surround sound system, air-conditioning, clean bathrooms close by and a great library cafe that offers coffee, soda and scrumptious food that can be eaten while you watch. For many people, our “community living room” offers better ammenities than their own homes, plus you get the excitement of watching with others.
This afternoon is the finals between France and Italy and we are expecting it to be packed to capacity. Our word of mouth phenomenon even got some press this past friday in an article that appeared in the Princeton Packet — an article that also occured by serendipty. A reporter was in the library interviewing Leslie Burger for a different article, one about her upcoming term as president of ALA, and noticed the crowd watching the game. He talked to a few staff members and we got a front page story as a result.
To highlight a bit of the article:
“There’s a good distribution of genders, nationalities — it’s exactly what the World Cup is about,” Mr. Keith said. “It’s very indicative of the shift in libraries.” He said Princeton Public Library’s goal is for the library to embrace all forms of media. “Why preferentially treat one type of media?” he asked. Mr. Keith described the soccer tournament as “the world getting together” and, he added, “This is our little piece of it.” Reader Services and Programming Librarian Sue Roth said the spontaneous gathering for matches has been “amazing.” She added, “It really is a sense of watching it with the community.”
Princeton Public Library has been called a “programming machine”, we offer over 1,000 programs on an annual basis, and yet one of our bigger success stories of this summer is something that we did not plan… makes you stop and go “hmmmmm”.
I am off to the library in a few moments. I will take some pictures to share… and write the final update on soccer mania at the library.
p.s./ We have also been showing Wimbledon matches between soccer games recently and we may try to cover the Tour de France as well… stay tuned.
Seeking Advice and Tips for Blogger Wannabes
I am preparing to teach a mini-course called Become a Blogger in PPL’s Technology Center in August. It will the first offering of this course and (if it is a success) it will be the cornerstone of a new Web 2.o category on our class calendar. In the last few months PPL has offered one-shot sessions on RSS, Wikipedia and “Fantastic Freebies“, but this our first concentrated effort to bring Web 2.0 to the masses in a meaningful and in-depth fashion. Next up is flickr and a repeat of the RSS session.
The course will be taught to the general public and I suspect that the students will have a wide-variety of skill levels and I also suspect (or should I say hope) that they will have an even wider variety of topics and interests that they will be using as the basis for new blogs.
I have much of the course outline prepared in terms of the technical aspects and am now working on “filling it out” to give it a more human touch. I was driving to work this morning and thought “Hey, it would be cool if I could include some advice from current bloggers to my class of blogger wannabes”. I want to create a collection of tips, quips, quotes that I can use to create a post for the Become a Blogger blog that I have set up to use as the course teaching tool.
I came across this great tip that I love, but I am sure I will have to tame it down a bit in order to include it in my class 😉 I also found this advice on How To Become An “A” List Blogger that was posted way back in 2003 on A Networked World that I will include on the class reading list. And of course I will include Eric Kintz’s recent article Why Blog Post Frequency Does Not Matter Anymore — an article that I am sure brough a collective sigh of relief across much of the blogopshere.
Still, I would like to compile a comprehensive list of lessons learned, advice, tips, quips, … well, you get the idea. Reply to this post with your pearls of wisdom and I will compile them for my class — and give you and your blog full attribution and a bit of “link love”, of course!
Congratulations Tulane University Libraries — The New Bookcart Drill Team World Champions!
I decided to take a short break and watch the Bookcart Drill Team World Championship today at the conference. The audience was large and the bookcart teams in attendance had lots of spirit. Last year there were 15 teams competing and this year the competition was considerably smaller with only 4 teams, but each team gave it their all and entertained the crowd with unique routines.
The team from Tulane (“Booked on New Orleans”) was the clear crowd favorite and earned a standing ovation after their performance that inspired everyone to clap along as they performed. They edged out the fabulous pink-wigged “Book Divas” from Houston to take the title. The Tulane team was formed a mere 6 weeks ago and had never performed before in public. They had a team motto of “We Just Don’t Care” and it was great to see a group of academic librarians get out there and truly strut their stuff to a medly of New Orleans jazz tunes. They had pizzazz, showmanship and pretty good precision too. The fact that they practiced in the moldy basement of their previously flooded library in order to partipcate truly demonstrates the spirit of New Orleans –way to go Tulane!
Bloggers meet Gulf Coast Librarians
Short summary for now — full details including photos (lots of them) to be posted later. Leslie and Alan hosted a marvelous event that brought together 50+ bloggers as well as more than a dozen librarians from New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Besides the food, fun, laughter and networking that occured, it was a chance for those in the biblioblogosphere to hear first hand about what the libraries in this region still need to get back on their feet.
The message was this: At this point they have no more room or ability to store donated books and used book drives are not going to get them where they need to go at this point. What they need is money to rebuild, rewire, purchase equipment, get the books out of storage and on to shelves so that they can begin to offer a full-range of services again. They are so appreciative of all that has been done to help rebuild, but they still have a long way to go and the real tragedy here is the lack of cold hard cash from a federal level to get back on their feet. Get this message out to your colleagues, your local press and to anyone else who might be able to help.
It was great to meet so many new people last night and I am already anticipating the next big blogger gathering — wherever that may be.
New Orleans — Report #1 from JanieH
I arrived in New Orleans late yesterday afternoon after a full 10 hours of travel. I could not get a direct flight at a reasonable price, so I flew from Philadelphia to Chicago and finally to New Orleans. My 90 minutes in Chicago was spent running from one end of the airport to the other as they changed gates for the oversold flight 3 times. It was great to arrive in the Big Easy and be greeted by an awesome Dixie band — it made all the hassle worthwhile and lifted my spirits.
The shuttle from the airport was very effecient. As we drove in to downtown New Orleans it was surprising to see the disparity between the few areas that were not affected as badly and/or have already been repaired and the majority of the city which still hase a long way to go before normalcy can resume. I felt awe and gratitude for those that have remained and are doing all they can to rebuild. I felt proud to be here and helping out (even if only in a small way when the scope of the situation is considered). I have always been proud to be a librarian, this week I feel just a little bit prouder.
I went immediately to the WebJunction member reception. I have been a WJ member for 3 years and have been a moderator on the Community Forums and a WJ Adovcate for almost the entire time. It was a wonderful reception — I got to catch up briefly with Chrystie Hill (we presented together at Internet Librarian in Monterey a few years back), meet Patrick Hogan of ALA Editions (I am going to be on the editorial board for the next few two years) and also have an insightful conversation with Walt. Oh, and I also got “George Needham’d”, but this was with the cardboard version and not the live version like Pete! If you are not yet a member of WebJunction, check it out when you have a moment. The community forums is where you will find me — posting under JanieH!
I am currently doing the exhibits and then have several events with CLENE that will keep me busy for the rest of the day. I am posting this from the Internet Cafe at the convention center because the wireless connection from my room at the Hilton does not seem to work PLUS it is expensive (hotels without free wireless are not acceptable, IMHO). I will post when I can get a connection.
ALA Blogger’s Bash
Just making sure that all who want to know are “in the know” about the final details.
It looks like this looks like it will be a huge event with 50+ bloggers in attendance plus the Gulf Coast Librarians and I am sure a few others. Trust me when I say that Leslie knows how to host a good party and this is sure to be a fun event.
Here are the details:
When: Saturday June 24th
Time: After the Scholarship Bash (10:30-ish to Midnight)
Where: Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel, Bienville Suite (27th floor)
2 Poydras Street, New Orleans
I am lookinig forward to seeing everyone in New Orleans [and to paying a visit to Aunt Sally for a good praline fix !]
Just a link
I know that somewhere inside of me there is lots of insightful commentary and important connections to be drawn to libraries from the BusinessWeek article Web 2.0 Has Corporate America Spinning. I have had intentions to blog about it for over 2 weeks, but the pressures of wiki creation, personal life “stuff”, and preparing for ALA in New Orleans adds up to me having no time to wax philosophical — I can’t even come up with a creative title for this post at this point.
In any event, a few good quotes from the article for those that are equally busy and don’t have time to read it all (although you really should). Try inserting the word library every time you see business or brand to get your brain in gear about the underlying message:
“For all its appeal to the young and the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its greatest impact in business … It’s the biggest change in the organization of the corporation in a century.”
“…the notions behind Web 2.0 clearly hold great potential for businesses — and peril for those that ignore them.”
“It’s also critical for executives to try out these services themselves: Create a MySpace page. Open a Flickr account and upload a few photos. Write a Wikipedia entry. Create a mashup at Ning.com. “The essence of Web 2.0 is experimentation, so they should try things out,”
“”In the end, the brand is owned not just by the people who create it, but by the people who use it.”
and finally:
“Web 2.0’s essential appeal is empowerment…”
Okay, now I must get back to painstaking task of cobbling together my conference schedule for New Orleans. I have great hopes that by next year at this time ALA will have a proper online conference planner now that they have hired Jenny Levine!
Library Garden 