Author Archive
C U @ CIL07
My bags are packed and I am ready to head off in the “Nasy Nor’Easter” as the local weather station is calling the dreadful weather. It is going to be a long drive in the rain and wind, but I am so excited about the next 3 days that it does not matter.
My schedule is on the wiki (more or less what I expect to do) and I am staying at the Holiday Inn across from the Hyatt due to a mix-up with my reservation.
I am giving two cybertours and then Bob and I will have the honor of closing down the conference by speaking in the last slot on Wednesday. I am really excited about our session because we get to share it with two really cool presenters from PLCMC.
Safe travels to all who will be on the road or in the air to get to Crystal City!
Plogging for Poetry Month!
Helene Blowers over at Library Bytes posted some “Podcast Thoughts” last week where she made the case for libraries to podcast about current events, topics and culture. Helene’s thoughts mirror mine precisely. In fact, it is something that I have been thinking about for several months and it finally came to fruition on April 2nd with the official launch of the PPL Poetry Podcast Blog for National Poetry Month.
I wanted to call it the “PPL Poetry Plog” since it is a series of podcasts on a blog, but I thought that might be too confusing (and too much alliteration). I then wanted to call it Poetcast, but the folks at poets.org beat me to it. Not thrilled with the final name (last minute decision, just had to call it something), but I am thrilled with the results and how many readers we have had during the first 10 days. Our stats, in fact, are exceeding my expectations by leaps and bounds (over 225 viewers on most days and over to 2,000 views thus far). I know the statistics will get skewed by posting here, so I held off. I wanted to see how far we could take this with only local exposure and word of mouth. Others have found us already, such as the Book Blog at timesunion.com and that has thrilled me.
We have recorded 26 poets so far and hope to do a few more before the end of the month. The poets all come from the greater Princeton area and each poet brings a unique voice and perspective to the project. For instance, Paul Muldoon, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003, did a beautiful reading of a pantoum for us and Enriqueta Carrington’s poem was read by 2 poets in 2 languages while Judith McNally contributed a unique “microlouge”. We have many more surprises in store for the rest of the month, including some wonderful poetry by a high school student.
This has been a real team project and with me every step of the way has been Evan Klimpl. Evan is one of our Tech Aides at PPL and I simply must give credit where credit is due. I may have had the original concept and coordinated the project, but it is Evan who responsible for doing 90% of the poetry recordings, cleaning up the files to make them sound professional, uploading the files, preparing many of the posts and anything else that I have requested. I can not thank Evan enough for embracing this project with the such enthusiasm and dedication. Also assisting with this project and deserving thanks are Bob Keith and Romina Gutierrez from PPL. And last, but certainly not least, in the early stages of this project my good friend John LeMasney gave me some invaluable advice about how we could do this project for free (which was one of my goals besides promoting poetry).
This is an idea that I hope other libraries will steal, because it is a project that can be done without having to make any investments — except perhaps a decent microphone for recording ($35-50 maximum) if you don’t already have one. Here is how we did it (in a nutshell):
- We used Audacity from sourceforge.net to record and edit the .mp3 files
- The blog was set up at wordpress.com — this is the free version of wordpress and it works well for a project such as this
- Our .mp3 files are being hosted at archive.org
- The player that we are using to in the posts comes free with wordpress
- We took photos while the readings were being recorded to ensure consistency
This has been a terrific way for Princeton Public Library to experiment with how we want to implement podcasting in to our programs. We have lots of ideas and now that we have the process figured out we will hopefully be able to podcast more original content in the near future.
A Sincere Hug and Easter Chocolates
Memo to Self
File under: Why I Love being a Public Librarian
I have friends who sincerely question why I choose to work in a public library. They all earn far more than I do with less or equal education. One or two even point out to me on a regular basis that I could earn a better salary with less stress if I looked elsewhere for a job.
Well. this post is dedicated to all those who think I should desert public librarianship for greener pastures. In the last week I have had not 1, not 2 but 3 encounters that remind me why I love what I do and will continue to do it for the foreseeable future:
1. After a poetry reading event a young woman approached me and introduced herself. I recognized that she had been at several program lately, but did not yet know her name. She told me that she had recently moved to the area for a job and had been feeling “lost” without having any friends or family nearby. She went on to say that once she discovered our library she felt like she had found a sense of community as she is an aspiring writer and poet. I shared with her that I understood perfectly, having moved all on my own to NJ 8 years ago and leaving friends and family far away as well. She gave me a shy smile and then, quite spontaneously and very sincerely, she gave me a huge hug and thanked me for organizing events that gave her a feeling of “place and being among friends”. It was probably one of the best moments I have had in quite some time.
2. An older woman took my “Sharing Photos Online” class a few months back. She came in this week because she was so excited and just had to share with me the digital photo albums she made for her daughter’s wedding. She had done the entire album on Snapfish and ordered 2 copies — one for her and one for her daughter. Each one was slightly different and personalized with captions and a variety of layouts. It was obviously a labor of love and she was so thrilled with the final product. I felt very proud that she had learned so much and so quickly as when she first came to class she did not even know how to get the photos from her brand new digital camera on to the hard drive. She told me she is now working on a book with their vacation photos and has found a new hobby thanks to the library. She signed up to take “Fun with Flickr” next week before she left.
3. I came to work yesterday to find a lovely box of Easter chocolates from Thomas Sweet with a note thanking me for finding an article. I had done a search earlier that week that was rather time-consuming as the information given to me was vague at best, but the man requesting the article told me that it was of great sentimental importance and he really wanted a copy of the article. I was thrilled when I found it and printed it out for him, leaving message on his machine that he could pick it up. He left the chocolates with a lovely note when he picked up the article. Totally not necessary, I was just doing my job, but a wonderful gesture nonetheless.
It is anecdotes like these and many others that I relay to my friends when the quiz me on my job choice. Seriously, how many jobs are there in this world where you can get gratitude, hugs and chocolates all in one week?
I am writing this post so that I can read it on those days that I am having a bad day at work and so that I can always remember why it is that I choose to be a public librarian. I would be interested in seeing other anecdotes in the comments about those wonderful moments that you experience because you are a librarian — I will bet there are a lot when we all stop to think about how we impact the lives of those we serve daily.
Meme Mashup
Back in the early days of 2007 when the “5 things you probably don’t know about me” meme was circulating I got tagged 3+ times and intended to play along. I actually composed most of the post, but then lost it when my laptop froze and never found time to write it again. Now I have been tagged by Meredith for the new meme about 5 non-library blogs we read, so I am mashing the memes together into one big post. How efficient is that?
First, 5 things that you may or may not know about me:
Even though I have lived stateside for over 10 years now, I remain a Canadian citizen. My first 7 years of working in the States was accomplished via a series of TN NAFTA visas, but I now have a green card and will likely get American citizenship eventually (when I find some spare time, so maybe not too soon).
I have lived above the Arctic Circle and also in Bermuda and have moved 27 times in my life. My stint at PPL (close to 9 years and counting) is the longest time I have ever worked in a single place. It really feels weird to me that I will have soon lived in my current home 5 years as I have never called an apartment or house “home” for longer than 2 years since I started college. Needless to say, I am an expert at packing and moving.
It shocks people when they visit as I own relatively few books, especially for a librarian — partly due to the 27 moves and partly due to the fact that I am a minimalist. My son, however, has overflowing bookshelves. I love children’s literature and especially picture books. One of my cooperative work terms while at library school was working in the Children’s Literature Service of the National Library of Canada (a truly wonderful experience).
Downhill skiing is one of the few athletic pursuits that I have ever achieved any sort of higher level abilities (other than highland dancing). I met my husband in a ski club and, when given my choice of things to do on vacation, I will choose a ski trip almost every time.
My musical tastes are eclectic (pop to hard rock to opera) and I have a special fondness for world music and in particular Celtic music, which stems from my undergraduate days of as a dancer in the Queen’s Bands.
Now, for the five non library blogs ( the first 3 directly related to the 5 things above)
CBC Radio 3: Helps me to stay current with Canadian culture and news. I also love Rick Mercer’s blog (but wish he would post more frequently) and frequently read Political Notebook as well as a few other Canadian blogs that help me stay connected to all things “north of the border”.
Book Buds: Even though one might argue that a site reviewing picture books is not really a non-library blog, I am including it since it is not related to my job duties and I read it more for the love of pictures books than anything else. In a similar category is Reading Moms, a blog that meets both my personal and parenting reading needs.
The Echoes Blog: The companion blog to Echoes.org where there is lots of musical goodness to discover – including Celtic and other world music.
Kevin’s Blog on Training: Good training tips and advice from Kevin Eikenberry. In fact, I have several of his blogs in my aggregator.
Gizmodo: The Gadget Guide: The tag line says it all “… So much in love with shiny new toys, it’s unnatural.”
I am tagging Nancy Dowd, Elizabeth Burns, Stephen Abram, and Darlene Fichter (I want to see what other Canadian and NJ librarians are reading in their feeds) and anyone else who wants to play along.
Having Fun Isn’t Hard …
… When You’ve Got a Library Card!
This is the second time in a week that I have heard this song — really quite odd considering I have never heard it ever before. The first time was on Tuesday while my toddler was watching Arthur on PBS and the second time was this morning while I was browsing YouTube for a few good examples to use in a new class I am putting together.
The lyrics (which really are quite catchy) can be found in Arthur’s Songbook and a quick search reveals that this song by Arthur and Friends first got airplay as an episode in February 1999 — and has since been used by various libraries as a promotional song to encourage children to get a library card.
My second encounter with this song was in a recently posted video called A YouTube Salute to Librarians. The description reads:
Five minutes of your life you’ll wish you had back, this includes a mintage of sceens from classic TV as well as random uploads to youtube, all about Librarians.
The music is purevolume.com’s salute to librarians.
I really have to disagree. I found those 5 minutes to be quite entertaining — enough so, that I watched it a second time (thus giving up 10 minutes of my life) and I am also posting the link here for others to spend 5 minutes enjoying on a Friday afternoon as they wind down the work week.
All the songs in the salute come from purevolume.com — a site that had missed my radar until now. It is amazing how many library-related songs can be found by searching purevolume (but I still like the list of library songs posted by Fiona better).
A little bit of digging reveals that this salute was created by Devin Singley, a 23 year old who states in his bio that he is “currently in the process of working towards a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Studies from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. With this degree, I plan on finding a career as a school Media Librarian”. Welcome to the profession Devin, and what a great way to mark your entrance!
ETA: I have to say that my favorite section is where the “advanced drawer pull” is demonstrated about half way through. Not sure why, but it makes me laugh — I am easily amused some days. Oh, and the Library Card song in the video is not the original Arthur version, it is a cover done by a garage band called the Pink Fuzzies and it seems unclear to me if it was ever released beyond being online.
Don’t let the train leave the station without us!
If you have time to read only one thing today, this post on ALA TechSource is the one: Dear Library of Congress
Karen G. Schneider yet again comes up with a “Must Read” post that is sure to become to a classic in the blogosphere. So much food for thought in this post that I think I will have to read it twice. And her conclusion is spot on:
But in the end, after we conclude that the user is not broken, and that the tools we design must reflect this fact, and before the train pulls away forever… can we also agree that the first commitment to ease of access needs to include the right—forever, and always—to read?
Comments from Campus
Two weeks ago Edward W. Felten was the first speaker in a new series called Comments from Campus — a collaboration between Princeton Public Library and Princeton University that endeavors to bring the campus to the community (or the gown to the town, if you will). We designed it as a lunch time brown bag lecture with the simple concept of inviting faculty to speak about a topic of their choosing and/or discuss their latest research in an informal setting. The topic is not settled beforehand as the idea is to give a platform for current research interests.
Unrolling a new program at a public library is nerve-wracking (as I have discovered since I took over as Program Coordinator here at PPL last fall). You are never sure if you will find the audience you are hoping to attract and doing this as a lunch lecture instead of an evening series was a bit of a risk. Our first talk was by all measures a great success and we had better than expected attendance — in large part to the speaker’s repuation, knowledge and also because of his choice of topic.
Professor Felten delivered an entertaining and fascinating talk entitled “Real Policy for Virtual Worlds” where he examined a variety of interesting scenarios in which real world government or law may need to intervene in virtual worlds. Most of the 46 people in attendance had never even heard of Second Life or Norrath or any other virtual world before. You could see the look of amazement on several faces as they learned about the depth and breadth of virtual worlds. They were especially amazed to learn about Adam Reuters and Anshe Chung and how the Linden dollar can be traded like real currency. The talk was the perfect mix of technology and policy. I myself learned a lot, which was an added bonus because even though I have an avatar on Second Life I rarely spend time there. I have uploaded several photos from the talk on the PPL Flickr account if you would like to get a flavor of the talk — and a few of the other events that have been keeping me from blogging as often as I should.
On a side note, you might want to consider adding Felten’s always fascinating Freedom to Tinker to your blogroll — I have long been an avid reader and he always gives me food for thought.
2 Great Posts on DRM
I was doing a reference question and in the course of finding the answer I found 2 great posts on DRM:
- What web 2.0 could teach Warner Music’s Eric Bronfman posted by Alan Graham on Tales from the Web 2.0 Frontier
- Good Job Jobs posted by Collin Douma on Radical Trust
I will be reading both these posts again more carefully tonight or tomorrow as I only had time to quickly scan them while on the desk. Here are a few highlights that made me know in an instant that they are bookmark worthy:
Graham states at the outset of his post:
In the Web 2.0 world everything makes or breaks on interoperability…or sharing. Sharing of thoughts, ideas, media, code, and work. If any point that openness is constricted, the whole system breaks down. Without this environment there would be no mashups, and many of the online services we rely on today would not exist.
Just imagine if all that open interoperability went away and we were back to the old days of closed APIs and closed systems. That’s what DRM does.
Then just before his call for action, asks a crucial question:
Steve Jobs claims he wants to eliminate DRM. The music executives claim to want what’s best for the consumer and their bottom line. These two things are not mutually exclusive. How about trusting your customers instead of assuming that every one of us is a criminal?
Douma, along the same lines, opens his post with this:
Let’s be frank for a moment. Digital Rights Management (DRM) is antitrust and anti-radical trust. Personally, I’ve never been a fan of the iTunes music store because of its DRM. Why should you pay $1 for a track loaded with DRM when you can download it for free from a torrent with no restrictions at all? Why should anyone pay to be restricted?
And concludes with this:
This week’s call from Steve Jobs is long overdue. I hope that more visionaries like this guy can convince the world that there is more money to be made in trusting people than there is in restricting them.
Eastwood and Beethoven
Just reporting on yet another busy weekend at MPOW. I love my job in general, but at this very moment I am so incredibly invigorated (most likely from the music) and in love with what I do that I just have to write about it. We just wrapped up a concert in our community room called The Many Moods of Beethoven. It was performed by a chamber quarter from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and it was standing room only (with many also choosing to sit on the floor so as not to miss a note). My headcount was 180+, which is great for a cold Sunday afternoon in February. The musicians told the story of Beethoven’s life through his music and the educational aspect was equal to the musical aspect.
In contrast to the classical music, we have also have a film series occurring at the library this weekend and for the next few weeks called “Clint Out West”— it is a retrospective of Clint Eastwood’s films. The attendance numbers are not as high for the Beethoven program (ranging from 30-60+ per film screening), but numbers aren’t always the measure of a successful program. According to Susan Conlon, the organizer of the series, those in attendance are extremely engaged in the discussions being led by film historian Bruce Lawton and the series is not only entertaining but also educational.
Last weekend PPL hosted the Princeton Environmental Film Festival, a new and very successful venture which was entirely the initiative of Kai Marshall-Otto, a teen volunteer here at the library. Kai, who is also Co-President of Princeton High School Environmental Club, worked tirelessly to organize and coordinate the weekend. The festival offered 5 days of films and speakers on environmental issues and had a total attendance exceeding 1,000 for the weekend. Susan Conlon, our Teen Librarian extraordinaire, was the staff liaison for the festival and worked closely with Kai every step of the way to create a dynamic and exciting weekend. As she noted in her program report:
This program brought in all ages, and while adults represented the greatest % in attendance, it was very much noticed and appreciated that teens were the catalyst for this event, and were represented in the audience, and also helping to facilitate discussions.
We have programs and events daily, sometimes several in a day, and in the hustle to get everything done I do not usually have the time to sit and reflect on how wonderful it feels to work at a place that provides educational opportunities of such a wide variety to all who wish to attend. Today I am taking the time to reflect and it feels good.
Blogging Live from Rutgers SCILS
Robert and I are here at Rutgers SCILS talking about all things 2.o and having a great time!
Marie Radford is here as well so it is a Library Garden reunion. Watch this space for links from the talk!
the
first of several for Course 502 MLIS Colloquium (Spring 2007).We were honored to be asked to speak and even more honored that so many people turned out on a sub-zero night to hear us talk.
As promised, here is a list of links from the talk. We would be interested in your feedback so please leave us comments or feel free to email us.
A Few Flickr’ing Libraries (and examples of what libraries can do with Flickr):
- Alexandrian Public Library (Indiana) — promoting library events.
- San Marino Public Library (California) — documenting a library building project.
- St. Joseph County Public Library (Indiana) — a variety of sets that range from public to staff events, building updates, new services, and more.
- Newark Public Library (New Jersey) — a wonderful tour of the unique art and architectural features of their historic main library building.
- Thomas Ford Memorial Library (Illinois) — lots of interesting sets, but in particular check out their Thommy Ford Abroad set!
Flickr Groups for Librarians (especially those from NJ):
- New Jersey Libraries
- NJ Library Events
- Libraries and Librarians
- Librarian Trading Cards (including mine in a tiara).
- Librarians’ Desks
YouTube Must Sees:
- A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifesto
- Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us
- iACPL (and the equally great follow-up iACPL 3.0)
- Ray of Light (SJCPL)
- Seattle Public Library
We mentioned a lot of blogs and most (if not all) can be found on our blogroll, so take a peek at who we have listed and start reading. In particular, last night we focussed on Tame The Web and blyberg.net as well as the Ann Arbor District Library web site.
Two of the wikis mentioned last night included the Subject Guides at SJCPL and Princeton’s BookLovers wiki as well as the various wikis being put in to place for conferences. I meant to mention, but it slipped my mind, Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. If you want to have a chance to play with a wiki and contribute content, this wiki is a great place to start.
Here also is the link to Robert’s article (in case you need it for future reference) and to the CJRLC Technology Group blog that has the list of links from their January 16th meeting.
I will end this post just as we ended our talk, by linking to the Web Trend Map created by Information Architects [pictured above]. As they say on their site:
The iA Trend Map shows all the big players, the current Internet trends and how they’re connected, using the Tokyo Metro map. It’s totally unscientific and almost useless, but definitely fun to look at.
Also make sure you read the 50 Loudest Web Sites of 2006 report and look at their Internet 2007 Predictions.
Note: I think that is everything that we promised to provide links to for future reference. If I forgot something let me know. Or if we mentioned something and you want more details, drop us a line.
Library Garden 