Triscuits, Life on Mars, and when to say "when" to blogging

Discovery Exercise #23: Final Thoughts
This will be my final post for the Learning 2.0 training experience. I'm not sure whether I will continue to post on "Salad Days" from this point forward, but I will definitely continue to explore the Web 2.0 tools that we've touched on in the exercises.

In all honesty, I have to admit that there was a point where I really didn't think I would finish the 23 Things. Every day (in my "regular" library gig) I have at least a dozen projects in various states of completion, many (most perhaps) which involve some aspect of creative problem solving in order to keep the project on track. There are some days, honestly, where I feel like I've spent 8 solid hours herding cats. It's days like that when it's easy to say, "I don't want to challenge myself any more."

That's why it was important for me to only work on the 23 Things from home on personal time (accomplished!) and to really pace myself. And to be honest with myself when I totally felt like going home to eat a dinner of Triscuits and cheese and watch back-to-back episodes of BBC's "Life on Mars." On those days, the idea of blogging was O-U-T. I think that helped keep the project "fun" for me. And I'm glad to know that about myself.

One surprising thing that I took away from the project was how my perspective on my fellow employees shifted. It was interesting to get a glimpse into my peers' personal thoughts and feelings. I feel closer to PLCMC staff now, and I really wasn't expecting that.

Would I do it again? Oh, yeah. Definitely. But right now my spouse wants to check e-mail, so I'm signing out.

Thanks a million, Helene. =)

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Sprechen Sie eAudiobook?

Discovery Exercise #22: Audiobooks
This exercise involved exploring NetLibrary, a service I had dabbled a long time ago, when it first became available at our library. At the time, it was so new (or perhaps it was just so unfamiliar to me) that it seemed clumsy and awkward. So I was pleased to try it out again and find a new level of comfort. Like many library catalogs, however, it's not very casual-browsing-friendly or navigationally intuitive.

As an example, I was in the mood tonight to listen to a snippet from a humorist author... someone like Garrison Keillor, whose audiobook "Lake Wobegon Days" I've heard and thoroughly enjoyed. An author keyword search on NetLibrary yielded no "Keillor." No "Garrison." Well, not suprising, considering there are only roughly 1,400 titles available. But now what? I decided that I might try browsing by category -- and it took me some time to figure out what to click on to get me to that point. Unfortunately a "humorist" category doesn't exist. A "Fiction and Literature" category does (a pretty broad category, if you ask me). I didn't feel like scrolling through 184 "Fiction and Literature" titles to find a funny audiobook.

Ultimately, I decided to switch gears and browse the language selections, and I must say I was impressed. With a trip to Latin America coming up in a couple of weeks, I could certainly practice my Spanish. Or, if I decide to get really ambitious, I could revisit German, a language skill that I've almost completely lost since college. "Sprechen Sie eAudiobook?"

NPR heaven

Discovery Exercise #21: Podcasts, Smodcasts!
I usually only listen to NPR when I'm in the car, and I'm rarely in the car when my favorite NPR shows "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and "Car Talk" are broadcasting. That's why this discovery exercise was such treat for me because I realized that I could subscribe to "Wait Wait" for FREE and hear the podcast version of the show any time I want! A podcast of "Car Talk" is available on NPR's site via Audible.com for $0.95 an episode... well worth it for avid fans who don't want to miss the episode where a guy calls in to ask about whether he should take his buddy's advice and pour oatmeal into his leaky radiator. You can listen to pieces of the Car Talk via streaming audio for free, which I'm doing right now (and thoroughly enjoying.)

YouTube recut

Discovery Exercise #20: You too can YouTube
Finally, a chance to share one of my favorite YouTube fake movie trailers, "Sleepless In Seattle: Recut as a horror movie." First of all, let me just say how fascinated I am by the power of editing technique and music to create atmosphere. Movie trailers encapsulate this skill due to their inherent brevity, but they're also a hoot when re-cut by someone with a sly sense of humor. Meg Ryan as psychopathic stalker? Run, Tom... run for your life!

YouTube has so much possibility. I also wonder how much influence it's having over what's shown on "regular" television. Several weeks ago I noticed that the treadmill video by the band "OK Go" was surfacing on YouTube's popular list. And just this past weekend I noticed that it was now on VH1's Top 20 video countdown. Cause and effect? Hard to tell anymore.

House hunting the 2.0 way

Discovery Exercise #19: Discovering Web 2.0 tools
Buying a house has come a long way, baby. Three years ago, when I was looking for a new home, I really, really, really wanted to do the "narrowing down" myself. I knew the features I wanted (brick ranch with a garage, at least 2 full baths, separate laundry room), I knew that I wanted to keep the commute reasonable and I definitely knew what the affordable price range was going to be. Unfortunately, at the time, the online search options were somewhat disappointing, and we had to pester our real estate agent (bless her heart) with request for "just a few more choices."

If ever there were a calling for fabulous Web 2.0 tools, it is in real estate, so I decided to scope out Propsmart.com. Now this is the way real estate listing should be. Admittedly, Propsmart still has a few quirks (it didn't seem to "narrow down" the selections the way I expected when I entered a zip code), but regardless, it really seems to give house-hunting some fun factor that was sorely missing.

Check out my next home purchase. Nothing stands between me and this charming bungalow (except perhaps $6.9 million or so...)

Backtracking... in beautiful technicolor!

ms4 009, originally uploaded by msiscoe.

I just went back through my discovery exercises and realized that I accidentally missed one. Somehow I skipped #6 (More Flickr Fun) in which we were asked to explore some of the fun Flickr mashups and 3rd party tools that are out there.

Well, no time like the present. Seems like ages ago that I learned about Flickr, even though it's only been a few weeks. I decided to explore the Flickr Color Pickr and came across this gorgeous photo when choosing the color fuschia. What a fun (and colorful!) 3rd party tool.

Web-based Apps

Discovery exercise #18: Web-based Apps: There not just for desktops
I'd have to rank this learning exercise right up there on top as far as usefulness-for-library-staff-interested-in-helping-patrons. I positively love web-based apps and feel that they're a great asset to anyone jumping from computer to computer (home to work... work to relative's house... relative's house to Internet cafe...etc.). I played around with the word processing tools of Zoho Writer, but frankly, I'm more intrigued by the web-based spreadsheet software since I use spreadsheets to do most of my personal budgeting and cash flow tracking. (Yes, I know there are applications like Microsoft Money for stuff like that, but I still love creating my own cash flow statements in Excel. It's probably not the best use of those college financial management classes I took, but whatever. It's not like I have any pressing need to calculate the present value of an annuity.) Anyway, lots of potential here. Must continue exploring...

Must. Control. Urge. To. Edit.... arghhh

Discovery exercise #17: Playing around with PBWiki
For this exercise, we were asked to add an entry or two to the PBwiki Learning 2.0 wiki, and mark our visitation by adding our blog to the "Favorite Blogs" page. Well, I added a favorite site, but the real trial was trying to resist "fixing" (or doing something with) a broken link on the Favorite Blogs page (somebody posted "[http://southern-memories" but didn't close the bracket).

It's taunting me there on my screen even now.

I love the collaborative potential of wikis, but they also torment my "inner editor."

Must. Control. Urge. To. Edit.

Synchronized book cart pushing and Starbucks

Discovery exercise #16: So what’s in a wiki?
For this exercise, we were asked to check out some library wikis and blog about our findings. I chose Library Success: A best practices wiki and headed straight for the section labeled "Selling Your Library" (specifically, the topic marketing).

One thing I've learned over the past few years is that library "marketing" web sites tend to be over-saturated with suggestions for goofy stunts posing as serious solutions for a library's complex marketing challenges. Well, library marketing wikis are evidently no different. Case in point, the suggestion for "synchronized book cart pushing." Attention-getting, perhaps. But so is choking on a chicken bone. (And I really don't recommend either.)

On the bright side, I wasn't completely disappointed by this wiki. I did uncover a really helpful article about the tough choices that need to be made when developing a brand identity, "Strong Brands Always Have More Brand Credits Than Debits: A Starbucks Lesson." (Link courtesy Jill Stover's blog Library Marketing: Thinking Outside the Book).

"To determine the positive impact (credit) or negative impact (debit) of a potential marketing activity, Starbucks marketers ask the following questions:

• Does the marketing activity respect the intelligence of Starbucks customers?
• Can Starbucks expertly deliver on all the promises made to customers in the proposed activity?
• Will Starbucks employees be excited and motivated by the activity?
• Will customers view the marketing activity as being clever, original, genuine, and authentic?

If the marketing department answered 'yes' to three of these four questions, then the activity is considered a brand credit.
On the other hand, if Starbucks marketers answered 'no' to more than one question, then the activity would be considered a brand debit. The Starbucks marketing department would then need to discuss the business importance of doing that brand debit activity."

A checklist is beautiful in its simplicity. Intuitively, I think many of us know that not every proposed marketing activity is "a good idea," but sometimes it's hard to pinpoint just exactly why some marketing ideas should be rejected (or at least temporarily tabled).

The article goes on to explain the consequences of pursuing too many marketing ideas that are "brand debits."

Ultimately, given enough debits, a company will find itself facing 'brand insolvency,' which happens when a business continually promises more than it actually delivers, bankrupting the brand. Once this happens, it is extremely difficult to earn back brand credit... or customers."

I have to ask myself, where is our library currently? Is our brand credit still high? (Many outside indicators, thankfully, point to "yes.") What services -- promises -- can we market to our customers that we know we can expertly deliver? (And frankly, deliver better than our competition.) Additionally, how can we market these services in a way that will respect the intelligence of our customers, while being clever, original, genuine, and authentic? And, of course, the marketing activity has to excite and motivate our own employees so they can sell it on the front lines.

I'd add one more item to the checklist -- does the marketing activity reinforce the brand we're trying to develop? Part of the whole reason I'm averse to goofy gimmicks like synchronized book cart pushing is because I feel like they don't reinforce the brand that most libraries are trying to develop -- that of a relevant and customer-focused institution.

One of the best, recent examples from our own library system has been PLCMC's library card campaign for kids in grades K-5. Reviewing it after-the-fact, it passes all of Starbuck's marketing checklist items. I will admit that there was a lot of work behind-the-scenes ensuring that we could meet checklist item #2. But despite the hard work, I'm glad our library chose this marketing tactic instead of something like synchronized book cart pushing.
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Icebergs and precious gems

Learning exercise #15: On Library 2.0 & Web 2.0 ...
Where could Web 2.0 take libraries? Rick Anderson's perspective is that Web 2.0 could help steer libraries away from the "icebergs," or "the potential disasters that lie in our current path." One of the icebergs he points to is "Reliance on user education."

"We need to focus our efforts not on teaching research skills but on eliminating the barriers that exist between patrons and the information they need, so they can spend as little time as possible wrestling with lousy search interfaces and as much time as possible actually reading and learning. Obviously, we’ll help and educate patrons when we can, and when they want us to, and the more we can integrate our services with local curricula, the better. But if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons."

Yes, yes, yes. That's an excellent perspective. Now how do we really get there?

I'm beginning to see more and more of my peers embracing Library 2.0. At least the technology part of things. They're excited about wikis and blogs, and they think, "All these new Library 2.0 tools are great! We can do so much if we just had a wiki!"

But there's so much more. These tools won't help if the underlying thought process ignores the end user (intentionally or not). Not only do libraries need to be willing to embrace new technology, but they also need to attract, employ, reward and retain people with some special thinking skills. I'm talking about people who think abstractly, are creative problem solvers, and who can skillfully manage projects. People who are naturally intuitive, who can easily put themselves into the shoes of an "outsider" and imagine just what a patron thinks and feels when using a library for the first time (or the 100th time) so that they can not only identify and eliminate barriers, but also take things one step further and make the experience enjoyable, or perhaps (*gasp*) downright fun. And here's a shocker -- not everyone with these skills pursues an MLS in college.

Now here's where I feel obliged to leave a small note to library managers everywhere (and a reminder to myself): When you do discover an employee among your ranks who possesses these skills and uses them well, please tell them they're doing a good job. And do everything you can to reward them and keep them. (And no, I'm not talking about "rewarding" them with the piles of work their underperforming peers aren't doing. Not unless you want them to start job hunting today.) Those creative problem solvers are precious gems. You won't fully realize what you had until they're long gone.
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Attack of the Anglepoise!

Learning exercise #14: Getting not-so-technical with Technorati
It's obvious now that I haven't done much "playing" on Technorati, because I was completely oblivious about some of what Technorati ranks as the most popular blogs out there. I had been using Technorati all along to scan for blogs on specific topics or keywords, but I hadn't ever taken time to leisurely browse the top 100 list. So, I suppose it's high time that I paruse BoingBoing.net (#1 on Technorati's list) to see what all the hubbub is about. An amusing blurb on BoingBoing mentions the recent release of a giant comedy Anglepoise lamp. The photo alone, at left, is priceless. Could this be the 2006 Christmas gift of choice for the relative who has everything?

In addition, as part of the discovery exercise, I've created a Technorati Tag for this post, although I haven't yet "claimed" this blog on Technorati. At least I know the tagging is easy to do.

Technorati Tag: PLCMCL2

Gardening is so Del.icio.us

Discovery exercise #13: Tagging, folksomonies & social bookmarking in Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is a pretty cool tool. Of course, I'm excited about any tool that can help me find new information about my hobbies. Naturally, I used Del.icio.us to find popular sites on, you guessed it, "square foot gardening," and my search was rewarded with a link to a simple -- but very neat-o! -- tool for plotting out a garden. Using Del.icio.us proved much more fruitful in yielding sites with "real gardener appeal" than, say, doing a Google or Yahoo seach. And the comments were helpful in determining what to expect of the site before even clicking on a link. Nice.

Rollyo and "relativity"

Discovery Exercise #12: Roll your own search engine
I'm sure, if set up properly, that Rollyo could prove very useful for some people. For me... well, not so much (today, at least). I did create a custom search, and put in a few keywords: "Square foot gardening" and "gardens," but I suppose I made the mistake of including the behemoth Amazon.com as one of my searchable sites. Wow -- page after page of results from Amazon. Not so helpful...

However, as with many explorations into new territory, a happy accident occurred. During my search for information on "square foot gardening," I came across an online gallery of images featuring Lego constructions of works of the late artist M.C. Escher. As both a fan of Escher and Legos, I was delighted. It's worth parusing. ("Relativity" is shown above. Original by Escher on the right. Lego version by Lipson on the left.)

Speaking of Legos, if you enjoy gaming, you might want to check out Lego Star Wars. It's pretty addicting.

Lego Escher

Like my bookshelf at home (without the dust)

Discovery Exercise #11: A thing about LibraryThing
What a fun tool for sharing your favorite reads with friends! LibraryThing is very easy to use and beautiful in its visual simplicity. I particularly like viewing my selections in "cover view" so that it looks similar to my bookshelf at home (without all the dust). I did have some difficulty at first selecting a version of Pete Hamill's book Forever: A Novel so that it would display a cover image (FYI, Forever is a fantastic, historical fiction epic of New York's Manhattan Island. Big, huge book. Great read.) but I soon figured out that it was because I needed to choose a different link. Easy enough.

Get tatted

Discovery exercise #10: Play around with Image Generators
Found a fantastic image generator to semi-permanently show my deep committment to Learning 2.0. You too can get "all tatted up" at the Crusty Demons Tattoo Parlour. (Tell them Salad sent you.)

A view from above

Discovery exercise #9: Finding Feeds
Technorati and other feed search tools are indispensible when trying to keep up with specific news topics. I have a few searches set up to track news about our library. Of course, ever since Learning 2.0, most of what gets snared by my search keywords are Learning 2.0 blogs by our own staff. But it's still great for catching a few outside-opinion nuggets and not-ready-for-primetime newsbits. For example, while scanning my Technorati feeds with the keyword "ImaginOn," I learned that Google Maps has updated its satellite imagery of Uptown Charlotte so that ImaginOn now appears. (I'm sure the latter was not the reason for Google Map's update, but how sweet of them anyway.)

Playing ketchup

Well, I'm back from my short hiatus, and realize that I am now ten "things" behind on the 23 Things exercises. Time to play catch-up (or "ketchup" as a young friend of mine once wrote), so let's see how quickly I can bring myself up to speed.

Discovery exercise #8: Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader
I set up my Bloglines account. So far, I still prefer Netvibes, but that's probably because I'm a very visual person and like the flexible page layout styles of Netvibes. Or it could be because I'm much more familiar with Netvibes. I definitely appreciate and enjoy the benefits of newsreaders for keeping incoming information corralled, so to speak.

Org charts in a digital age

Okay, I said I was taking a hiatus for a little while, but David King's recent post about his new job as the Digital Branch and Services Manager of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library got me thinking...
In his post, David writes about one of the reasons he took the new job in Topeka:

"I also liked how they are treating the IT department and the web team in our emerging techie world. Some library IT departments are treated as a separate, supporting function of the library - and not really included as a department that serves the public. And no one really knows what to do with a web team - some have separate departments, some divide content and structure-type jobs (the web programmers go with IT, the content developers go somewhere else), and some are stuck in really strange areas (I'’ve seen one library that lumped web services with the cataloging department!).

But Topeka has done something I think is ingenious - they changed their focus, so rather than placing the Digital Branch team within the IT department, they included the IT team as part of the Digital Branch. Maybe semantics, maybe not that new... but that little switch in thinking makes a ton of sense to me."

Me too, David.

I believe more libraries should be open to adapting (evolving) their organizational structures to facilitate the best possible service to the public -- particularly with regard to the relatively new realm of digital services. Risky? Yes. But it's a smart risk taker that recognizes that if you really, really do want your library to have a fab online/digital presence, then you're going to have to break up, integrate and restructure some departments to get the right mix of talent on the task and streamline the information flow. Why hold on to senselessly segmented or isolated departments, or structures that were developed for the way libraries functioned twenty years ago (or even 10)? While your library clings to "the way things have always been," the world moves on.

And sometimes change isn't as painful as the ongoing frustration of systemic dysfunction.

Best wishes in the new job, David.
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Temporary hiatus

I've been stuck lately.

I reached the point in the Learning 2.0 exercise where we need to set up a Bloglines account, and that's where I got mentally derailed. But I was "re-inspired," for lack of a better word, by a recent post about RSS feeds by Lori at Learning Express.

Here's what happened. Even though I am enjoying the learning exercises, and I am a huge advocate of information management with RSS feeds, I was a bit reluctant to set up yet another online account. I have spent quite a bit of time and effort populating and organizing my pages and RSS feeds in my current NetVibes account, and I'm also starting to get to the point where I can't keep up with all my user names and passwords. I've reached my "password saturation point." So, the prospect of managing yet another online account was a little deflating. But after reading about some of the additional features Bloglines offers -- particularly e-mail subscriptions -- I'm sold.

I think I still need a mental break, though, so I'm heading out of town over Labor Day weekend, and I'll set up my Bloglines account when I get back. And I'll start writing down my passwords on an index card. (Shout-out to good ol' 1.0 technology: paper.)

Technology skills: voluntary or mandatory?

This morning, I came across an interesting commentary about technology skills for library employees by David Lee King. The commentary was in response to a recent ALA article about the Library of Congress, where "200 employees had taken advantage of a voluntary retirement incentive for librarians who had become 'very comfortable' with traditional librarianship and chose not to gain new technological skills." David writes...

"I’ve been reading up on change management and thinking about how that affects technology change in libraries, and this example fits in well with what I’ve learned so far. Some people simply don’t want to change - they are comfortable with their jobs and their job duties, they might even think the way they do things is The Best Way to do them - so why in the world would they want to change?

I like the pro-active way the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County is dealing with technology change and training with their Learning 2.0 / 23 Things training program. But also - at some point - library managers might need to treat technology skills like any other skill - it’s part of your job, you need to do it or find another job. That seems harsh, but really… would you hire someone to do telephone reference if they had no phone skills, and refused to learn phone skills? Would you hire a cataloger if they couldn’t catalog and didn’t want to learn anything about AACR2? Probably not.

It should be the same with technology skills, which right now are changing pretty rapidly."

David mentions the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County’s (PLCMC) program of introducing Web 2.0 technology to their staff through a voluntary program called Learning 2.0.

I want to mention that PLCMC also insists on basic technology skills for their staff which they call “Core Competencies.” And, it’s imporant to note, those skills are required. You won’t see PLCMC’s core competency checklists out there on the web. This training program is housed snuggly on PLCMC’s Intranet, visible only to PLCMC staff. That being said, PLCMC’s Core Competencies training program is certainly relevant to other library systems.

The basic Core Competency training level (Level I) covers over a hundred everyone-must-know-this skills like, “Knows branch or department logins and passwords,” and “Can reply, forward, and delete an e-mail message,” plus troubleshooting skills like, “Can plug in and unplug a network cable and tell whether the terminator is firmly seated or broken.”

And the training levels progress. Level II covers technology skills specific to PLCMC’s cataloging software, plus application-specific skills like “Can create and edit tables in Word.” Short online tutorials for these skills are available if needed.

As of August 22, 2006, all PLCMC staff have completed Core Competencies levels I and II. There are five levels, each with required deadlines for completion, and training staff are available to help ensure that all employees are able — if they’re willing — to complete these checklists.

PLCMC staff are encouraged to explore new Web 2.0 technologies with the voluntary Learning 2.0 program. But all technology training isn’t voluntary. You must have the basics.
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