Monday, December 15, 2008

December musings

Haven't posted in a long time (longer than I thought). Things are busy everywhere!

But today I updated the bookbanter LibraryThing so thought I'd put a plug for it here. Check out the bookbanter library to see what AACPL branches have, are or will be discussing. Click on the Tags header to rearrange the selections - it will come back somewhat alphabetical by branch.

That's all for now - have been reading some recent posts by all of you - so many different approaches to blogging - so many different topics. Highly entertaining.

Happy Holidays all!

Monday, August 25, 2008

Flickring

Have been spending way too much time today in flickr, playing with photos.
Had some trouble posting photos to this blog.

Oddly enough I had no trouble sending a photo of Zorro to the blog I've been setting up for teen read week (should I do the big reveal here, now? why not - no, I'll wait for a bit). Anyway, we're hoping to hold another writing project for trw. This one won't be a contest, but figuring out how to describe it is a bit of a bother. I've settled on "project" but don't like that much. Anyway, posted a picture of our lovely Hallowe'en cat to that blog, but for some reason flickr won't pick up the address to this one. I've finally in desperation, sent an email message to the flickrs hoping they'll figur (sic) it out.

But then I did find the cool badge thing, so have stuck a bunch of little photos there, and am now content with my flickr expertise. It's good enough.
So be it.

(Although I may find myself back there playing a little more... later.....)

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

A cellular chorus

Ok. Here's the truth.

I'm really tired of the whole silence-the-cell-phone-while-in-the-library thing.

Never mind trying to figure out where the annoying ring tone is coming from. Never mind dirty-eyeing the patron trying to dash out the door while conversing at full volume. Never mind ferreting out the sneaky talkers hiding in the stacks. It's all a losing game anyway.

I'm tired of feeling guilty while shushing moms with toddlers - are they yakking with a pal? Or trouble-shooting problems with another child? Do they have to drag their kids out to the lobby while they talk, or is it better to abandon one child in the library while they scoot out the door to calm down the one at the other end of the line? I don't know. Why do I have to?

Let's call the whole thing off! Let's experiment! Let's have a cellular chorus and just ignore the phone question altogether. So what if it's noisy in the library! It's already noisy anyway. It might be amusing - there is such a variety of ring tones, and I see a fair amount of smirking going on at particular rings. It might be cacophonous. Well, so be it. If folks don't care enough to turn their phones off already, maybe they won't care.

After all, who is the quiet for? Us? Probably not, we already have to talk at volume with hard-of-hearing patrons on the phone, and in front of us. For other patrons? Well, perhaps, but they stand and chatter with each other for long periods of time, or call to each other across the library, so I'm not sure who we are trying to fool. There are still some people who seem to respect the traditional quiet rules of the library, but they are so few! What do they matter!

I say, let's give in and enjoy the chaos.

And that's my rant for this morning. Please feel free to participate in my poll!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

As the world turns..

This is a fresh start to an old blog with new colors, new name (thanks Marie!) and a little more experience with some of the 23 things.

The Machine is Us/ing Us video has been modified since I first watched it. But the powerful message continues to impress. Actually I really am stunned at how effective this simple video portrays the zooming changes that have happened to text and communication. And my bewilderment at how we can hope to keep up has not abated.

So.... I've become somewhat more comfortable with blogs, and youtube videos and RSS feeds. So what! There's a lot of other new stuff happening that I don't have a clue about. Even LibraryThing, which I was quite taken with last year, seems to be outdated already. I've tried Shelfari, but it's cumbersome and not easy to correct mistakes with. (well, I'll hold off on all that till I get back to that thing in Web 2.0 exploring).

As far as the interactive web goes - 3D? phew. Libraries with no collections? What! I don't think we're there yet. We still (ok I've said this before) have many patrons (customers) who need us to interpret the low-tech stuff for them, placing holds for them, assisting them with the catalog etc. We can't abandon them.

And for the high-tech stuff? We haven't figured out a way to help the growing population that are struggling with completing on-line job applications! How do we balance showing, helping, and doing for these folks?

We've got our hands full. But after all that is said and done, I do agree - we must continually look forward to reach new library users - we just can't abandon traditional patrons in the process.

Have I completely answered your question?