A Wandering Eyre

(I said Friday for big news, but I suppose I am unable to read calendars. This is the big announcement. Enjoy.)

People fear and worry about the unknown.

The PTB, Powers That Be, in most organizations perpetuate fear by having closed meetings, by distributing meeting minutes that have no substance, hiding or disguising the way decisions are made, and not explaining any of the above to the people whom these decisions invariably effect the most. These practices create worry, fear, and gossip mongering because the lower levels of the organizations are kept, unintentionally or deliberately, in the dark. Who does this system protect? Certainly not the people on the bottom.

I believe that information is power and it is time we give it back to the people.

In an effort of experimentation, truth, and transparency, the leadership of BIGWIG will henceforth be practicing Radical Transparency. We want to model how radical transparency can change the work of an ALA group. We want to show that transparency breeds loyalty and productivity. It does not produce chaos. We discussed this at ALA Midwinter with the group and everyone was in favor of moving forward.

How will this work?

BIGWIG has registered its own domain called Your BIGWIG. There you will find different areas for discussion, work, and projects. We will strive to publicly discuss all projects, from the bottom up. The first item up for discussion and work is the Social Software Showcase planned for Annual. Well, it is not so much planned yet. We want the people to plan their own program.

We are not creating a democracy. We are creating a transparentocracy. The chairs of BIGWIG will still have final decision powers and will be true leaders of the group, but everyone will know what is going on, what is coming down the pipes, and how every decision is made. People will know because decisions will be made on the web for all the world to see or they can search the archives later).

Transparency is the future. It may be the medicine that ALA needs to regain and restore faith to their members. BIGWIG, the tiny IG unlike any other, wants to show ALA that it can be done. If you want to play, come on over, and sign-up for the fun.

–Jane, always happy to be the bearer of good things

I have been busy getting the Rochester household ready for our new addition and I have neglected to read the news from library land. I saw a few posts pop up about Swift when they first popped up, but I did not read them. I think maybe I should have because I would have seen that Swift, which has been denounced as a waste in different ways by many people I respect, was created by the Otter Group.

This Otter Group.

I believe in giving people second chances, but it seems to me that this company has learned nothing in the two years since they were last on my radar. I suppose this just goes to show you that companies will pay money for anything. Crap, libraries and our organizations do it all the time. I know not all online tools are “free” but Karen makes a great argument about what we would like our organizations to be spending money on and this is not it.

I can see Swift being useful at a conference where the attendees and presenters are not Internet or technology savvy, but that is the target audience of ITI. People at CiL have some clue as to what is going on in the world. We already have a way to share the things Swift wants from us.

I want to know why ITI felt the need to use a product like Swift. How did they get bamboozled into that decision? Was it simply because the hive that usually exists around the conference (via Twitter, blogs, IM,etc.) can not be contained and thus can not be profited from? This whole discussion reminds me of a quote I use in presentations to talk about transparency and reputation:

“The reputation economy creates an incentive to be more open, not less. Since Internet commentary is inescapable, the only way to influence it is to be part of it… Putting out more evasion or PR puffery won’t work, because people will either ignore it and not link to it - or worse, pick the spin apart and enshrine those criticisms high on your Google list of life.” –Clive Thompson

We, the librarians in the Internet Tubes, see through things fairly well because we are smart and often like to read the fine print. We spend our days looking for new things to serve the public better by saving money, not making it. Please do not be surprised when we look your expensive horse in the mouth and tell you that the reliable and cheap pony we already own works fine because we see only a shiny toy with no substance that you are offering. Beware of things that only glitter.

–Jane, ITI, we already have transportation to the Ball, we do not need another ride. Now can we talk about wifi?

I am still trying to figure out how to plan my work, house, and napping needs around the hours of my day. I think I am finally getting an idea of what is and is not possible in a 24 hour period for the stay-at-home Jane.

I am catching up on some much needed reading this morning and read Meredith’s post (finally) on Building 21st Century Librarians and Libraries. Meredith points out that it is not just SLIS schools that are to blame. As I have stated many times in frustration, our organizational cultures are not equipped to be flexible enough to allow for the growing need of tech skills in ALL our public services staff. Meredith says:

It’s also the way organizations are structured. So many libraries have a 1.0 org chart for a 2.0 world. They’re not structured to support public services technologies like blogs, wikis, etc. They’re not set up to allow for the sort of experimentation and agile decision-making that is required to meet the changing needs and wants of our users. So I don’t know that in an environment like that, hiring an emerging technologies librarian or a 2.0 librarian or whatever is the answer. You’re just putting a band-aid on a problem that goes to the heart of how your organization is structured and how decisions are made.

How do we make our organizations more nimble?

I think we have to start with the belief that all public services staff should have some level of tech skills. We have to stop relying on those one or two people to figure things out and then hopefully find time to teach the rest of the staff. We should all be learning and sharing with each other all the time or we should have someone on staff to train and plan for technology.

That kind of sharing is how the online tech oriented librarians learn from each other. We learn and share all the time. I certainly do not know everything and see all the cool stuff first. I am linked to a plethora of really smart people that I keep my eyes on, librarians and non-librarians. That is the only true way to “keep up.”

Not only do we need to believe that public services staff should know how to use technology, we should require it. Our users, our customers expect us to know it; we should expect it of ourselves.

This also begs the question: If an organization is unwilling to devote time and money to training its staff in technology skills are they really trying to be flexible and innovative? If an organization does not allow time for their staff to learn new skills are they really supporting continued learning?

–Jane, put your money where your mouth is

I have an interview with Christopher Harris over at the TechSource Blog today. We talk about his new project called Fish4Info.

The vision behind Fish4Info was a desire to create a positive library experience. I wanted to change the typical library catalog which is often used as a pass through to information into a destination where students would stay and interact. This means that the catalog had to become more social.

Chris, who writes Infomancy, is a friend who I think is doing some really fabulous stuff for school libraries. Hooray for school librarians!

–Jane, hooray for Friday

Since October, I have been working with a group of school librarians from the Rochester, NY area. I created and taught a Five Weeks type course for them called Library 2.0 Leadership Institute. The idea was the brainchild of Chris Harris who is, in my opinion, doing more for school libraries right now then anyone else. He designed a collaborative catalog and web page system for schools in his area, from scratch, with a team of two. The program is called Fish4Info and I think it looks fabulous, but that review is for another time.

This experience has led me to realize that, of all the librarians in the United States, school librarians get the shortest, saddest, under-appreciated end of the stick. They have more hurdles to overcome than any of us. No one has room to complain compared to them.

The thing that shocked me the most was their lack of access to technology. These wonderful people we were expecting to teach our children about information can not even access the information themselves. The system is broken almost beyond repair.

I am not talking about individual website blocking, which is bad, but platform blocking as well. Google Docs. Pbwiki. Any wiki for that matter. Blogger. WordPress. What are these districts afraid of? Collaboration? Scary! People talking and such!

I asked some of the participants in the institute what the process was for getting a website unblocked. Most of them are from smaller districts and their answers varied, but more than a few of them had an answer that floored me. They have to send a formal request for each site they want unblocked to the Superintendent of their district. You did not read that wrong. The Superintendent of the entire district has to approve the unblocking of each individual website that a librarian, not a student, wants to look at and use. This would be the equivalent of me submitting a written request to the President of my University for permission to look at Wikipedia.

After a few choice words, I asked them how this made them feel. They said like “children.” These districts have no respect for their librarians and teachers as smart individuals teaching the future of our country. They might as well require that they ask to go to the bathroom. Do these districts think that this treatment will empower and instill trust with their staff? I wonder how many of the people making decisions about what is a “safe” website even know what half of the websites are that they are blocking. The most common reason for blocking a website, according to the librarians, was because it might contain porn. Porn. What a lame excuse to block Google Docs. It does not even make sense.

At the end of the 6 week program, each librarian was to come up with a proposal to use one of the 2.0 tools at their school. For many of them, their decision was based not on what would work best for their students or teachers, but what was not blocked by their filtering system. That is no way to make technology decisions. It is irresponsible on the part of the administrators to force their teachers and librarians into this position and only encourages bad or no technology use in our schools. This situation benefits no one, except perhaps companies selling filtering software.

On the bright side, they came up with some really great and unique ideas despite their limitations. The projects ranged from class projects to useful information for teachers. Even though some of them had ridiculous odds stacked against them for learning, they persevered. I think that any school librarian that perseveres and continues to search for new technology avenues for their students and teachers despite idiotic PTBs and rules is a hero.

It was fun to be a part of another project where people are in charge of their own learning. It is amazing the extra lengths that are taken when people are empowered by the process instead of hindered by it.

Chris hopes to replicate the institute and have the librarians who have already completed it be the mentors and teachers. Hopefully, with some lessons learned and some great new leaders, this program will be something that will help many more librarians in the Rochester area.

–Jane, is proud of the librarians in the program

Joe Janes
Reference 2.0:Ain’t What it Used to Be… and it never will again

[My comments in brackets.]
[He is doing this without slides! Coolio.]

Mr. Janes self identifies as a Lackluster Enhancer [from Rainie’s talk yesterday].

First article we know of that talks about reference is from 1876. The primary motivation for helping people is that there is too much information and people find it difficult to find it because the subject headings do not help. We, librarians, should step in and help people. [Seems like nothing much has changed. It makes me wonder if we ever learn as a profession or a species.]

Reference manifests itself in different ways and different settings.

Now there is a lot of stuff and people can find it or they can find something. There are lots of ways to get help. Traditional reference is not going to work. [Mr. Janes is exceptionally humorous, but he is right. Traditional reference is not going to serve the needs of our users.]

Someday we will come to the time when everything is digital. We have an evermore digital world. Horizontal searching and federated searching is where everything is going. There are a lot of ways to find everything. We are increasingly looking for wholes and parts of things in digital form.

How do we insert reference services there?

Quoting a 1930’s article about the reference interview: “They will choke and die before they tell you what they want.” [This gets huge laughs. We all know exactly what this librarian is talking about.]

We can take on Wikipedia. If you are griping about Wikipedia and you are not editing it, you have no right. [Amen. If I hear one more professor or librarian harp about the information on wikis I am going to poke a pen in my ear. It is like voting. If you do not vote, you have no right to complain about the state of this country.] Blogs, wikis, podcasts, we have to be doing that. [Yes, we do and how many of us are not?]

We have to explore our areas of strength and the niches where what we do is unique. [What is the library long tail?] We have the skills to respond to people’s needs and the help that people need. There are people that need us in the digital realm too but they do not know where to look for us.

It is easy to look at those [the digital visitors] and then look at all the people we will not be helping, but look at all the people we are not helping now. We will never be able to answer all the questions Google answers everyday. This is the question of levels of service and we were always taught to do that.

People living online is just the idea that people want to be heard. Every book, movie, song, poem can be reduced to “I was here.” A handprint on a cave wall is, “I was here. I had a life. I mattered. I want to be heard.” Now it happens on facebook. It is the same thing. [To me, this is the most powerful thing Mr.Janes said. Where is your cave and what is your handprint?]

There is no end product to Wikipedia or LibraryThing. There is no finish; the point is the participation and figuring out how to make them better and bigger. The process is the outcome. If this is the environment that half to a third of our communities are living in, we have to be there too. We have to be heard and seen.

The exciting thing about librarians in Second Life is not reference, it is creating. You have to create everything. You have to create your life! Everything is about creation. If we could get librarianship back into the idea of creation, that would be wonderful. What if there had been a librarian around when the http protocol was built?

We have to be more easily found. Without throwing out the idea of being a librarian. Get out of the freakin’ library and stay in the library. What you really gotta be is somewhere and everywhere as every library should be. You have to be somewhere. You have to provide the 3rd space, the physical space and you have to be everywhere else as well. It is the concept of the library leaking out of the building.

It is easier to use the library from home. You do not have to get dressed.

If you do not know how many people are using your webpage and downloading stuff from your databases, you can not ask more money to support it. That is an open scandal.

You have to be in and out of the library at the same time. You have to be here and everywhere. The communities online are helping each other and they are asking us questions at the reference desk less.

We were made for better things then standing behind a reference desk waiting for people to ask us dippy questions. [like where is the *insert noun here* or I need three articles on gun control.]

For now, print is our secret weapon. But as the years go by, print becomes less worthwhile. The role of print will decrease and reference collections will go into the general collection. Grieve and move on. [I think I may be in love with this man, sorry Mr. Rochester.]

“Method over material” quote about reference in 1909 [In the digital wars going on in our buildings, this idea has been lost.]

We have to help people tend the networked communities. Individually and collectively, we should be on the networks. Slam the Boards project is awesome. Be a role model about how to make things more useful.

Market. Tell people what you do. Tell them you save them time and money.

It is unrealistic and illusory to think that the old days are going to come back. The service we provide to people in our physical buildings is phenomenal. Whatever services we provide people online have to be better. When they visit you online, they can be gone in a heartbeat. It has to be better online than in person.

[Wow. I am cleaning these notes sitting in the San Jose airport waiting for my flight. The words are just as strong now as they were two days ago. I wish that every librarian could have been in the room to hear this. After I post this on my blog, I am going to share this with my department.]

–Jane, posting this before going to work today

1385 people at the conference

Lee Rainie from Pew Internet and American Life Project
2.0 and the Internet World

[my comments in brackets]

[Lee always opens with humor and he goes through some things that have been blogged about him.]

[I can never keep up with Mr.Rainie when he talks. Everything he has to say is so interesting. Someone should podcast his speeches.] The Internet is the new computer. People do everything online. Half the population has broadband at home. Wireless users are different then other internet users.

Blogs have been built so seamlessly into social networking sites that teens do not think of the writing they are doing on their profiles as blogging.

19% of online young adults have created an avatar that interacts with others online

All content creators have an audience.

44% of young adults seek info on wikipedia
36% of adults use Wikipedia

34% of online young people have tagged things, though they do not often think of what they are doing as tagging

Americans can customize their online experience with Web 2.0 tools.
40% of younger users customize news and other info sources. [Though they often do not know it is RSS which makes that possible.]

Internet User Groups
Omnivores – 8% high end user group, have the most gadgets, late 20s, male dominant, students, wireless, racially diverse, broadband users

Connectors 7% - do not do nearly as much stuff as previous group, email, IM, cell phone, female dominant, diverse, believe that their gadgets can do more than they use them for

Lackluster Veterans 8% - use stuff at same level as Connectors, older, trending white, 40ish, tech is necessary but not exciting, do not like being “on” all the time [You could call these the technology grumps. They use it but they grump about it all the time.]

Productivity Enhancers 8% - workers, 40ish, like it because it helps them be efficient at work and shopping, no gender difference (like all all previous groups upscale in SES), no blogging really

Mobile Centric 10% - early 30s, minority rules, middle income, love their cell phones, only 37% have broadband, texters and photos with phone

Connected but Hassled 10% - high level of broadband, female, mid 40s, being online is a hassle, do so less frequently, complain of Information Overload

Inexperienced Experimenters 8% - no broadband older, but will try stuff, late adopters

Light but Satisfied – 15% - fine with what they have, mid 50s, do not need more, you have to call them to tell them to check their email, below national average SES, love tv and radio, only 15% have broadband

Indifferents 11% - 40s, “I do not like this stuff” most have cell phones and the internet but do not need it, proud to tell you that they do not need it

Off the Network 15% - no cell phone, no internet, 60s+ female dominant, poorest group, largest group of African Americans, they think the internet is full of porn and badness [It’s not?! ]

49% of pop is a low tech crowd, technophiles are only 8%

suggests a book entitled Smart Mobs by Howard Reingold

We have become grazers of information. [I agree. Not only do we have to because there is so much, but RSS encourages grazing instead of in depth reading.]

–Jane, grazing

Today, I saw Dr. Wesch’s new offering about students in a couple different places. I have to say that the man is a genius. This should be required watching for anyone who teaches. It is funny because watching the video made me think of all the lecture halls I sat in while attending college. I can honestly say, I have retained little to nothing from those classes and college was not that long ago for me.

The ones I do remember were small and the teacher did know my name. We usually sat around a single table and conversed.

I am teaching an online course to a group of school librarians from New York. It has been an adventure so far, but one of the students posted another great video to her blog today. It is a little long, but reiterates some great points about using technology to teach.

–Jane, is wishing she could re-plan her class tomorrow

The Future is Not Out of Reach: Change, Library 2.0, and Emerging Trends

Change affects each of us in different ways. Sometimes libraries change like turtles. We are the lucky ones. LITA, the techno geeks.

Social networking has been taking off in the last 2 years. Our patrons are using things like YouTube, but not all of us are.

Comments allow people to hold conversations on the web. It is like having an open meeting on the web.

Friending on the web is different then what it means in person. You can be friends for life. The web allows you to keep track of people much easier then before the web. Friends lists are a trusted list of people.

Content: Before the web it was books on a shelf and electronic resources. Someone else’s content arranged on a shelf. Now there are RSS feeds, original staff content, and patron generated content.

Web as Platform: The PC is no longer the platform. Old models, patrons visit the library to do stuff at the library. New Model, people go to the library to do stuff outside of the library, on the web. We are the launch pad not the destination itself.

Why do we need to participate?
To be relevant to the next generation. All our younger people are using IM, why aren’t libraries using that?

What are YOU doing at your libraries?
Gaming, SecondLife, podcasts, interactive art galleries, flickr photos

What are we teaching the current generation?
Information literacy is no longer just about reading. Information Literacy is also about teaching grandma to use flickr to look at her grandkids pictures.

How to make time for new stuff?
The problem is not finding time; it is changing your focus and priorities. Sometimes we have to do something scary to stay relevant.

One thing David can promise is that there will be change.

–Jane, great presentation

Today started a string of travel for me. I am in Denver until Sunday to attend LITA Forum. I will be giving two talks:
David and Goliath take on Social Tools and Learning 2.0 on a Dime.

Monday, I leave Denver for Virginia Beach to talk to the public library there about Web 2.0 and how it can help them engage customers. I created an outline and entitled it Making Your Patrons More Than the Audience. I got an email back from Nancy, who has been working with me for the trip, saying that they refer to their patrons as customers. I gladly changed the wording of my presentation. It is nice that the mentality of patrons as customers is already in place in Virginia Beach.

I have long thought it short sighted of libraries not to admit that we are competing for people’s attention and that makes us like a business. If you follow that logic, our patrons are indeed customers. If we really planned things this way, would we offer different services?

I think that we would move a lot faster and keep up with demand better. In the real world, companies that do not keep up, go bankrupt and fail. In the library world, this does not happen, but you do become obsolete in your community. I think the ability of libraries to survive despite a lack of innovation has hurt our culture. I believe that is beginning to change because we are competing for people’s attention and money, but oh, the change is so very slow.

We need to start thinking like businesses and get over our hang-ups about that.

–Jane, well that post went off on a tangent!