My Friend Flickr

So I spent some time early in week six poking around in Flickr. I read through most of the introductory stuff and the suggested readings for ProjectPlay. And I spent some time looking at some of the pictures. Lots of professional quality work on this site. I mean stunning.

But, the thing is, I don't have a camera.

So there's not a whole lot I see myself doing with this site.

But, it's part of the course, so I'm doing the assignment. (Sorry it's taken so long to get to it. Things are picking up in our department again.) So. On to my assignment. Here's a link to an image I found when I did a search on the term "libraries." (Not usually my first choice for a search term, but I'm trying to have something relevant to say about work, so I took a shot). It appears to be an aerial photo of the Cologne Cathedral and surrounding area in Germany, sometime after the bombing of Cologne in World War II. Not exactly what I was expecting when I was searching the term "library" but it's on the internet so there you go. The member who posted the image wrote that he found it tucked inside a book he purchased for $1.00 at a library's used book sale along with 19 other photos. And there's your library link. 116 people posted comments, which is kind of impressive. Out of a pretty huge site, 116 people found that image and thought it was worth commenting on.

So how does Flickr work in a library setting? I guess it depends on who would be using it. I can see patrons wanting to access the site to see some specific photos from a public internet terminal. That would be fine for a person who knew what they were doing. Flickr is on the internet. We provide internet access. That was easy. But showing a newby how to do it all would be a bit more involved. Especially if the newby needed help to set up an account. There are account sign-ups and passwords to go through, which, having gone through the registration process myself, I'm personally starting to see as more of a barrier to entry than many would want to endure. I read a post (blog? I can't remember) a while back about a public library worker who had helped an individual with some "special needs" set up an account with an online bank that made me thankful I don't work in a public setting.

On the other hand, Flickr for use by staff, whether for internal use or for marketing purposes probably has some potential. Some time back Madison Public Library started a project to get photos of all staff members posted on Flickr. The idea was that we have such a big staff, spread out over so many sites and departments, that it's hard for people to get to know/recognize people who may be known only by name, or job, or email message. So it's kind of a laudable goal. And it could be useful, helpful, interesting and fun.

But it seems to have lost it's momentum and I'm not sure why. It was bound to be a big job, of course. I can imagine that it took longer to do than people thought it would. And I doubt the powers that be actually told the folks who were doing the job that the project was their top priority, that they were excused from all their other duties until the completion of the project, and that they would have all the resources (training, tools, assistance and time) they would need to do the job to the best of their ability. Oh, and that the staff members being photographed would all be agreeable, available, photogenic, and willing to accept that, yes, that photo of them is about as good as you can expect to get.

Add in the need for passwords and other security whatnot that you need to be able to get in and actually view the pictures and, well, enthusiasm just doesn't seem to be that high anymore.

The thing is, it isn't anyone's job to update our Flickr photo site. We don't seem to have a professional photographer on staff. Some of us aren't that keen on having our pictures taken anyway. Some may not like the idea of having their picture floating in cyberspace, particularly if you're identified by name. And the photos need to be taken, uploaded, tagged and named, and generally kept up to date. So it would have to be an ongoing job. These photos could be a fine addition to our collective history. But there's so much other work needed to be done in actively serving our public, that this type of thing will probably always get second class status.

So that's how I view Flickr. It's a great resource for people who have the time and inclination. For a workplace resource, it could be great too. But it needs a level of commitment that we may not be able to make.

As always, your comments are welcome.

From the pages of the New York Times!

It's a comic book! Actually it's a story about a comic strip storyline, and the public reaction to it. I was slogging through the stories that my NY Times blog subscription has accumulated over the past several days and came across a headline that caught my eye: "A Death in the Funny Pages Stirs Controversy." Well, being a comics fan, I had to check that out. The story turned out to be, as I expected, about the recent storyline in the Funky Winkerbean comic strip, written by Tom Batiuk, about a character who was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in 1999, only to suffer a relapse within the past year or so, and, recently, dying. Death in the funny pages being such a weighty theme, and breast cancer being such an emotionally-wrought disease anyway, the article itself was fairly straight-forward in describing the story and eliciting comments from the author and a couple of readers who provided the pro- and con- viewpoints on the appropriateness of that particular type of story in that particular medium. Then, there were the online comments on the story. 165 of them as of this writing. We should have that many comments on our blogs! Not that all the comments are well-informed, mind you...

The first part of the story was originally published seven years ago as Lisa's story and that story arc, together with the recent strips, are being published in a new volume, Lisa's story: the other shoe, which I've just recommended for purchase using the very fine online Recommendation For Purchase form on our web page.

So, now I'm curious-- do other library workers not involved in selection ever feel guilty about suggesting items that their library should add to their collections? Am I abusing my status as an employee of the library? Or am I hopefully trolling for blog comments from a peer group who may actually post a response?

As always, your comments are welcome.

iPods (and more) In Your Education

This recent article in the (online) New York Times about the use of iPods in classrooms seems to fit well with our class mandate to Play more. Learn more. Fear less. Some time ago I had read about iPods being required for some classes at a well-known university (possibly Duke, but I can't recall with any certainty) where lectures were recorded in advance, and classes could engage in what one teacher called Socratic method during the time previously spent listening to lectures. Students and teacher could interact, having the opportunity as a group to ask questions and discuss and argue the merits of what was presented in the recordings.

At the time I first heard of the project, it got me to thinking about replacing schools (the buildings anyway) with online courses and lessons, and perhaps having teaching assistants available online (or maybe for drop-in visits at the local public library!) to answer questions and maybe provide feedback or guidance as needed. Granted, you'd be losing out on the social interactions that schools provide, but you'd also be avoiding bullying, ostracism and peer pressure. Not to mention dodge ball and communal showers in your physical education classes. And that yummy cafeteria food. The University of Phoenix and distance learning seem to work well enough for adults, why wouldn't the same option work well for younger students?

We're already doing something along these lines with hundred of offerings from the Teaching Company and other publishers that are nothing more (nor less) than recorded (or video-recorded) lectures. And we've recently added Learning Express, although that seems to be more test-preparation than learning (I confess I've yet to dive into it).

Of course, iPods are just a step shy of being a computer, and the $100 laptop project (prices may vary) that seems to be aimed at third world children (but could arguably be just as effective in "developed" countries like our own) is merely a marketing tool to make online education affordable for [us to give to] the developing world, bypassing the traditional building/teacher/students that have been the costlier standard many of us grew up using. And, truthfully, who doesn't recognize the huge educational opportunities that computers can provide?

Certainly not Project Players like ourselves.

BTW, author Neal Stephenson has written a couple novels (Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, both available at your local library) where computers/dynabooks seem to have achieved the ubiquity that we're approaching with Web 2.0. Thought-provoking reading.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Between Feeling Dumb and Feeling Embarassed

So, is it just me, or are our Project Play assignments getting more difficult? They're definitely taking a bigger and bigger chunk of time. (BTW, are we supposed to actually read all those blogs we signed up for?)

Well, here's a relevant blog post (from the Information Wants To Be Free blog) that I thought struck a little close to home on how much time and effort I felt like I was putting in, and the amount of frustration I was feeling. Like my life isn't frustrating enough.

As always, if you happen to read any of this, please feel free to share your comments.

PS: On an eerily related note, thanks to the Project Play staffers who posted the step-by-step instructions for posting a survey using SurveyMonkey. I did make the effort on my own, before giving up in frustration. It was nice to have that to fall back on.

Suggest a Banned Book! (Survey)

Banned book week has come and gone, but there are plenty of (should be) banned books you still haven't read! What's the matter with you people-- don't you believe in the free exchange of ideas? That constant sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found? Of course you do! So, when's the last time you curled up with a copy of Mein Kampf? How about Dopefiend? Or The Turner diaries? When did you last read The Story of Little Black Sambo to your kids at bedtime?

It's been too long, hasn't it?

But that's just the stuff we own! So where, oh where, is our copy of Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clincial, and Research Perspectives? The Jewish Peril: Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion? The Librarian's Naughty Habit? Every one of these is guaranteed to get someone's undies in a bunch! So why doesn't YOUR library carry a copy? Wouldn't this be just the thing to get people excited about the library again?

Well, now we want your ideas! Give us some ideas for the type of materials we're NOT collecting, and let us know what we're all missing! Click here to give us your attention-grabbing ideas!

And don't forget to celebrate libraries!

Soliciting Comments and Feedback

Being in a somewhat lazy mood (how unusual!) towards the end of this rather long Monday (well, it was Monday, but I ran into a problem with Survey Monkey and, well there you go), I decided to take the easy way out and just cut-and-paste the assignment into my blog. In a blatant attempt to suck up to my instructors, I'll just say that I only steal from the best.

Assignment:

Part 1: If you haven’t already, change your blogger settings if you’d like to allow anyone to comment or to moderate comments. (See the step-by-step instructions in the reading above).

Way ahead of you. I originally tried it with the "moderate comments" option turned on so I could avoid automated SPAM comments. Then I realized that created more work for me since I would have to manually approve each comment, so I changed it to the word verification type that's supposed to prevent spammers.

Part 2: Post to your blog about this week’s topic. Some ideas: How could you use these feedback thingies for your library? What would you like to learn about them? What barriers do you see to doing this?

I'm already seeing blogs used for news and book reviews, with the occasional comments from patrons (but mostly from other staff members). I sort of like the idea of getting suggestions for the collection, but we already have a mechanism for that with our "Request for purchase" feature on our website.

Survey Monkey, which I've used in the past, has more potential. Like one of our readings said, people seem to like to share their opinions. MPL already has an opinion survey posted on our web site. I'm curious to see what sort of responses we're getting. I took the survey myself, and I thought it wouldn't generate much of a response-- it just seems kind of vapid. There's room for opinions, of course, but the questions seem like the type that will only be answered by people who love the library and use it all the time, or those who've used it recently and had a horrible experience.

Then there's the possibility that someone will respond inappropriately, or try to hijack the discussion to their own agenda. There's also the possibility that someone will stuff the ballot box, as it were, by making multiple comments. How do we prevent something like that from happening?

The biggest challenge, of course, is getting people to use it at all. There are lots of places that people can go on the web that are potentially more engaging than the library web page. What kind of local discussions about libraries and their materials do we provide that couldn't be gained from an established web site with an existing and broader audience?

End your post with an active invitation for other Project Play participants to comment on your posting.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.

(by clicking on the comment button below. C'mon, it'll be fun!)

More on RSS Feeds

So, I just took another look at my bloglines account, and realized something. I really need to unsubscribe to some of these. My favorite so far is the Hennepin County News since they don't seem to post too often. Dewey Mappings is definitely work related, and comes out weekly. But I don't think I've ever used it for any of my work. So I'm hard pressed to call it useful. And a lot of the other blogs in my folder of library related stuff haven't been touched. (Yes, I keep a lot of library relevant blogs in a separate folder. So what if Nichole set it up) I think those numbers showing hundreds of unread items is a bit of a deterrent. But maybe that's just me.

Of my recent finds, I just dumped the Motley Fool feeds, mainly because they were so prolific, but also because they were dealing with something (investing/personal finance) in a way that I'd probably never be able to comfortably use. (And it isn't work related.) I did keep the feed for Kiplinger's Personal Finance though, since they haven't added anything since I scrolled through their list of articles the first time. Not work related either, so I'll probably be tossing it at some point.

I'll be keeping the Wall Street Journal and New York Times feeds though. Again, these aren't so much work related, but I'm finding them to be informative. Quotes of the day is fast and fun so I'll hang on to it for a while. Joke of the day didn't make the cut. Neither did MAC OS X hints.

A lot of these were snagged from the directory of popular feeds that Bloglines maintains on their site And that's a really useful tool for us neophytes who are trying to get the hang of this stuff. Now that I've got my comfort level accomodated, I can start to add other sites that I stumble across.

Getting enough hours in the day to keep track of this stuff is going to be a whole other problem though.

Signing Up For RSS Feeds

This should have gone a lot better, but I really didn't devote as much time to it as I would have preferred. The assignment itself is simple enough, and there was no lack of good selections to choose from in the suggestions offered in the assignment. And, truthfully, Nichole F. had already set up a list of blogs for me back in the day when she was working right across from me (Hi, Nichole! Yes, we still miss you!) Of course, some of those blogs never got looked at again.

Adding to my frustration was running into things I (Nichole) had already signed up for, account passwords that I couldn't recall, and trying to make the choice between what is and isn't work related (and therefore appropriate to a work-related blog). And then deciding for the purposes of this assignment, I didn't really need to make that distinction, did I?

I've heard others complain about how much time it will take to juggle all this information. We had (have?) a similar struggle with email lists and there are times when it's easier just to delete everything in your inbox and drop all your subscriptions. Or, in a more telling, library-relevant way, realizing you've checked out way more books than you can possibly read before the due date, and just returning everything. That's kind of a liberating feeling. But, you can't help feeling there was a missed opportunity there, too.

So, I'm going to try and give this assignment a little more attention this weekend-- on the personal and professional sides-- and see if I can close closer to that happy medium where the end results are worth the effort.