There’s a new and improved site from me at justnathan.info. By new I mean I just got it a couple of weeks ago; by improved I mean I have it hosted in such a way that I can REALLY screw it up (as opposed to the small messes one can make using wordpress.com).
I’ll be posting there from now on so change your feeds if you follow me on rss: http://justnathan.nfshost.com/?feed=rss2
I hate secrets. I prefer to be open and honest with people whenever I can (crazy, I know!) I especially like to talk about things when I’m excited about them and right now I can’t talk about any of them! All I have to talk about is how much I want to talk about other stuff!
Let’s just say this: I currently have 4 projects in the works that I can’t talk about yet. There’s Work Thing 1, Work Thing 2, My Thing 1 and My Thing 2. Work Thing 1 is by far the most exciting and hopefully eventually one day I’ll be able to talk to you all about it.
The one major thing I can discuss is that I’m working on my 6 minute 40 second presentation at Computers in Libraries. My process for presentations starts with me getting all the silly and inappropriate ideas out of my head first so I can work on the good stuff. Eliminated so far:
I’m hoping I’ll get the rest of the junk out of the way soon; it’s due January 15!
I’m back from the Virginia Library Association conference without ever mentioning I was going! I co-presented a session on the staff technology training program I’ve been doing and assisted with 2 of the 3 other presentations the Roanoke Public Libraries did there. The response for all of the presentations were overwhelmingly positive. I was proud to be part of an organization full of dynamic, knowledgable folks who are as excited about libraries as I am!
As part of our presentations we put together a website to house all of the slideshows as well as supplementary material. In the case of the staff technology training presentation, we currently have all of the materials we use for patron classes available and will soon have all of our staff classes up as well! All of these materials are free for other libraries to use. Nothing like giving things away to make people like your presentation!
Looking back on the presentations we gave there was an overarching theme; taking the desires and habits of patrons into account and then projecting library services out of their traditional boundaries, whether in programming, collection development, or even physical location! I’m excited to continue to create programs and services within this theme.
Have a look at the presentation site; you can join the site for free and comment to pages, ask questions, and communicate with other librarians!
One of my jobs is teaching computer classes to patrons throughout the city, mostly beginning courses. For those purposes, I have created two short URLs to good resources for training and figured I’d pass them on (plus, I promised one of the links to Jessamyn back at ROFLCon and I don’t remember if I gave it to her or not.)
1. http://www.tinyurl.com/3ysk – This link is for Mouserobics, a very nice tutorial through using the mouse, clicking on links, and learning the differences between items like radio buttons, checkboxes, and so on.
2. http://www.icanhaz.com/sampleform – This link takes you to an online form that goes nowhere. Probably the most popular request I get is for help applying for jobs online; this serves a great dry run.
Use as you like; I don’t own or use either of these. I created the shortened URLs so that I could quickly bring them up on students’ computers.
I went into ROFLCon interested in how communities form online, how they regulate themselves, and how they thrive. Here’s what I saw at ROFLCon with this goal in mind.
1. Community members need to be involved. In most online communities the majority of users are passive; they read, they generate hits on a page, but they aren’t contributing content. People who comment on posts, rate items, post on forums, etc.; these folks contribute content. Communities survive just fine with a mostly passive user base; without the active users, however, it’s a one man show and not a community.
2. Each community is unique. There’s no secret formula for success or some must-have app that is necessary for a community to succeed.
3. Being on MySpace and Facebook is good, but it doesn’t mean you have a community! Sure, it’s possible to build your community entirely within one of these, but what often happens is that pages become broadcast channels rather than back and forth communication tools. As a library system, having the ability to post a MySpace bulletin is great; it lets people know about your programs that may not know otherwise. That’s one way, though.
Libraries have to find what makes them special if they want to continue on and mean something to their constituency (I’ve no doubt libraries will survive in some form, but it’s that last part that should hit home.) What makes a public library special is the community that surrounds it. As librarians, engaging the local community can only help us; the community is more energized in us and we are more aware of the wants and needs of our patrons. Libraries can and should provide opportunities for their communities to participate; an online community is just one way to do so.
