I’ll be posting there from now on so change your feeds if you follow me on rss: http://justnathan.nfshost.com/?feed=rss2

An invitation to listen

This post is brought to you by a comment from this post by the great comic book writer Kieron Gillen.

Issue 4 of the second series of Phonogram is half inspired by the idea – about how Robyn’s album was out in 2005, popular with haircuts in 2006 and then got its Number 1 singles well into 2007. Occasionally your processing of pop-music is completely out of sync with the rest of the world.

I try to stay on top of what’s happening in technology, the Internet, productivity, futurism, and lots of other fields. I scan through almost 200 blogs in my Google Reader; then there’s Facebook, Twitter, MeFi. etc. There’s a lot to take in. When it comes time for me to choose what to talk about in a class setting (whether to the public or to staff) one of the questions I have to ask myself about the topic is: is this ahead of the curve or out of the loop?

Something that’s ahead of the curve can excite people, showing them possibilities of what’s to come or of new ways to use tools they’re already familiar with. Something that’s out of the loop may be too far beyond my audience’s experience for them to get into the idea. I have to keep this internal dialogue going and make sure that the stuff I suggest isn’t too far out to be useful to my audience.

Case in point: we tried out using QR codes at a function and they fell flat. People thought it was interesting but didn’t necessarily see a lot of use for it. Not enough people with smartphones or other devices able to handle them yet. (In the future though, they’ll be useful! Put them up in your library!) On the other hand, I considered doing a class all about Twitter as I find the “ambient intimacy” of it fascinating. My filter said no: blogging in general will be sufficient. I’ve since been requested to do a class on Twitter in January. People are more ready for it than I thought.

We’re not always ready to hear what a band has recorded, or to see a film by a revolutionary director, or to jump in on the latest alpha web app. I’m not going to know what everyone wants or needs to know about; none of us do. Keep my question in mind; when we spend a lot of time looking ahead we may forget where we are right now.

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:

• Doing a 1 minute presentation with 5 minutes 40 seconds of silence
• Rickrolling myself
• Having a great talk but making the slides all pictures of cute puppies and kittens
• Taking the 45 minute talk I did at VLA in October and condensing it by talking really, REALLY fast

I’m hoping I’ll get the rest of the junk out of the way soon; it’s due January 15!

Photo by DanMelinger

Customizing our experience of using the Internet adds a lot of extra value; however, it can also get annoying. One of the main reasons I’ll drop a Firefox addon is if it’s popping up messages in front of what I’m reading. I want additional information without the addon being in my face about it. As a person who’s online a lot, it irks me. Imagine if you don’t use the Internet often and upon opening your browser you’re greeted with popup after popup: game over.

One group that seems to understand this frustration is Knowmore.org. Their Firefox addon checks their extensive database when you visit a site for ethical issues (good and bad) surrounding the company, product, or organization that you’re viewing. If issues are found, a small yellow bar will appear at the top of the window asking if you would like to view Knowmore’s information. If I want to see it I can click through to a new tab with the information; if not I continue doing what I’m doing. The dialog itself takes up about a half inch of my screen and moves the content down so I’m not missing anything.

There are plenty of other addons that hang out well in the background and do their jobs well. Knowmore’s impressed me by being both non-intrusive and information-rich.

A tool that's become second nature for most of us.

In my computer classes I often find myself comparing computers with cars. Whether we’re talking about buying a computer or maintaining one the analogy’s apt. One thing that I don’t often talk about, however, is how they’re both tools. This may seem obvious but it bears some thought. David Lee King blogged about the computer as tool back in August. Like a car, the computer is a tool. Both help us to accomplish goals. The functioning of both are sometimes (OK, often times) not completely known to us. We may have to take both of them to a shop if they stop working.

Even more importantly, a computer is nothing more than a tool. For students in a basic computer class that’s sometimes hard to see; the computer is too much of an unknown quantity. We don’t know much about how cars work either but they’re a commonly accepted tool and we offer classes to teach people how to use them. Computers becoming just a tool in people’s minds will take time; in the interim we can offer training that demystifies computers, showing users that if they can drive to their local library they can check their email as well.

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!

In lieu of actual content, here’s a post I could have sworn I published; it was written in Roanoke Airport as I was waiting for my flight to ROFLCon.

“On the road; this is me in travel mode. I’m a bit weird when it comes to air travel; I refuse to pack bags (unless I’ll be gone over a week). Even then, I’m reticent. I’ve had one too many bad experiences with late luggage to want to hang out at the airport and watch the roulette wheel/baggage cart spin and spin and spin.”

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.

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.

Here’s something I noticed at the pre-party for the event (call it Lesson 1 if you like); Internet people like librarians! I’m not what you would typically call an extrovert, so parties are not always the first place you’ll find me. However, this particular event stood because of the warm response I received when I told people my profession. Keep in mind, many of these folks were college students (undergrad to post-doc) or technology professionals. Some said they loved the profession because they loved books, but most talked about how progressive some of us are! Sure, maybe they’re reading about how “hip” we are from the New York Times but it still surprises me.

Here’s why; the sorts of people I just mentioned who like librarians are not the kind that I see when I’m behind a reference desk at a public library. These are people who are sometimes assumed to not need the library. Guess what; these folks LIKE the library! Let’s get to know these people within our communities! Let’s get them involved!

The benefits for both sides are high; and hey, in the right situation (say, a pre-party for an Internet conference with an open bar) you may even get hugs out of the deal. Apparently, librarians are huggable. Call that Lesson 1A.

Picture of the pre-party from NPR (I’m the pixel-y bearded guy with glasses towards the top right):