Author: dwakimoto

More random stuff for ALA, etc.

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! Oh, my goodness am I ever ready for the weekend. And yes, I know that ALA isn’t for another two weeks or so, but I thought for those of you who like to plan ahead might find some of this week’s random stuff helpful. Plus, I’m leaving on vacation prior to ALA fun and might not post anything next week except lovely photographs from my trip because I am looking forward to being mostly unplugged for a week. So, allons-y! (let’s go) as the good Doctor would say (sorry, had to include that again as I’ve finally managed to persuade one of the interns that his life truly wouldn’t be complete until he’s watched the new Doctor Who).

Before delving into some of the really interesting, and or fun, stuff that may (or may not) be useful for your ALA trip, I had to share this wonderful post Intimidation that Hanna [link is to her awesome blog] sent to me. This is a fantastic post that sums up how I feel when people say I’m “intimidating.” I especially like this bit, “as a shy woman who stands all of 5’3″, I can’t say that I see myself as especially terrifying.” But then again, apparently Hanna and I were considered intimidating once people had a history seminar with us. There is a definite power dynamic in the instructor/student relationship no matter how much we try to smooth out the hierarchy so that we are all learning and teaching together which, along with shyness (that can be perceived as aloofness or intimidation), probably leads to the “scary” instructor effect.

Just goes to show that instructors can be misperceived as often as their students and really, in the end, we are all just people. And this may help you at ALA in all those receptions and mixers–just remember shy doesn’t equal antisocial. So just come over and say hi. Though perhaps, just so people don’t have to guess where you stand on the whole “social interaction thing,” you might want to get this shirt from xkcd.

I love traveling (well, actually I don’t like flying very much but I like how traveling is the means to the end which is seeing new places and meeting people). But sometimes those transatlantic and flights from California to the East Coast get really long and boring. So to the rescue, why don’t you check out one of the Top 10 Difficult Literary Works from your local library to ponder on the flight? Found via ALA Direct, it is lovely for the sheer hilarity of the descriptions of some of works. As soon as I told my office mate about it, he immediately asked if Tolkien’s The Similarion was on the list–it’s not, but I bet some of the books you were required to read in your studies are on the list. So what do you think is the most difficult literary work to slog through?

Here’s another great post from Lifehacker that will help you make the photographs you take at ALA really shine: Top 10 photo fixing and image editing tricks. Come on, you know you’ll take photographs at ALA, so why not take the time to take/make great photographs?

Oh, and while your at ALA, if you need to hook into a meeting happening back at your workplace, check out the Lifehacker guide to the Five best web-based conferencing tools and find something that will work nicely. I’m hoping to try out a couple of the free ones at my library for our meetings because we always have at least one librarian at another physical location during meeting times. Still, I’m just waiting for the holographic projections, or really good virtual reality, to make meetings more fun (and productive, of course).

This is amazing: locals and tourists flickr set helps you avoid tourists on vacation, find local favorites. What a cool use creation and use of data pulled from flickr images. Alas, it appears that just about everywhere in DC where ALA events are happening is tourist-central. It would be nifty to create a similar type map using data from all the photos by librarians attending ALA. Just a thought.

Finally, something fun to end another Friday post, a clip explaining the Friendship Algorithm (thanks to Hanna from the great idea of having Friday posts include videos and to my sister for basically forcing me to watch this show). It’s fantastic, nerdy fun.

Have a lovely weekend, read a lot, and the Waki Librarian will be blogging about the actual ALA Conference very soon.

Some ALA Fun

/ dwakimoto / 2 Comments

Happy Friday! Is it just me, or has it seemed like a really long week? I’m so glad that it is Friday and that the weekend starts very, very soon. But before the day closes, I wanted to share a bit of library fun that really does relate to ALA Annual.

First, I want to share this wonderful post by Mary (who just happens to be a Nerdfighter, future librarian, and daughter of the rockin’ librarian Nancy): Why ALA is going to be awesome. I am super excited that people, like Mary, with this much enthusiasm want to join our profession. Our levels of awesome will only increase with the inclusion of more Nerdfighters in the librarian ranks. (And if that made no sense to you, well, you need to become a Nerdfighter and watch the Vlogbrothers and it will.)

Also, Mary did the “Hi, Hank” introduction at ALA 2008 in Anaheim (note the Nerdfighter t-shirt). So if you just can’t wait for ALA Annual at the end of the month, get your quick fix here:

While we are on the subject of conferences, we might as well talk about how much the excitement and all can wreck havoc with a person’s sleep schedule. In order to get back on track before (or after) the conference, check out the Lifehacker guide on how to reboot your sleep cycle. [Even if you have no issues with your sleep habits, check it out for the adorable photo of the cat.]

While on vacation or being a tourist at a conference this summer, you will probably want to talk photographs of your adventures. And, if you are like me, when you are photographing a monument, you like not having people messing up the shot. But we all know that is difficult to do in high tourist season. (I once spent 15 minutes waiting for people to move out of the way so I could photograph Leeds Castle.) But now with digital photograph and a little Photoshop magic you don’t have to wait for people to move. Check out how from Shutterstock.

Also, on the tech front, check out the Lifehacker Pack 2010 for a downloadable software bundle of the programs Lifehacker has found to be essential for Windows. Never hurts to just check out the article to see if there is some bit of software that you’ve not heard of yet.

And to end, this fun video by one of our local Bay Area bands, Train. What can I say? This Friday simply needed people dancing around in chicken suits to a happy tune.

Have a fantastic weekend! Enjoy the weather, read outside in the sunshine, and I’ll be back next week with more library and technology fun.

Thank you!

/ dwakimoto

Hi, all. Just a quick post to share a few fun things and say thank you.

Dragon Kite

Photograph of Dragon Kite

First, the above photograph from the Art & Wind Festival held in San Ramon over the weekend. [If you are interested, the above image is actually a mash-up of three photos I took; editing done in Photoshop, naturally.] It was a great festival, lots of wonderful kites, crafts, art, and great Taiko drumming. I hope your weekend was filled with at least that much fun.

On to the main reason for this post, a thank you to the person who nominated my blog for a Salem Library Press Blog Award. I still don’t know who you are, but thank you! The winners were just announced; you can see the list of winners here: Salem Library Press Blog Award Winners. There are a lot of wonderful blogs out there in the bibliosphere. While The Waki Librarian did not win, it did receive a gold star for being “of significant quality that [it] stood above the norm.” You can see a full list of academic library starred blogs here: Academic Library Blogs. I was very happy to get recognized and felt a little like a happy kid in grade school getting a gold star. It is very nice to be recognized so thanks again to whoever nominated this blog and thanks to everyone who reads it.

Finally, until Friday, I leave you with this absolutely wonderful comic from xkcd:
Geeks and Nerds Comic

Back Friday with more library and technology fun.

Hesitation, Shipping, and Libraries

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! It’s a long holiday weekend so feel perfectly free to wait until after the BBQ or beach fun of the weekend to read this post. It’ll keep; I promise. But if you do wait, please do come back and read this post because it is important. Like most posts it is part technology news, part library news, and part a weird amalgamation of the two first parts that seems important to me, and I hope you’ll agree. Today we’ll cover hesitation (and doubt), shipping (a la Seth Godin) and libraries.

First, the technology stuff. If I had to pick one web browser to love, it would be Google Chrome. I’m a sucker for fast page loads, clean interfaces and lots of screen real estate. Now with Lifehacker’s guide, fix the web’s biggest annoyances with Google Chrome, I can just about create the perfect web browser. That helps me get more done because I’m not worried about my browser windows crashing and can focus on more important things.

For example, do you subscribe to This is Indexed? If you don’t, you should. One of recent posts is, Maybe is in the Middle. I love the simplicity of this graph and also how it relates to the situation many libraries and librarians find themselves in today. Maybe is in the middle, but so is mediocracy (when mediocre, non-innovative, and safe ideas rule the day). The graph reminded me of Seth Godin’s admonishments about accepting mediocre work or trying something instead of doing something. We’ll get back to Godin’s work in just a bit, but first I wanted to highlight an article that generated a substantial amount of commentary this week: “Why closing more public libraries might be the best thing right now”.

So, did you read the article? I’ll wait if you want to hop on over and give it a quick review before moving on with our discussion.

While the commentators brought up many good points of contention with the article, what I want to focus on is the discussion about customer service and people skills in the library. I completely agree that people skills are not taught in library school (or at least I wasn’t taught them) and while often listed as required skills on job advertisements, the emphasis during interviewing, etc. was never on my people skills when I was job interviewing. I think this is tragic and something that needs to be fixed asap or we librarians, and our libraries, will be stuck in the trap of mediocracy, trying desperately to brand and market ourselves without changing the underlying, systemic problems that keep us from thriving without the “marketing.” I completely believe the old adage that we should show not tell people why we are great.

One of Godin’s latest posts was a 5 step plan. It’s simple: “go, make something happen, do work you’re proud of, treat people with respect, make big promises and keep them, ship it out the door.” While Godin writings are often marketed as marketing and business sources, they are just as relevant to libraries (which are businesses) and librarians. If we all follow this five step plan, we will build the tribes and be the linchpins that Godin talks about (read his books Tribes and Linchpin if you haven’t already) and the marketing/advocacy takes care of itself. While I no longer work in public libraries, but in academic libraries, and not in big business either, I believe this plan works and that doing–not talking–is the way to get things done. I’ll give you an example.

I teach information literacy to freshmen. It’s not a class they are particularly thrilled to take, but it is required so they (mostly) come. They think they’ll learn how to check out a book; what they come away with (if they pay attention) is the ability to research, to evaluate, and to make sense of the chaotic information world that surrounds them. I used Godin’s 5 steps, without knowing it at the time, in two different ways. First, in my teaching. I teach differently than the rest of my colleagues (who are also wonderful teachers); I interact with my students, we discuss, we watch YouTube videos, we use Twitter, we text and write and argue and figure out together how our class materials fit into their lives. It is about co-creation instead of lecturing. It is also work I’m extremely proud of. I treat everyone with respect (thanks, Mom, for that lesson) and students respond to it. I have high expectations for my students, but I also make promises to them to help them with this journey–and I keep them. I don’t make them wait 3 weeks (in a 10 week quarter) to receive feedback on their work. And then I ship it–which in teaching means I go with the wonky ideas (like using Twitter) that other instructors might baulk at and I try out stuff in class (like creating wikis together) which might fail and we use it as lessons in life. And guess what– it works.

I have former students who are now peer mentors and they push my classes when they talk to their mentees. They are my “marketers” and students are way more likely to pay attention and value their fellow students advice than mine or my colleagues. These peer mentors come by my office to just chat and to get advice on other classes and share with me their lives because they know I actually care. That didn’t happen because I paid lip service to improvement or change or caring, but because of my actions and doing work that I could be proud of.

Part two of the example is that in my first year teaching I also did research into improving student learning in the classes we teach. I didn’t wait around for permission, I wrote the application and got the research approval in the summer. I did my research during the year and respected the students because I asked their opinions about the class and learning and they told me because we actually trusted each other. I made promises to improve my teaching and have kept them. And I shipped it by presenting my research at a conference, writing a journal article, and now will be sharing the practical implications with others at another conference.

Was it all a lot of work? Yeah. Was it worth it? Completely. Would I do it again? Yes. Creating buzz works better when you have fans because they will do it for you, as Godin says. Librarians need to remember this. We won’t please everyone and we won’t be able to maintain some facade of perfection if we actually create tribes and do “crazy” new things. But isn’t it about time we drive the changes and become buzz-worthy (outside of the bibliosphere and our own conferences)?

Finally, in honor of all my friends who are coffee fiends, I though this was an appropriate way to end a Friday post: check out the Caffeine Poster. All I can say, is that’s a lot of caffeine represented in that poster.

Have a wonderful weekend. The Waki Librarian will be back next week.

Friday Round-up of Tips, Help, and Advice

/ dwakimoto

Today is a round-up of tips to browse through while you try to find motivation to make it through the Friday work day. I can’t believe we are coming into the last week in May, that it is still raining regularly where I live, and that ALA Annual is going to be happening in about a month. Where does the time go? In the interest of saving time, let’s get right to the productivity tips.

I think Lifehacker has some of the best summaries of productivity tips and hacks. Check out the Top 10 motivation boosters and procrastination killers. Great stuff, especially when it is Friday and all you can think about is the weekend.

Also, in the interest of productivity, check out the Top 10 ways to upgrade your morning routine. Personally, I’m a morning person (it has a lot to do with once working for a bakery and (unrelated) doing bird counts when you have to be up before the dawn chorus), but I know a lot of people aren’t and need a little motivation in the morning. Check out the tips and I’m sure you can have productive mornings, even if you don’t love them. I need a list of the “top ten ways to upgrade the middle of the afternoon when any sane person is taking a siesta”, but I digress.

Librarians, and savvy library users, already know that public libraries are great places to check for free passes to museums and events. However, a lot of people, probably the vast majority of people, don’t know about this great service. I was very excited to see this short piece on Lifehacker, no less, Check your local library for free museum, concert, and event tickets. I loved Boston Public Library had a great program, though I wonder about its viability given the massive budget issues it is now facing.

Finally, on the tip front, it is getting to be vacation time up here in the Northern Hemisphere so check out a savvy traveler’s guide to vacationing abroad. It completely makes me want to travel abroad this summer.

Oh, and some shameless self-promotion. For those of you dear readers who are going to ALA Annual, I will be speaking on Sunday, June 27th along with Megan Oakleaf from 1:30-3:30 in Room 146B at the Washington Convention Center. Our talk is titled, “Question, Find, Evaluate, Apply: Translating Evidence-Based Practice to Information Literacy Instruction.” Come by and say hi. We’d love a full house for our talk. Okay, shameless self-promotion is over, back to the Friday fun stuff.

And because, once again, xkcd did not fail to delight, we (almost) end with today’s comic strip:
Infrastructures comic strip by xkcd

My very good friend, Hanna, who writes the amazing …fly over me, evil angel… (extra bonus points if you know what song that’s from) has a custom/tradition/thing to have Friday blog posts sharing awesome YouTube videos. I think it’s lovely, and so completely riffing off of her (and giving you a nice, short break from all that productive work you are doing), we’ll end with this amazing video–seriously how do people do that with cards?

Have a lovely weekend (whatever the weather brings), read a lot (I happen to be enjoying Terry Pratchett’s Witches Abroad at the moment), and there will be more tips next week on The Waki Librarian.

Love/Hate Relationship with Technology

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! How amazing is it that we all survived another week?! This week has been insanely busy, yet productive, here at the library. I think it is finally sinking in with the campus population that we are coming up on the end of the spring term and it might be a good idea to actually start final projects.

Today I thought I’d post a few links and talk about our love/hate relationship with technology. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with computers, especially the ones at the library, with fax machines (nothing in the realm of clerical duties annoys me as much as using a fax machine–mainly because I almost always manage to load the document the wrong way), and photocopiers (the ones at the library time people out so quickly that double-sided photocopying is nigh impossible). I’m usually perfectly content and at easy with computers and online work, obviously since I’m a blogger and the online literacy librarian at my library. But some days I completely sympathize with people who want nothing to do with any of it. For example, last week I was ready to throw my computer out the window (provided I could find a window that actually opened) because I was trying to work with some videos from the archives that consistently crashed my video software and sometimes my entire computer. Other times, like when I’m making cool graphics for friends or finding out something new and shiny to use for class, I love computers. So without any more rambling on my part, on to the resources for this (hopefully) lovely Friday.

This is a wonderful read: I hate computers: Confessions of a sysadmin. Not only is it funny, but it also completely sums up how I feel about computers, and technology in general. They are tools; they are means to an end; they shouldn’t make me, or anyone else, feel stupid when they self-destruct.

If you’ve been keeping up with the hot technology news this week, you know that Facebook has been all over the news. If you didn’t know about the hullabaloo, check out Facebook’s gone rogue and a review of Facebook news and commentary to get up to speed. Then share the information with your friends, colleagues, and family and help them become informed about the privacy issues with using Facebook. Everyone should be able to make informed, uncomplicated decisions about what they want to share and what they don’t online and in first life (if you know jokes about Second Life, you’ll have gotten that joke. If not, don’t worry about it). In full disclosure, I was on Facebook for a few months and then killed my account because it just didn’t work for me. But to each, her own.

On things that are not a secret: it is no secret that I adore the Vlogbrothers. Their videos are funny, sweet, inspiring, and educational (sometimes not all at the same time). They, and Common Craft, explain concepts in ways that are understandable and entertaining to my students.

As this post is dedicated to love/hate relationships with technology, I thought that Hank Green’s video on Net Neutrality would be fantastic to share:

And finally, because I just think this Vlogbrothers’ video is so awesome (and I wish there had been a Nerdfighter community when I was in junior high/high school), we end with John Green’s advice video on dumb boyfriends, going to college, and more:

Have a wonderful rest of your day and fantastic weekend (filled with reading).

Preservation Week

/ dwakimoto

Everyone, I have something exciting to share: it’s Preservation Week! The first ever Preservation Week by ALA (with lots of fabulous partners). And Preservation Week started on Mother’s Day–how appropriate because probably most people are interested in preserving memories of their families–and runs through this Saturday. Now, I’m probably geeking out a little bit about this because I’m an archivist in addition to being a librarian and think about preservation issues almost every day. But I think this is an awesome opportunity to raise awareness about preservation in your community and maybe even find some new information that will help your with preservation in your library, archives, and/or life. So let’s check out some of the highlights.

First, you must check out the Preservation Week: Pass it on: Saving heritage and memories website if you don’t do anything else. Tons of information, links to events and to organizations that have more information about preservation. I have to say that I’m especially fond of the Conserve O Grams by the National Park Service and the Preservation Leaflets by the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). Both of these resources have helped me numerous times when I’ve been faced with preservation issues in the archives. As an aside, if you ever have the opportunity to take a tour of NEDCC (like say through a preservation seminar at Simmons College or whatnot), don’t pass it up. The conservators that work there are incredibly knowledgeable and the facilities are amazing (yes, sorry, geeking out again).

On the Events page of the Preservation Week website you can find links to webinars (both for fee and for free sessions are available) as well information about in person events happening around the country. Add your event if you are hosting one this week too.

So get out there and spread the word about Preservation Week. Help create a disaster plan for your collection, rehouse a fragile collection, help your family store its letters, photographs, and heirlooms in proper containers, and for goodness’ sake get your files off those obsolete floppy disks.

Have a fantastic day, a productive Preservation Week, and the Waki Librarian will be back soon with more library and technology fun.

Productivity for Mother's Day

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! This is (once again) a quick break from focusing specifically on libraries and technology because it is Mother’s Day on Sunday. This probably means you have more important things to do than read a blog post (hopefully it involves making your mother something lovely for brunch). So without further ado, here is your abbreviated post that will leave you plenty of time to do all that last minute shopping or cooking.

Morning people have a lot going for them. They get up before most of the world therefore they get to start being productive earlier with less distractions. If you want to get more done in the mornings, check out Lifehacker’s post: ditch the morning drag by creating a new routine.

With all your new-found time, you can also check out this article from Lifehacker on HearNames.com. Anything to help me with pronouncing people’s names correctly is a good thing in my book.

Now that you are organized and have a couple of new tools in your pocket, check out Joy the Baker’s Mama’s Day Brunch Menu. Joy has one of the most fabulous baking blogs–I love the recipes and her writing. Seriously, check it out and surprise and delight your mother. (And if your mother happens to like chocolate, check out the recipe for old school fudge brownies with walnuts. Trust me, they are fantastic and you will not be disappointed.

So stop reading this post and go get ready for Mother’s Day, or enjoy the sunshine outside, or enjoy the sunshine while reading a book. Just have a lovely weekend and the Waki Librarian will be back next week with more technology and library fun.

Spending Time Staring at the Computer Screen

/ dwakimoto

I know that I spend way too much time staring at a computer screen each day. It is funny, in an ironic sort of way, that a machine that was supposed to make our lives simpler has taken over so much time in our days. Of course, I’m not against computers or the Internet in any sort of way, but sometimes it is just lovely to have a computer free day. But as this is not possible very often at work, so this post is filled with tips and tools to make staring at your computer screen a little easier.

I’m sure a lot of people already know how to change the background color in Adobe Reader for eye-friendly contrast. But if you don’t, check out the steps and make your eyeballs happy as you start reading the tenth article online.

If you are reading online, you might as well make it something worthwhile. So check out the Foreign Service Institute’s extensive language courses and brush up on your French or learn Japanese.

I am not a huge fan of email. Yes, for certain tasks it is efficient and effective, but I get way too much junk in my inbox each day by people sending messages that are completely unnecessary. I think this should be required reading for anyone who uses email: 8 things I wish everyone knew about email. Really people, could we all agree to only use the “Reply All” button if it is really, really necessary?

If you decide to send less email you might have more time to do actual work. And if you are doing work, you should consider Who judges your work? A good reminder that not all opinions are created equal and should be given equal consideration.

Final tip for the day is comes from the Mashable post, 5 tips for creating the perfect profile pic. Great tips for anyone who wants to update their profile photograph or other online avatars and images.

And for your Friday work break, check out the latest Vlogbrother video made by Hank (& then figure out who is in your Hug Bucket):

Have a lovely weekend, read a lot, give lots of hugs, and the Waki Librarian will be back next week with more technology and library commentary and tips.

John Green & David Levithan Book Event

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

I have this lovely post I am working on about learning foreign languages, creating better profile photographs and just having fun with technology and libraries. But we are going to have to put that on hold right now because I want to talk about last night’s book even with John Green and David Levithan, if I don’t I will spend the rest of the day annoying people at work with tales of the nerdfighter-tastic fun that was to be had at Books Inc. last night.

First a little background, John Green and David Levithan are both young adult authors. Not only our they young adult authors, but the happen to be New York Times best selling authors (trust me, go read their work if you haven’t already) and simply awesome people to boot. David wrote a book, you may have heard of it or the movie, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. John also happens to be one-half of the Vlogbrothers (the other half is his brother, Hank) and de facto leader of the world’s Nerdfighters. If you need a definition of Nerdfighters, please see the video below:

My very good friend, Monika, got me hooked on the Vlogbrothers’ videos (I even use them when I teach, but more on that later). I even have one of the rare John Green bobbleheads in my office. Like I’ve said before, I think it is great that young adults who feel nerdy and like no one else understands them now have a community to come to online and in person (not to mention help decrease world suck). [As an aside, Monika works at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and trained the birds for the new Hot Pink Flamingos exhibit (click the link to see a web cam of the exhibit). So if you go to see the exhibit and run into her, say hi and be nice; she might tell you some cool stuff about the birds.]

So anyway, there is this little book (totally joking, it debuted at number 3 on the NYT Best sellers list) that Green and Levithan wrote called Will Grayson, Will Grayson and they were in San Francisco last night to promote the book. It was a blast. There were a lot of Nerdfighters at the event:

Nerdfighter Crowd

Nerdfighter Crowd

Then came the screaming and photo snapping before the “dramatic reading” (which was amazing; there is already footage up on YouTube) and Q & A (yes, I know the photos are not the best quality, but in my defense, neither is my digital camera):

David and John

David and John

Then there was the book signing. I have to give massive props to the people working at Books Inc. because they were pros at moving the line along at a reasonable pace. John and David were lovely about signing as many of their books as people wanted. I managed to tell John that I am a librarian and use Vlogbrothers videos when I teach without tripping all over myself (aka becoming way too much of a fangirl), to which he replied that I was awesome and showing videos was the best evangelism for Nerdfighteria. 🙂 Photograph of the signed page below (because well, yes, I am a nerdy fangirl):

Signed Title Page

Signed Title Page

Now I really must go and get some more tea before teaching my first class of the day. As the Vlogbrothers would say, DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome).