Libraries

Why Innovation

/ dwakimoto

We are a week away from classes starting for Fall Quarter at my university which means the campus is gearing up and faculty members are frantically trying to finish the prep for their courses. All of this leads me to the question of why we need innovation and why it isn’t happening so many times.

Now not to rehash everything that has already been said, I direct your attention to a 2006 presentation titled “Are We Ready for Massive Library Innovation?” by Stephen Abram at San Jose State University. You can find the link to the webcast here: Fall 2006 Colloquia List.

Abram makes a great case for libraries and innovation; a theme that can also be seen in his latest column in SLA’s Information Outlook. Now, I wish that a call for massive innovation from 2006 did not still resonate because we were all being so innovative, but it seems like we are still battling the same resistance to change and fear of innovating. I think, therefore, we heartily need to embrace Web 2.0’s mantra that everything is beta and it is better just to try something new than analyze it to death. Sure we’ll make mistakes, but if we listen to and work with our users, at least we’ll also make improvements and learn something. Failing isn’t the worst thing that can happen; not being relevant is the worst thing that can happen.

As my biology professors always said: there are only two states–change and death. So we are either changing or we are dying. I for one pick changing to death.

So is your library innovative? Do you support innovation? Do you welcome learning something new and trying something different? Are you willing to give up control to create community and let your users have a say in the creation of information and context in your library? I’d love to hear what other people are doing to foster an environment that embraces innovation because I’d try to implement them at my library.

While you are on San Jose’s School of Library and Information Science Colloquia page, you should check out some of their other archived presentations. This is really a great use of technology and they even closed captioned the videos and make them available for streaming and downloading in a variety of places and formats. This is something I wish more libraries would do–a great use of technology for PR and it incorporates accessibility. Plus, there are just some really interesting talks.

This is an older video, but in case you haven’t seen it and need some more reasons why we need to be innovative check out the “Did You Know 3.0?” video below:

Good luck being innovative, read a lot and the Waki Librarian will be back soon with more technology and library fun.

Good Enough?

/ dwakimoto

What does “good enough” mean to you? Are you comfortable with experimentation at work and just seeing what happens? Or do you want your work to be perfect before you share it with the world? I think, obviously, I’m kind of in the first camp and happy with beta testing. This is the theme of today’s post: being “good enough” in various contexts.

So this article by Robert Capps, “The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple is Just Fine” got me thinking about the concept of “good enough” and how it might relate to libraries. I especially like Capps’ point that accessibility will win out over quality when it comes to people choosing what products they want to buy and use. I think accessibility comes together with convenience. A lot of the time, it seems to me, that libraries wait to perfect a new service, news article or tool before implementing it under the belief that the library needs to be perceived as “perfect”. However, I would say that we need to follow the “good enough” revolution that is so prevalent in the technology sector with the release of Beta versions of software, products, etc. Perhaps if we become okay with being “good enough” and not perfect, we’ll actually be more responsive to users’ needs and more accessible for those in our communities. Just a thought.

Wikipedia is so ubiquitous that it seems almost pointless to talk about it, yet again. However the news from this article, “Wikipedia to Color Code Untrustworthy Text”, made me decide to talk about Wikipedia again. This will be a very interesting talking point in my classes this fall when we discuss evaluation of sources, especially with regard to crowdsourcing, reliability and authority. So is Wikipedia “good enough” to use in research? I think it depends on the research. Although I am still a little concerned about the thesis I picked up yesterday that had a Wikipedia article listed as the first reference in the works cited list.

I think with all the craziness in the economy (especially in California), uncertainty in employment and just general funk, it is difficult to maintain a hopeful and kind attitude to everyone we come into contact with at work and outside of work. But just because it is difficult does not give us an excuse to be rude. Check out this great article by Kate Sheehan, “On Kindness, Libraries & the Big Picture”. Very well-written and timely–I think it is a great reminder to be kind. I especially like her final line in looking at the big picture: “Ultimately, we’re running libraries. It’s not rocket surgery and our mistakes and problems are aggravating, but generally speaking, no kittens will die.” Being “good enough” in this instance is being kind–to yourself and others–and not killing kittens.

More later–have a great day.

College, Technology and Other Stuff

/ dwakimoto

Wow, last week in August already. Hard to believe that the summer is almost over and that some students are already back at college. Luckily my university is on the quarter system so I have another month to prepare. But in the vein of back-to-school time, here are some interesting articles to check out about college, dropout rates and other stuff.

This is an interesting article about dropout rates for college students in the United States. Definitely check out the suggestions at the end for tweaking the educational system in order to retain more students. I definitely agree that the entire remediation course idea needs to be re-engineered.

Speaking of change, check out this article from The Guardian on the “quiet” academic library revolution. While this might not be news to those of us that work in academic libraries, it is always nice to see articles about what work is “really like” for academic librarians. It’s all about the teaching and the technology–even on the other side of the pond.

danah boyd writes some of the most interesting pieces on technology today. Check out her “It’s easy to fall in love with technology…” article. I love that she attacks the notion “digital native”. Many of my students aren’t comfortable with technology and I get tired of reading all the articles that say that everyone under the age of 20 is a pro with every technology under the sun. Really, take the time to read this article–it has many great points to think about and discuss with your colleagues.

Finally, because it is back-to-school time, I thought we could all use Lifehacker’s 10 tricks for creatively hiding your stuff. There is nothing like a clean room to clear your mind so you can get down to work.

Finally, because everyone needs a laugh, here is xkcd’s latest flowchart on computer tech support. Enjoy!

Tech Support Cheat Sheet by xkcd.com

Tech Support Cheat Sheet by xkcd.com

End of the Quarter Bits

/ dwakimoto

It honestly doesn’t seem to make much difference if I’m teaching a class or taking a class, the end of the quarter is still filled with anxiety, last minute chores and lots of panicked students. It also means that I fall behind on bookmarking new web stuff, blogging about new web stuff, and basically just fall a little behind. So here is my attempt at catching up on some of the cool library and tech stuff that has been floating around my RSS feeds–basically just a little of this and a little of that.

So first for the technology bit, here is Lifehacker’s Top 10 Wallpaper Tools and Tweaks. These are amazing tips for creating or just finding desktop wallpapers that not only look beautiful but can help increase your productivity. I can’t wait to start designing a compartmentalized desktop and using the calendar feature– sounds like a good summer project to me. If you have another favorite source for wallpapers, please leave it in the comments.

And for a different change of pace, here is a news post that absolutely infuriates me: Kayne West is a “proud non-reader”. He says in the article that “I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life.” One wonders then why on earth he decided to write a book. Thank goodness there are a lot of really awesome people who are very proud readers of books. Suddenly, trying to get my students, who are slightly less than enthusiastic about information literacy class at the beginning of the term, to actually engage in the class seems like a cakewalk. At least no one has ever told me they are proud of not reading books. Sheesh.

So to counteract that negativity, because we really need to, here is a great library hero who is Running a Library out of a School Locker. This student is running a library out of her locker at school, and the library is filled with banned books! Can we say born to be a librarian?! This is so amazingly awesome. The comments to this post are great reading as well. I sincerely hope the student did not get caught or in trouble for enabling students to read what they want. People who do things like this and totally get that banning books is pointless and stupid absolutely make my day.

So that is it for today’s bits of fun technology and library information. I hope everyone has a great week and I’ll be back soon with more goodies from the wide, wild world of information!

Careers

/ dwakimoto

I have to say that I still can’t wrap my mind around the fact that Info Career Trends is going on indefinite hiatus. I think it is one of the best places to go for articles about all sorts of facets of library careers, work and advice. Thank goodness that the back issues will remain on the web, along with feeds from other parts of the blog. So in honor of ICT, I had to talk a little about two of the articles that come from the last issue and touch home for those of us who are new and/or work in academia.

Moving Ahead without Moving Up by Brenna Helmstutler is a great article for those who work as academic librarians. She offers some great suggestions on being involved and evolving in your role as an academic librarian. I especially liked the reminders of what types of characteristics one should cultivate as you move forward.

To the point of what you can do to move forward, here is Veronica Arellano’s article Ask Forgiveness Later. I completely adore this article because it is pretty much how I feel about work and implementing new technologies and tools in the workplace. As it is often said, “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission.” Not to be totally subversive, but it works pretty well. Not that committees, as Arellano points out, don’t have a place in the academic scheme of things, but often change needs to take place on an individual level before it ever moves onto a committee or institutional level. You can’t wait for someone else to give you a project to do, you have to go out and try things. And some fail spectacularly and some succeed brilliantly–luckily there is always something else to try.

I just finished listening to a Webinar led by Darlene Fichter & Jeff Wisniewski titled “How Social is Your Web Site?” today. It reminds me of the points above in that one needs to get out into the social media, but also have a plan. One can be slightly subversive, but still have a plan and that probably is one of the best recipes for succeeding in the ever-changing social media landscape. The best part of the webinar was definitely the ways of measuring success in implementing social media through quantitative measures and qualitative measures. We need to prove the worth of our services in order to move more fully into the Web 2.0 world. More on that later.

Have a great day. Remember to read a lot, think a little about how you can move forward and the Waki Librarian will be back with another missive soon.

Graduate School and Reading

/ dwakimoto / 2 Comments

I think a lot about reading and college. This is not surprising considering I work at an academic library. However, I think that I just might be obsessing a little more than usual lately. At my library, we are trying to conserve paper and printer toner to a greater extent than we already do. So I’m sitting, staring at my computer screen even more than usual and pondering issues at the academy when my mind wanders as I try to read yet another pdf online.

So what does this have to do with today’s post? Well, I’m glad you asked.

To help with online reading, check out Readable which allows you to change the font, color and layout of what you are reading to make it easier to read. And you get to customize it to your settings. I think this is fabulous and definitely need to spend more time playing around with Readable. This is a free application and would be great for manipulating content for easier reading for those with vision difficulties.

Now, about college, more specifically graduate school. U.S. News just put out its new lists of the Best Graduate Schools. I was happy to see that my alma mater, Simmons College, got into the top ten for library science and ranked even higher for the archives and preservation program. Though not perfect, it is an interesting ranking list to check out. And who doesn’t like lists or checking out who’s who in the rankings?

This is an interesting opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal: So you Want to be a Professor. Just another look at the academy’s tenure versus adjunct professor debate and the fact that some universities are admitting fewer PhD students this year. Just some food for thought.

Hope everyone has a great day. More fun, interesting, and helpful news later this week.

100th Post

/ dwakimoto

Wow, I can’t believe that I am up to 100 posts on The Waki Librarian blog. I know that isn’t super impressive, but I’m amazed that I’ve written that much and that you, faithful reader, are still reading. I don’t have anything special planned for this post, just the usual assortment of helpful techie stuff and some library news.

First I need to do my public service announcement. ATM Skimmers have been making the headlines lately and I thought I would do my part to get people to pay attention when they are at the ATM. Thanks to the Consumerist, here is a great article (complete with pdf) on how to id an ATM Skimmer. Definitely check this out and protect your account. As I tell my students, identity theft can happen to anyone so at least make the thieves work for your information and don’t just give it to them!

In the vein of ridiculous challenges and bans to books that I wrote about a bit ago, here is ALA’s 2008 Top Ten List of Most Frequently Challenged Books. Although this came out a week ago, I wanted to offer the link just in case you missed it the first time around. And, for another year, And Tango Makes Three is the number one most frequently challenged book. Who knew that penguins could be so divisive?

Now for some fun, check out Unshelved’s Publisher Confidential, a very funny booklet of “frank feedback for publishers from librarians, booksellers, and readers.” Created in conjunction with BookExpo America, this is a superb comic booklet. Really, take a few minutes and have a laugh–it’s good for your health. Oh, and then RSS Unshelved if you haven’t already.

Now Prezi has been making the blog rounds lately. Thanks to Lori for the heads-up on this as I was buried in conference paper preparation and almost missed it in on my Lifehacker feed! Prezi is a web-based presentation tool with a difference. You create your whole presentation on one stage and use the cool zoom and path features to make sense out of your one master stage that holds all the information for your presentation. You can sign up for a free account and there are lots of helpful video tutorials on how to get started. As always, I suggest watching a couple tutorials and then diving on in. There is nothing like playing around with a new application to learn it. It is really fun and a time sink so you are now forewarned!

I think Prezi would be great for presentations at some conferences, but I have to admit that some of the zooming makes me a little sick. So one little hint: just because you can use a fast zoom while twisting your presentation in Prezi, doesn’t mean you always should. Remember when animated GIFs were all the rage? I rest my case.

Have a great Thursday, read a lot, get off the computer and outside at least once if you can, and the Waki Librarian will be back with more fun and helpful information soon.

Realizations and Fun

/ dwakimoto

I know it is just stating the obvious, but it is Monday. And what a Monday, we are in the middle of a mini-heatwave out here and it is the fourth week of the quarter which means the first midterm panic/rush is upon us. But that will not stop us, faithful readers, from having some fun and perhaps coming to a few realizations about the academy and librarianship. Maybe they will not be new realizations, but they will be realizations none the less.

I think that this blog entry, 5 Things I Didn’t Realize I’d Be Working On, should be required reading for any new or aspiring librarians. I have to say that it rung true for me. So much of my day is spent troubleshooting computer and printer issues on the desk and a lot of my teaching time is spent creating online modules and videos. The face and work of librarians are changing, even while our core values of service, access and learning are not. I met quite a few people in library school who talked about working by themselves, away from the public, and reading a lot. Thus, this post is very timely and there are those that still need to be reminded that the librarian’s work is always evolving and literally never done.

In that vein, I think that coming to the profession with an open mind and retaining the same open mind is one of the best assets a librarian can have. Oh, and a desire to learn and understand applications of new technology. Oh, and a love of helping people. And, well, as you know the list goes on and on. Librarians are, without a doubt, some of the people most likely to be polymaths and very happy that their jobs allow them to explore so many varied areas and tasks.

This article, Admissions of Another Sort, is really not ground-breaking news, but rather a re-realization and confirmation of just how important and necessary librarians are to student learning. Long live the information literate individual! (and the librarian that helps him/her become so)

Now for a little fun. I think this must be one of the coolest applications I’ve seen in a while. DoInk is a free, web-based animation application. I just finished watching the video tutorial and was super-impressed by how simple the interface is but also how powerful it looks for creating animations. Just think of the cool videos you could make with DoInk. I’m definitely trying this out and seeing what I can create for my classes.

Have a great rest of your Monday and the Waki Librarian will be back later in the week for more fun and productive tidbits from the web.

Websites & Libraries

/ dwakimoto

First off, I’m terribly sorry for the lack of updates on the blog. I’ve been in the black hole of jury duty for the past week and a half, but the trial is over and now back to blogging! So in honor of Friday, here are a couple of great presentations on websites, technology and libraries.

First from Librarian in Black is her presentation 10 LOL cat Laws of Web Services for Smaller, Underfunded Libraries. Well, I think that even if you work in a large library you can use some of this information as so many libraries are underfunded right now. I love the use of LOL cats (they were used in presentations at Internet Librarian this year too). I love the emphasis on interacting with patrons and actually creating a community in the library. Also, I love the fact that most of the suggestions can be done using free applications so all you have to do is put in the time. However, I’m still annoyed that a lot of the technology used in social networking is still not 100% accessible. I want to implement some of these ideas in the library I’m at, but as they aren’t accessible they can’t be implemented. I wish more of the Web 2.0 world would wake up and become accessible already!

And here is a pdf of the Michael Stephens’ Ten Tech Ideas Presentation. He presents on some great technology innovations and also covers some of the same ground that you can see in the LOL cats presentation. And, again, most of the technologies discussed can be used for free. One note, the pdf is huge and takes a bit of time to download. Also if you use Google Chrome, you might want to try to open it in another browser and it sometimes seems to get twitchy about opening in Chrome. (Why? I have no idea.)

And, after you get totally psyched to overhaul your website, or you feel overwhelmed, take a look at this great video that has been making its way around the internet. It will make you smile, promise. Have a great Friday and a great weekend.

Working smarter

/ dwakimoto

So it is Thursday and I’m feeling really bad about the lack of updates this week. But I have an excuse, really I do. Loathe as I am to make excuses, dear reader, this time I will. I’ve been at jury duty and now am on a jury for the immediate future. So that is my excuse–I truly am sorry for the lack of updates.

But enough of that, there are still hours in the morning before my reporting time when things must be accomplished, blog posts must be written, lectures must be finished and articles must be edited. So, you’ve guessed correctly, today we will be discussing, once again, how to get things done.

I have to admit, when I want to get serious writing or editing done, there is nothing like working at home for me. I don’t check my email every five minutes, I turn off my phone and just dive into my writing only to surface hours later to check communication with the outside world. And, amazingly, the world hasn’t fallen apart because I’ve not emailed anyone in the last couple of hours. That is how I get work done.

The lovely Lifehacker has this great post by Gina Trapani on reusable solutions to common productivity problems. This article has lots of links to other helpful resources and tackles productivity issues that are larger than say what a Google gadget hack will fix. I think this is fantastic and a very helpful read. Just remember, in the end, it is really all on our own shoulders to get the work done–in and outside of the library.

Here’s a site that will definitely help you with your productivity, in terms of learning a new language: Open Culture’s Free Foreign Language Lessons. Links to 37 different languages and each one offers links to iTunes, a feed and a website for each language so you can pick which way you are going to get your lessons. Just be careful as some of the lessons are free up to a point and then want you to pay for more advanced ones. But I’m happy, finally a site that has Swedish listed!

Finally, we have to end on a fun note, so here is a link to another great Unshelved comic strip. I just love it–rock on librarians for exposing people to new and different, even dangerous ideas.

Have a great day and with any luck, the Waki Librarian will be back with more techie fun soon.