I am sure all of you have been wondering what our beloved Alane has been doing, since she's moved North. Now I have a great answer: she's become the new Executive Director of the British Columbia Library Association.
We are so proud of her and expect to see even more great things come from BCLA now!!
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“Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone,
And she’s always gone too long.”
“Ain’t No Sunshine” – Bill Withers (Website ; WCid ; Wikipedia ; Soultracks)
As Alane notes in her post, Alane,
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This is my very last post for It's All Good. It also happens to be my last day as an employee of the House That Fred Built where I've spent ten years. My husband and I are relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia (which is where I lived while I did my library degree twenty years ago) and I am going to take the summer off, and decide what I want to do next. I could have kept my OCLC job, because OCLC is a very flexible organization with regard to where employees do their work, and my boss is a flexible person who would have supported my move, as she has supported other changes over the past several years.
But I like change. I like the feeling of embarking on a new adventure, of starting things, and of new challenges. So, it just felt right to step through this particular door and close it gently behind me, as different ones open up.
I've had a terrific ten years at OCLC and had opportunities that I thoroughly enjoyed and from which I learned a great deal. I have worked with great people at OCLC and got to meet many more great people through workshops and presentations I've participated in. And my co-bloggers Alice, Eric, George and Chrystie have been a large part of my last few years at OCLC, and have been the best co-authors and pals a person could hope for. Thanks. And thanks to all of you in the biblioblogosphere, who have become friends and colleagues through this not-so-new publishing medium.
I am not going to write my final thoughts on libraries and their futures because I will be starting up my own blog as soon as I have a chance to do so, and I am sure one of my IAG buddies will blog about it when I do and so provide a link. Also, it would be sort of anti-climatic as I will be at ALA in June, stage-managing the OCLC Symposium and making sure there are anough pretzels at the Blog Salon. I hope to have a chance to see many of you there.
I am going to leave you with a quote from Miss Gratia Alta Countryman's 1905 address to the Minnesota Library Association because I think it's as "web 2.0" as anything written this week and so is a fitting coda to my IAG career.
“Many of our libraries are now housed in beautiful buildings, in which case, the building as well as the books become a means of social influence. The whole building at all times should be managed in the broadest spirit of hospitality…do away with all unnecessary restrictions, take down all bars, and try to put face to face our friends the books and our friends the people. Introduce them cordially, then stand aside and let them make each other’s acquaintance.”
*And so it goes, and so it goes. This is the title of a Billy Joel song (although my favourite version of the song is by Jennifer Warnes on The Well) as well as the phrase Kurt Vonnegut used like a litany in Slaughterhouse Five to denote transformation
Thanks for the fish.
Blog: It's All Good (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Although it feels to me like mere weeks since our last Blog Salon, it is time to tell you about the next one. If you came to the ALA Midwinter Salon in Seattle, you can't forget it was very crowded, noisy and hot--all signs of a ripping good party, but not great for comfort.
So, we are holding this Blog Salon in a larger room, that isn't beside the bedroom of one of our conference managers who won't, then, be kept awake by carousing bloggers into the wee hours. We've chosen a time right after Leslie Burger's President's Program featuring Robert F. Kennedy which means you should be able to cross the street to the Grand Hyatt hotel, attend the Salon and still go for dinner afterwards.
Where: Congressional Suite at the Grand Hyatt
When: Sunday, June 24, 2007 , 5:45pm - 8pm
Who: Libraryland bloggers, pals of libraryland bloggers, bloggers-to-be
Why: Because it's such an interesting group of people
What: light snacks and adult beverages
See you there!
PS. I know this conflicts with the GLBTRT Social and I apologize to those wanting to attend this and the Blog Salon...maybe start with us and go on to the Social?
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Thanks to Darlene Fichter for pointing out* this really excellent video from the Aarhus Public Library in Denmark. "When everything is available online, why come to the library at all?" The video attempts to answer this.
It is in English and reports on a project they called The Transformation Lab that included the Literature Lab, the Music Lab (which included an Inspiration Zone), the News Lab, The Square, and the Exhibition Lab.
They present five lessons learned (and shown):
- flexible spaces are necessary
- open events are a good idea and well received
- the physical library needs to be augmented with interactive technology
- networking is critical among users, IT specialists, library staff, architects etc
- users need to have a more visible role inside the library
Simple techniques produced the greatest impact...the users like to become involved "as long as it was not too much trouble and providing it brings about an instant result."
The narrator comments that users have been forced to dismiss the book as library brand (makes me wonder if they've read The Perceptions report) and that they are co-creators of a new library space.
And reading the credits, I see the project was supported by the Danish National Library and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. So, are libraries in North America making grant applications for such projects?
*Darlene has other good videos noted at "Blog on the Side".
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I am really pleased that Roy will be joining OCLC. I've known for a few days, and have been bursting to tell. Here's his full announcement.
"With OCLC I have an incredible opportunity to be active on a broader stage. OCLC is big enough to put libraries on the Internet map in a way that none of us could achieve alone. Open WorldCat is but one example of many. I will be working as a Senior Program Manager with the RLG Programs unit of OCLC Research and Programs. I will report to Jim Michalko, who in turn reports to Lorcan Dempsey. I have met virtually all of the top management team at OCLC and I've been very impressed. They know where things are heading and they're determined to position libraries in a way that will do us the most good."
Reactions will be mixed, no doubt, ranging from "Oh no, Roy has been assimilated" to relief that OCLC was wise enough to add his skills, passion and commitment to the staff.
OK, Karen S, for some reason (could it be she visits regularly?), caught my inference in the previous post to a blog with no reason for being except to post unbearably cute pics of animals.
Cute Overload! probably beats all library blogs for traffic and links, probably even The Shifted Librarian at 3.5 million page views a month. What does this say about us a a highly evolved species? What does it say about me that I am--and probably Karen too--among those millions of visitors? How can IAG even hope for traffic like this?
Well, posting a cute animal picture can't hurt.
Casper, 5 months old
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Lorcan's post on the 5 non-library blogs he reads reminded me that Chrystie tagged us, her IAG colleagues as well.
I read many non-library blogs and a lot of them are work-a-day tracking interesting things sorts of blogs, but here are 5 that stand out for various reasons.
Journal. David Byrne is the author. If you're around my age, or are younger and maybe discovered Talking Heads or Byrne as an influence on younger performers such as Arcade Fire, you'll know he's a very clever multitalented person (who else could turn Powerpoint into art?). And he's a good writer. Journal is just one of many channels at his site. He even has his own web radio station.
By Neddie Jingo. (warning....no naughty pictures but topics and language are not always entirely SFW). A psuedonymous blogger who I find very, very funny (so does George) and who can rant better than most. Here's a fairly safe one from two years ago (just a few non-work words and no political views, which Neddie has aplenty) on "why are books the size they are?"
Arts & Letters. This is kind of cheating as A&L isn't really a blog. But it is blog-like and often the last webby thing I look at before going to bed and reading static words on repurposed trees.
the cassandra pages. This blog I read almost as I would a book...not daily, but in chunks, reading many posts at once, perhaps because cumulatively they are like chapters in a book and often beautifully written. One aspect of Elizabeth Adam's blog I like is that she is an American living in Montreal (as well as Vermont) and writes vividly and evocatively about being there. Many lovely photographs as well. Adams also writes a lot about religion--specifically Anglican/Episcopalian matters. I am not a church-goer but my father, among other careers, is an ordained Anglican minister so the topics and debates are ones I am mostly familiar with.
I really waffled over the 5th blog....the photo blog that would completely, irrevocably uncloak my politics? The nothing-but-cute-animals photoblog that would reveal my insipidness? The snarky celeb-tracking blog that would reveal my shallowness? So, I chose one that may be just as telling but about what, I am not sure.
I give you gapingvoid, Hugh MacLeod's cartoon blog from which I have borrowed cartoons for presentations when they do not have "Not SFW" words in them. It stands, in a way, as a metablog as on his blogroll are many other blogs I read regularly.
Cartoon by Hugh MacLeod, gapingvoid.com
Blog: It's All Good (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Noted in the World Future Society's e-newsletter Futurist Update, April 2007 (links and emphasis added):
"On his Web site FutureCheck, Dutch futurist Marcel Bullinga offers a tantalizing glimpse of Europe in the year 2020--a society boosted by the transparent, intelligent, virtual world. This video is an abridged version of what Bullinga shows during his live presentations."
The 1:35 video is on the FutureCheck site and Youtube here.
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My April copy of Business 2.0 arrived yesterday. On pages 50 and 51 is a piece*, "Building a Better Book Club" on Tim Spaulding and LibraryThing, described in the article as "a social network based not on who you know but on what you've read."
It's a positive piece and deservedly so as LibraryThing clearly provides members with value by making a service lots of people want as well as offering an active role in designing the service as it develops.
There was a (to me) related article in the Sunday New York Times, "How to Improve It? Ask Those Who Use It."
Two quotes from each article.
On LibraryThing: "But Spaulding expects LibraryThing's real growth to come from using the community's collective wisdom to improve the way the world finds books [...] Spaulding's next target is to get into the business of advising libraries on how to manage their catalogs."
On user-driven innovation: "Mr. von Hippel [Sloan School of Management] is the leading advocate of the value of letting users of products modify them or improve them, because they may come up with changes that manufacturers never considered. [...] Mr von Hippel...says that as user communities...spread, they will dominate innovation."
*Jessamyn West is quoted as is Chris Locke (co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and, right now, embroiled in a blogosphere brouhaha with Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users).
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Yep, there we are, OCLC Ken and Barbie anchorpeople in our starched and pressed conservative suits at the Blog Salon at ALA MidWinter. Neat haircuts all.
Generalizations are a bit silly usually.
That's Chrystie, Alice and Alane in front. Eric (who was wearing a tie but who wears jeans to work) and George in back--and the top of Walt's head.
Picture from Alice's Flickr pics.
Thanks--maybe--to anchorboy and colleague Andy for pointing out these deep thoughts from a new, anonymous biblioblogger who might work at OSU.
Picture from Andy's MySpace page.
Update Friday March 23: Well, well....how interesting. On Wednesday, if you had clicked on the first link in this post, you would have gone to the post on a blog that dissected the dress and demeanours of OCLC staff (including our new colleagues from RLG). But this morning, the link takes you to a sign-in page for a blog that's closed to invited readers only. I wonder why?
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Hands up, US readers...how many of your places of work have the Library Bill of Rights displayed somewhere in a public area in your library?
Second question. Are the non-librarians on your staff familiar with the Library Bill of Rights?
We got to musing on the visibility of these Rights when the small team working on our forthcoming report wondered among ourselves...have you ever seen the Library Bill of Rights displayed in a library? And the answer was, "no."
Why not, we wonder? As the document states: "...the following basic policies should guide their services." Shouldn't the people served in libraries know what the service promises are?
If you have the Library Bill of Rights displayed (or your country's equivalent), please let me know! And if you don't, tell me why not. Also, they haven't been amended since 1996. Do they need to be?
I do think it a bit odd that "libraries" stand in for "librarians." (That's a synecdoche for you non-English majors) It's as if doctors' codes referred to hospitals' responsibilities to patients--which they don't.
One criticism I have read about libraries' codes of ethics is that the individual practitioner is not explicitly held accountable (more on codes of ethics in a future post). Certainly, there are no librarians in the US LibraryBill of Rights.
In case you've forgotten, these Rights are:
I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Material should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgement of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person's right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
Adopted June 18, 1948. Amended february 2, 1961, and January 23, 1980, inclusion of "age" reaffirmed January 23, 1996, by the ALA Council.
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Kudos to the North Metro Technical College Library in Acworth, Georgia which has posted a 2:32 video on creating a free account for netLibrary. That's the one that caught the attention of people at OCLC this morning, but NMTC Library has eight DIY videos posted to YouTube. They are all about two and a half minutes long and follow the same pattern..."How do I find....?" and cover tools to create citations to how to find print materials.
My border collies, Bonny and William, and Hamish the handsome mutt.
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I'd like to think that dozens of IAG readers have been wondering where Alane is, but I suspect--no, I am positive--that is not the case. Well, I suppose all of us, actually, have been posting infrequently and/or sporadically. I think there are several reasons for this.
One would be the obvious "we're really busy" because we really are. I think all of us have big projects we are managing or participating in as well as any number of the usual workplace busy tasks--and the latter are definitely not worth writing about.
The second is, perhaps, that the biblioblogosphere is a rich and varied place these days, full of interesting voices and writing, and increasingly, overlap in subjects addressed. In May 2004 when we began, there were far fewer people writing about library matters and things that matter to libraries which meant, quite honestly, less competition for eyeballs. We are generalists here at IAG and so appeal to all or no one. Also, when we began, we were the only OCLC staff blogging as OCLC staff and that is not so three years later. There are nine blogs* written by people who clearly or slightly less clearly work for OCLC. (And there are, of course, personal blogs written by people who work at OCLC.)
The third is....ennui? Februaryitis?
And fourth, for me, is that much of what I am reading and thinking about is related to our forthcoming report. So, while I am reading truly fascinating, thought-provoking stuff, I am loathe to share at this point as I, selfishly, want everything to be fresh when we publish the report. But, this is probably silly because not all IAG readers will read the report and it's also a really old way of thinking about writing. Chris Anderson basically wrote The Long Tail as his blog and this didn't dilute the resulting book a whit. There are other similar examples.
OK, I'll share....just not today.
Today, Ben McConnell from Church of the Customer is here at OCLC in Dublin to speak to staff and interested outsiders about his and Jackie Huba's new book, Citizen Marketers.
"A solitary citizen today with a broadband connection and a few cheap tools has a substantially better chance of influencing the public's perceptions of billion-dollar corporations than ever before. With a voice, a vote and a vocation, tens of millions of Americans are involving themselves in the cultural lives of business. The "social media" of blogs, podcasts and social networks are fusing pop culture with traditional marketing, and it's causing all manner of disruption."
Looking forward to this!
*That's not a test. They are Lorcan Dempsey's weblog, Outgoing, Weibel Lines, Hanging Together, BlogJunction, Walt at Random and Libraryman. Updated! How could I have forgotten 025.431: The Dewey Blog. Sorry, Dewey Manor dwellers!
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Well, we are like Scheherazade in that we've told 1,001 stories here at It's All Good since our first post on May 20, 2004. Although, as far as I know, none of us will be executed if we stop telling stories--but I could be wrong.
It's fitting that our newest IAGer, Chrystie, made the 1,001 post.
If we posted all the stories we come across, we would be way way over this number--Alice and I seem to exchange at least two emails a week bemoaning the number of items we would like to blog about and don't find the time to, amidst all the other things we have to do.
So, perhaps a brain scan that can read my intentions and then make words based on what I planned to blog about will help get more things out of my head and into IAG.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Germany, and University College London and Oxford University in England, have apparently developed a technique for doing at least the first part of this--looking inside peoples' brains and reading their intentions before they act, according to this article published in The Guardian Online today.
Very "future-y" and Minority Reportish. Maybe public libraries that charge fines for overdue materials can recoup money earlier in the process--say, before the material is even borrowed--by scanning the brains of borrowers and fining those who clearly have the intention of returning stuff late.
Happy Friday.
Alane: Best wishes in your future endeavors! I'm sure you will be successful with whatever you decide to do or wherever you decide to do it. Change indeed is good!
I'll second the best wishes, and here's a general wish that our future adventures turn out well. See you at the Salon.
Alane: I will miss your comments and insight on this blog. Whatever your next adventure is, I'm sure it will be brilliant. Lucky Canada, to have you back!
Best wishes.
*and so do you soon, I suppose...
I've enjoyed reading your posts; best of luck on your new adventure in a beautiful place.
Alane,
Wishing you all the best as you transition to your new home, and begin a journey down a new path!
Thanks for leaving us with the wonderful quote by Gratia Alta Countryman. It's (all) good to be reminded that Web 2.0 is a natural, modern-day extension of our core library values, as this quotation so ably demonstrates.
You were one of the main inspirations for my own blog, and I'll miss your voice at IAG, so I look forward to finding your voice, coming at us from new call letters, soon.
All the best!
-Peter
I'll miss your voice at IAG but look forward to hearing about your new ventures. You've done great things for OCLC and librarianship and I am sure you are destined for more wonderful goodness.
Alane,
I will miss your voice, but I hope I will still get to see you often at different conferences. Good luck and many blessings!
Well, phooey! I never did that "top five bloggers" thing, but if I had, you would have been in it. Hope you stick around libraryland. I appreciate your honest writing. See you in DC.