Vacation Guilt

I honestly have no idea where the last three months have gone. Next week Stephen and I are taking a week off to go haunt my parents in Palm Desert, CA. I am looking forward to a week away. A free place to stay, free airline tickets (thanks to all the miles we had piled away), probably some free meals, mountains, sunshine, and a spa! Really what more could I ask for and WHY am I feeling guilty? Mainly because when I get back the next three months are going to go faster than the previous and I have 10x as many things to do before June.

Some of these things include:

• a dozen staff annual evaluations due early April
• my personal reflections on leadership to the Sun Seekers group on April 4
• evaluating Meebo and figuring out if we are going to use it in reference, ASAP
• preparing for my keynote (yes, you read that correctly :)) presentation and possible workshop at ACURIL (Association of Caribbean University, Research, and Institutional Libraries) on June 4th. This is the thing that is stressing me out the most. I am honored and excited to share what I know about Web 2.0 and our experience with TLC 2.0, but I have some pretty big shoes to fill. It is also my first international conference presentation. It will be in front of 200+ librarians with simultaneous interpreters by my side for the French and Spanish speaking attendees. But I guess we all have to start somewhere, somehow right?
• deciding whether to ALA or not to ALA this year.
• hopefully squeeze in a quick trip to NYC to meet my new niece who should be arriving any day now!
• continue to help plan and organize the SEFLIN Future of Libraries Conference for July
• figure out how and where to shower for who knows how long when our bathrooms get demolished next month -- don't worry I will bathe, just don't know where.
• coordinate an already hectic and wacky reference desk schedule at least two more times before June.
• and of course all the other daily things that filter in here and there.

I am going to need another vacation sooner rather than later. Not to mention some serious commitment to time management. Maybe I can work in a few extra days after ACURIL. I'll be in Jamaica already!

Reunited...

I've just returned from ALA Midwinter and am (as usual) feeling refreshed and rejuvenated about librarianship. I also realized I've been neglecting my blog when so many of my former TLC 2.0ers are keeping up with theirs. I'm happy to say my blog and are reunited, awww.

I'm also posting because tonight I will be presenting to the library's Circle of Friends group. I've created their very own Learning Challenge 2.0 for them. They will only be covering 5 Things. The program has a few other modifications too. I'll post again to let you know how this project is going. In the meantime, here is their project page: http://coflearning.wordpress.com/about

And, in the end...

I've been thinking a lot about this final post for the TLC 2.0 project. I have the interesting perspective of summing things up both as a participant and a project coordinator.

As a participant, I thought this was a great journey. The outline of the course gave me a solid structure to follow and provided an end goal to work towards. Had we not done this challenge there would still be (and there still are) many Web 2.0 tools that I would not have thoroughly explored. As a whole I have a better understanding of RSS feeds, tagging, web-applications, wikis, and blogs. I see their potential in libraries, but I also know how to work with these tools. Like a few others have commented I have started incorporating several of the tools into my daily work routine, e.g., bloglines, rss feeds, wikis, and blogs. I also see Second Life as a solid learning environement and expect to get Siouxsy Mornington (my SL avatar) to some of the great professional development opportunities happening there.

I am also grateful for my fellow co-workers (bloggers) who opened up on their blogs, shared their learning experience, their talents, but also a little bit about themselves. I don't know if I can speak for everyone, but I feel I have a much better understanding of who I am working with and what their talents are.

As a project coordinator, I also thought it was a great journey. Of course there are things I would do differently. For one, the weeks went by way too fast! I would space things out a little bit. This project taught me many things, two of the most important things were time management and the importance of collaboration! I had to complete my things each week, promote the program, check on people's progress and do all of my regularly assigned responsibilities. Of course I had loads of help on this project and I could not have done it alone. There was so much going on behind the scenes, some of it above an beyond my technical abilities. Without a team this learning challenge wouldn't have been at all what it was. And without the participation of the NSU libraries staff there would've been no TLC 2.0!

It gave me a great sense of pride to read the blog entries each week and see the discussions in people's comments. I saw the collaboration, communication and support happen immediately. I do wish we would have planned for more group training. Even with the open labs, there was never a perfect day or time that was best for everyone to come together. As a project coordinator I also have to admit I got scared mid way through when people started to drop off and blog posts declined. Other than slowing things down a bit I am not sure how we could have kept all 53 registered blogs going through until the end. Some people have indicated to me that they just ran out of time, they will complete the 23 Things, but the timing for them was off. If you are reading this and this applies to you, then I challenge you to complete your learning journey!

I can't wait to see what's in store for the next learning challenge. Will it be TLC 2.1 and beyond? I am even more excited to see some of the tools that we've learned become implemented into our library services and programs.

Once again thanks to everyone who helped make this happen; the NSU Libraries Executive Council, The TLC 2.0 Task Force, and YOU the participants. Your support, creativity, enthusiasm and willingness to venture into the unknown made this an awesome journey!

See you at the Wrap Up fiesta November 15th @ 1:00pm in the 2nd Floor Gallery of the Alvin Sherman Library.

Podcasts, Smodcasts!

Of the 3 podcast directories listed on the discovery resources I thought Podcast Alley was the easiest to navigate. Yahoo! Podcasts just gave me a headache. I searched for library related podcasts and ran across some that I was already familiar with, like the SirsiDynix Institute. I tried listening to a few that I thought would be interesting or entertaining. Maybe it was my selection, but I found myself growing agravated with the idle chit-chat and couldn't wait any longer to get to the heart of the podcast. I just turned it off!

I noticed a few libraries using podcasts to update users on news and events. If a library can keep this up consistently I think its a nice feature. Another way libraries could use podcasts would be to record special programs or book club discussions and link to the audio from their website. Libraries need to remember that it takes time, talent and technology to produce a decent (interesting) podcast. If you've got all that more power to you!

The closest to doing a podcast I've done is re-recording some of the audio files for TLC 2.0. I already had a script to work from, so generating new content wasn't an issue. But recording isn't as easy as it sounds. I found it hard to make myself sound interesting when I was sitting in a room by myself talking into a Snowball microphone -- my apologies for the dull podcasts. Thank God for LeThesha who showed me how to jazz them up a bit with some intro and exit music! My knowledge of the recording software, Garage Band, is limited so every time I screwed up I started over instead of editing from where I left off.

As far as seeking out podcasts to listen to on a regular basis I am not sold on it yet. If I know of a program or episode that aired and I missed it, e.g., a SirsiDynix workshop, NPR broadcast, or Prairie Home Companion, I will definitely check out the podcast. Otherwise I don't think I will be actively subscribing to any I found while searching the directories.

Why I Heart Facebook

I joined Facebook shortly after I returned home from ACRL in April. I went to a few sessions talking about how libraries were using it to connect with their students. The discussions looked at success stories and some of the not so successful things about using Facebook and Myspace to connect with students. I like Some Librarian's post which sums up a lot of the discussion from ACRL, Glut of Facebook Traffic.

So I joined to see what all the fuss was about. I added a few reference department colleagues as friends. I explored the NSU network, looked at events, joined library groups and a few NSU groups. I even tried advertising some library events and our new program of offering remote reference services in the dorms. Other than by the folks that already know me I don't think I got noticed. But that's ok, I wasn't hurt that a student didn't respond saying they would stop by and see us in the dorms. I think it is important to tinker with stuff first and then really think about how it can be used. Maybe creating an Alvin Sherman Library users group for students to join will be the next level of online reference services. We get plenty of emails, but mainly from distance students, so I am not sure if they've jumped on the Facebook bandwagon or not yet. I have found several informative groups on Facebook relating to library/reference services.

So why do I truly heart Facebook? I have re-connected with former colleagues and long-lost friends. I recently found 3 people I haven't talked to or heard from in 10 plus years. The last time I saw them they were between the ages of 10-15 (from my endless summers as a camper and camp counselor). We lost touch for many reasons, but one is because they all live in Mexico and we pre-date email, so once I lost their mailing address it was all over. We are now connected again because of Facebook, have shared photos and our life stories. I even spoke to one on the phone the other day. It was an awesome feeling!

I admit I have a Myspace account too, but I hardly look at it. I like the white calmness of Facebook, not all those wacky skins and videos that shower people's MySpace accounts. I did have someone tell me the other day they preferred Myspace because Facebook was too hard and they just didn't get it. As a result she's sticking to Myspace. Could we apply Ranganathan's Laws of Library Science to social networking? Instead of "for every book its reader", for "every social networking site its user"?

I recently sent a request to my sisters to join Facebook. One responded she was too old for 'that stuff' (she's only 36). In response I referred her to the Business Week article Fogeys Flock to Facebook. I love proving my older sister wrong :) I am wondering what the future of Facebook is now that Microsoft purchased a portion of it. Will we all migrate to the next big social networking site like Linkedin or will we stick to one?

A few more interesting articles about Facebook and Myspace:

• Myspace, Facebook: A tale of two cultures
• Avoiding Facebook Faux Pas

YouTube

I enjoy exploring YouTube for all that it has. And like many online tools out there it is owned by the one and only Google. Regardless, I still like it. If I am feeling nostalgic I can find an old commercial, video, tv program clip, or even the Your Life Work: A librarian video etc. I am amazed at the amount of educational videos posted.
Because of the various and potential copyright violations YouTube just recently launched its copyright software, some are now refering to Goolge as the copyright cop. The video fingerprinting software scans the videos for copyrighted material and if it found anything it would remove it.
People are also becoming 'stars' because of their YouTube fame. This is great for self-expression, creativity etc., but also a bit too far out for me. But kudos to the folks that are out there generating material, this again is the true nature of web 2.0, user generated content. However, viewer beware! I heard an interesting story last week about the downside of sites like YouTube. The story focused on the idea that these sites make everyone the expert and that can be dangerous. To read the entire story, check it our at npr.org
YouTube is changing the film and movie landscape though, people are being discovered for their talent and creativity via their videos online. Is this the next generation of movies, reality tv? When I do search YouTube I primarily search by keyword. I haven't explored the channels, categories or community tabs religiously.

Back to YouTube and libraries, I have been endlessly looking for a short entertaining video to use in COMP 1500 that would demonstrate the importance of using library databases. I like the Library Guy, but it is a little long (almost 7 minutes), and they slide in a slightly racy magazine title. It was actually created by a student at USF for a class project which makes it a bit more appealing to students themselves.

I do think that YouTube is a viable avenue as a promotional tool for libraries. Putting the video online isn't enough. You need to have talent and technology to create interesting videos that will grab the attention of the viewers. You also need to think about infomred consent, staff may not want themselves up on YouTube for the world to see.

Zoho Writer

Test 2 involved creating this blog post using Zoho Writer. I spent a few minutes exploring Zoho suite of tools. I tried desperately to get Zoho Show to work so I could create a powerpoint-like presentation, but I kept getting an IE error message and my presentation crash. Is it sabotage by a large company who shall remain nameless or is it the browser? Hopefully Firefox will show me some love.

I really liked the post from the Zoho blog about the big picture of web applications. Not only is collaboration a key feature in these web applications, but it also make things more accessible and portable. For example, I have the very basic office suite at home. When I bought my home PC I didn't want to throw down the extra cash for the MS professional package. Excel and Word is what I've got. If I want to do a .ppt or work on a presentation at home I can't. These web app tools make the impossible, possible. Could this be a Web 2.0 tool that is actually lessening the digital divide? You don't need $$$ bundled software to create presentations, resumes, or papers. All you need is a PC and Internet (available at your local library). I now have an alternative answer for when a student asks if they can use MS Word on the 2nd floor terminals? The answer is still no (for the Word part only), but they could write their paper using Zoho Writer or Google Docs. The document can be saved to a disk/flash drive or even emailed as a link to their instructor.