IL2007: Computers November 11, 2007
Posted by Jenica Rogers in IL2007, Libraries, Technology, conferences.1 comment so far
Lee Rainey asked what a librarian who isn’t an Internet Librarian would be. It’s a good question. I have one more question. Given the commonplace nature of scenes like these at Internet Librarian 2007…
Vendors demonstrating online products to librarians
Librarians checking email (there was ALWAYS a line)
Four librarians in a row, all looking down at their laptops and not up at the presenter
A typical conference session, with high laptop saturation
…How is it acceptable that 25% of sessions had no wireless access at all, and at least 25% of wireless users failed to get online in the other 75% of sessions?
Conference technology standards MUST change.
Boo: Sick November 5, 2007
Posted by Jenica Rogers in IL2007, Libraries, Musings, conferences.5 comments
We made it back from Internet Librarian with only a small amount of hassle; we were able to transfer to a flight from San Jose to Chicago, then to Syracuse, and rent a car to get us there. We shared the rental with Diane and Samantha, and we all made it home later than expected but just as safe. I was home in time for my planned camping trip with my husband and a bunch of our friends…
And now I’ve been home, sick. SICK. Head cold from hell, people. I’m suspecting it’s a combination of air travel, messed up sleep schedules, camping in November, and generally being overextended. I’ve done nothing but sleep and cough and watch TV today. (Thank heavens for having three episodes of Mystery! – Lynley and Havers ones — recorded on the bedroom DVR, and Sahara on the living room DVR.)
My only problem (aside from feeling like crap) is that I’m constantly thinking about work. I haven’t checked my email through an act of sheer willpower, but I think I’m about to cave — I can’t stop wondering what I need to tend to, what’s waiting for my attention, what’s come up in my absence.
I don’t think that kind of worrying is conducive to recovery from illness, but I’m not sure what to do about it. I was entirely energized by Internet Librarian, wanting to come back to work and share my new insights and ideas and focus my energy on our work… and here I am, sneezing on my sofa. Thinking about work.
Of course, I’m also completely distractable, and sort of brain-dead. I just spent 5 minutes watching Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino throw themselves from the bed of the pickup truck they’re handcuffed to, in the middle of the Sahara, all while my fingers rested on the keyboard of my laptop. Thus it becomes clear to me that I do not belong at work, where they deserve my full attention. Currently, I am far more likely to be able to devote that attention to two men making a dune-sail out of a crashed airplane than to whatever is in my email.
So my email stays put, and so do I. Sometimes you just gotta be sick.
Boo: Fog November 1, 2007
Posted by Jenica Rogers in IL2007, conferences.add a comment
Well, the conference was great, seeing all my friends was great, and Monterey was great.
The fog that canceled my flight was not great.
So it’s an extra day in Monterey (and complete rescheduling of my weekend plans in New York) for me, with a rescheduled red-eye back to NY tomorrow night. Tomorrow day… sleep in? Read at the beach? Both?
IL2007: Tech tools for outreach October 31, 2007
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[fantastic. They set up a Meebo chat room to capture the backchannel communications of the session.]
Why provide outreach? “we need to stop thinking of our lovingly crafted sites, designed specifically for a particular collection, as the only way people will discover our content.” from Shifting Gears report. And, Joe Janes from yesterday. [Yes.]
Chad insists on abandoning slides. Heh. Talking about using blogs for more than just news — use them for surveys, polls, info lit class prep work, and other feedback loops, which then generates a second feedback loop in which they have to go to your blog to do the thing, and then they’re more likely to go back to the blog for other things because they’ve now been there. But be careful — if a blog gets too big, or goes too far or too broad, it becomes less useful for its original purpose. Use the appropriate tech for the appropriate task.
Consider the impact of the bad assignment — the faculty member says “go ask the library”, and all 80 of them wait ’til the last minute. And you try to help them, but you do a sucktastic job with about 20 of them because it’s last minute, it’s rushed, and you don’t have the time or energy to help them all. So… how can you use technology to make it work better, both for you, and for them? And if you make it work better, won’t they then have a higher opinion of you and your services? Clearly.
And use all of those tools to make yourself into a person. Chad references Immersion, talking about opening up yourself to your students in order to be more effective in interacting with them. 30 people in the audience on Facebook, only 1 aggressively friending their students. Chad advocates the laid-back approach; just be available if they want you.
Also advocating Meebo as a tool to use in websites, but to consider other options and tools to manage Meebo. Constant development going on. Also, with Meebo embedding, you can put that same single contact in multiple places — it’s the epitome of “be somewhere and be everywhere”. Your contact information and easy connection channel = students who can find you when they want you.
And then there’s VOIP — Skype for video and audio chat. (For a distance ed librarian, this is communication mecca.) Even inside the building, it’s useful — “Librarian in a box” kiosk that has video chat on it on remote floors. “right now it’s kind of scary, but the potential is there.” Consider also that XBo360 and PS3 are incorporating cameras along with their voice communication on multiplayer, so people will be getting more and more accustomed to this communication model.
JingProject.com — allows screencapture and sharing with point-and-click and drag-and-drop interface, both ’share’ and ‘embed’. Can be image or video. [ye gods, why would we ever pay for QuestionPoint and the like when we can do this? This is one of the best on-the-fly products I've seen yet.]
“How many of you have an FAQ type thing? How’s that maintained?” The only response from the audience: Laughter. Right. We don’t maintain things… And he shows us a very cool software application — KnowledgeBase Publisher. Make an FAQ, have it be searchable and taggable, and then let users rate the utility of your topics. And put your Meebo widget into each page, so that people can ask for help if your FAQ doesn’t answer their question. [Also with the awesome.]
Who are the content creators? October 31, 2007
Posted by Jenica Rogers in IL2007, Libraries, Musings, The Profession, conferences, scholarship.add a comment
After the Joe Janes keynote, a colleague said to me that she doesn’t think of librarians as being content creators who should spend a lot of time in Wikipedia, because we’re not the “subject specialists”. And I vehemently disagreed, saying that I think we are all content creators, because we’re all “subject specialists” about something.
I have a few main thoughts about this:
- We have to stop thinking about authority in old ways. We are all subject experts about something.
- We have to stop thinking about content creation in old ways. Publishers, academics, and librarians are no longer gatekeepers for content creation and distribution, and we have to let it go.
- We need to start experimenting, and building the content confidence of all of the people who think that they have no subject authority.
- The world will not end if this happens.
Jenica Rogers
