New BiblioTech Issue!

The latest edition of BiblioTech is out. This issue focuses on professional development of all sorts, from attending talks at SIRLS to attending conferences and interning abroad. Check it out here: http://www.sir.arizona.edu/lso/bibliotech/2007jan_vol4_no2/default.htm

Today at my library – Monsters!

Well, not real monsters, but Monster Trucks. As some of you know I’m the automotive librarian for the Universal Technical Institute in Avondale, AZ and today we had a visit by Dennis Anderson and his 2006 World Champion monster truck “Grave Digger”. Mr. Anderson is one of the nicest racers you could ever meet and was happy to answer my request to stop by and check out the library, and I even helped him find some rare specifications for a 1954 Willys that he is restoring. I plan to feature Dennis Anderson and his monster truck in my own version of “at your library” and wanted to share this with my fellow librarians to remind us that we should sieze every opportunity we are given to promote our libraries and look for ways we can connect with our users on a level they comfortable with. I guess if public libraries have leading authors for book talks, then it would be fitting for an automotive library to have monster trucks and race car drivers!

Managing Your Library Career

LSO presents: Tom Wilding “Managing Your Library Career”

WHEN: Wednesday February 7, 5:30-6:30
WHERE: SIRLS Multipurpose Room
WHO: All SIRLS students!

Our very own Tom Wilding will discuss and answer questions on how to manage your library career and give tips on how to obtain the job you want in the library profession. Please join LSO in listening to our first amazing speaker of the semester, free food will be provided. This is an event not to be missed!

Any questions please contact LSO Programs Coordinator Paula. See you there!

Phoenix Friends of SIRLS Meetings

Wednesday, Feb. 7, 6 pm at the Carnegie Center, 1101 W. Washington St., Phoenix –
Speaker: Christopher Miller, Southeast Asian Studies Bibliographer, ASU Libraries.
Topic: Challenges in developing special collections caused by the social, political, and economic climate in developing countries. Mr. Miller will discuss his experiences, specifically, doing field research for 2 years in Myanmar (Burma) and in his position at ASU.

Wednesday, March 7, 6 pm at Burton Barr Central Library, 1221 N. Central Ave., Phoenix –
Speakers: Jan Knight, independent information broker, and Elizabeth Gouwens, Library Analyst at Salt River Project
Topic: Library Services for the For-Profit Sector. Speakers will share their experiences as an entrepreneur providing fee-based information services and as a corporate librarian.

Wednesday, April 4, 6 pm at the Carnegie Center, 1101 W. Washington St., Phoenix –
Speakers: Mary Mitchell, Phoenix Public Library, and Dan Lee, Assistant Library Manager / Systems Librarian at Chandler Public Library
Topic: Social Computing: Librarians Using Web 2.0 Technology. Mary Mitchell will discuss Endeca and the evolution of the library catalog. Dan Lee will moderate a panel of librarians discussing their experiences with using wiki as an intranet, instant messaging / chat at the reference desk, and blogging.

more to come!

Back From Seattle

So, I am back from the ALA Midwinter in Seattle and like Beth stated in her entry, this “little” conference was indeed overwhelming, especially for a first time ALA conference attendee. If it wasn’t for the fact that Beth and some of the other LSO and SIRLS students were there to guide me, I would have probably spent my time staring at the tall buildings and trying to decipher the Midwinter schedule in an effort to select which events to attend and what exhibits to see.

Though they didn’t have a whole lot of exhibits geared specifically towards students, they offered a look into some of the different things that are being touted to libraries right now. Gaming is huge with young adult/teen users so something that must be mentioned (I know Beth loves ‘em) are DDR and Guitar Hero, two hot market items that some public libraries are adding to their teen media centers.

As for the sessions, what really stood out for me was the OCLC panel discussion on social software. They discussed the implications of social software for the profession and emphasized the need for librarians to embrace digital networking tools so that they can use these tools to better serve their users. David Lee King talked about the way digital tools can really help libraries that are outgrowing their physical space by giving them “digital space”. He has already put this in to practice by creating a digital library for the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library. He’s very emphatic about librarians using social software to their advantage and basically said that rather than libraries waiting for users to show up, librarians can market their libraries to their communities via social software. I can see his point too: if teenagers are spending most of their time on myspace, flickr, and second life, what better way for a library to reach them than on their own turf! Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe mentioned the way that, at least within her library, on-line encounters with users last longer than what she calls the “one off encounter”, those that occur face to face at the reference desk. She said many online patrons will carry on lengthy dialogues with a librarian via computer; whereas most patrons physically present at the library will usually just ask a specific question of the person at the reference desk, and that would be the extent of the interaction. She uses myspace and second life to market her library to undergraduate students at the University of Illinois at Urbana. Check out their myspace here. It was interesting to me to listen to these librarians talk in such an enthusiastic and positive way about technologies that make it easier for users to avoid the physical library. I think it just goes to show that the profession really is evolving to a more tech driven one. Social software tools are definitely some of the cooler ways for librarians to interact with, and provide information to, their users

Going along with the discussion of technology, Jenny Levine emphasized the importance of gaming to reach teen users, and how she and other librarians are implementing such tools into the library’s collections. Speaking of which, while wondering through the exhibits we suddenly lost our webmaster, Beth Hoffman, to a DDR dance off against non other than Jenny Levine herself; followed by some wicked shredding on Guitar Hero. You are MY guitar HERO, BETH!

Seattle Impressions

Greetings from Seattle and ALA Midwinter Conference!

There are several of us from LSO here, and I hope some of the other folks will blog their impressions too (hint, hint).

This is my second library conference and my first ALA conference – and boy is it a change from Internet Librarian. The conference is HUGE (and this is the “little” ALA conference). Huge to the point of being overwhelming. I’ve had fun, but it’s harder to find my way around and to figure out what sessions I can get to and so forth. That, coupled with the fact that all of the sessions I want to go to seem to be scheduled at the same time, means that I’ve spent rather more time wandering around Seattle and enjoying the sights than I’ve spent in sessions.

I’ve been to a couple of really good sessions though. The OCLC Symposium on the social implications of social networking software was excellent, and although I’m not going to go into detail about the session, I will say this: If you’re at all interested in this sort of thing, you need to be reading danah boyd’s blog, apophenia.

The presentation on Social Software: Best Practices for Libraries was also good, and although it wasn’t aimed directly at groups like LSO, it did give me a couple of good ideas….

But even though I haven’t been to a lot of sessions, I still think it’s been worth it to come here, for an entirely other reason: Networking. I got to see friends I’d made at Internet Librarian, and I’ve gotten to meet a bunch of new folks too. I’ve gotten a couple of tips on jobs to apply for now that I’m nearing graduation, which is cool.

Oh, and I also got to play Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero at the ALA TechSource booth, and I’m making it a personal mission to get some of the other LSO folks to join the fun before we all come home. (Who says conferences have to be all about boring meetings?)

5 Things You Might Not Know About LSO

The “5 Things” meme has been running through the biblioblogosphere for the past couple of weeks and since a few of the bloggers I read have tagged anybody who hasn’t responded but wants to, I thought I’d take the opportunity to put a twist on the meme and post 5 things you may not know about LSO and what we’re planning for the upcoming semester. So, without further ado…

1) Our wiki has a place for folks to buy and sell used textbooks for SIRLS classes. That’s a useful resource, that is.

2) We’re planning a meetup at ALA Midwinter for LSO and SIRLS folks, so if you’re headed to Seattle and want to join in the fun, send Aaron an e-mail and we’ll keep you in the loop.

3) Our meeting calendar has been updated for the Spring 2007 semester. (But we’re planning a lot of fun stuff in addition to the meetings, so keep checking back.)

4) If you can’t make it to our meetings in person, you can attend virtually using Skype. If you’re interested, send Beth or Etta an e-mail and we’ll help set you up.

5) We have a YouTube account and we’ll be uploading videos of last semester’s Jobs Series soon, so if you missed any of these talks, you’ll get a second chance to see them.

And I’d like to tag some of the LSO folks with this meme: Maureen, Dale, Shana, Jim, and Lisa – what are 5 things we don’t know about you? (that you’re willing to share, of course)

Welcome 504 Students!

WHAT: Celebration to end the winter session of IRLS504. Meet and greet new students!
WHEN: Tuesday, January 9th, 4:30PM-7:30PM
WHERE: Gentle Ben’s (www.gentlebens.com). We will have a table reserved on the second floor.
WHO: All members of the SIRLS community are invited to attend. You are welcome to bring guests.

Please RSVP to me by Monday 1/8 at 5:00PM so that I can reserve a table.

NPR broadcast on social networking sites

Thought I’d share this interesting broadcast I found out about on the explosion of social and collaborative online tools such as MySpace, blogs, and wikis, and what they mean for the future. Pretty relevant for us budding librarians.

‘Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything’

Listen here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6711038