Over and Out from Monterey

Can't believe time has flown here in Monterey. On the one hand my brain hurts from all of the stuff i've learned; on the other its tired and needs a rest from everything internet. A couple of wow things that i'll leave w/ this post are:

*scriblio - an open source system that is overlaying the Plymouth State Library. scriblio even has a iii importer - so you know they're working w/ different ILS vendors! i think this is worth a look - they offer different themes which put up different data on the pages. what a concept! don't know about the whole tagging, commenting thing tho.

*look for a video with hans rusling describing (very funnily, too) the data visualization software he developed called gapminder. it might be coming from a place called ted talks which is a platform for cutting edge technology.

sorry - again - for not providing links thru this blog like i should. it's lunch in the exhibit hall and the food smells sooooo good and the waiting line is getting rather long.....no time to add .......

more to come later!

ALD in the virtual world

One of the (many) great sessions I attended was Online Communities...ways to make our presence more known where our patrons are, virtually - of course! While i was trying to scribe as quickly as possible (yea, yea a computer would'a helped) i need to find the presentation online. Here are some of the places we should consider being:
>libdex
>mapmuse
>library411
>publiclibraries.com
>librariesontheweb
>wikimapia

Are we listed in wifi directories? Is the name of wifi network "default?" *bad idea, by the way*

Here are some of the places we should be trolling to see if they talk about us, good or bad!:
>yelp
>local2me
>insiderpages
>citysearch
>judy's book

Do we own or redirect people from url's like aldmovies or aldbooks?

Since i'm a guest on this computer i'm not making the links live like a good blogger should. It was enuf of a victory to get on the computer for a lengthy period of time to catch up, send home notes and blog/update. (thx Monterey Public Library!)

If you have the time, let me know if we already have a presence at any of these place, will ya?

Greetings from Monterey!

I have been computer challenged. Yes, I had the opportunity to bring a laptop and was too lazy to want to carry an extra 10 #.... i did try to visit the Monterey Public Library yesterday thinking i could jump on a computer as a visitor and catch up, but they were closed in the morning - drats!

With the lines very long for use of the computers in the exhibit hall, this may be my only post "on the road".

I could carry on about all of the great things i've been learning. This conference has been great and on target for the things ALD is working on. The weather was great the first couple of days, warm and sunny but more typical overcast yesterday and today. Have enjoyed great chowder and company with fellow librarians.

Heard John Blyberg and Glenn Peterson talk about online community and what they're trying to do. Great stuff. Got some more thinking to do about how to implement systems analysis thinking around process improvement. Got the name of a librarian who is willing to give me a virtual tour of Second Life once i create my avatar. Wow! Will try to digest my notes on the plane ride home and post the bits and bytes of things i've learned.

In the meantime, do you have a Second Life avatar yet?

On the road to Monterey

Can bloggers every really be on vacation or away from their desk as a reason not to post? With a computer available at practically every public library and at every conference, too, there should be no excuse, err reason for me to be silent.

I am leaving tonight for Monterey, CA - the site of Internet Librarian - where i hope to soak in the beach and the aquarium and ...... oh, sorry, i mean soaking up all of the knowledge from presenters more in the know about internet and libraries than i.

My intent is to post news and updates and the "wow" stuff i learn about. In the event you don't hear anything....then it'll be posted in long blogs after my return on Nov 2nd.

In the meantime, let's hear it for the Colorado Rockies!

quicksearch at Auraria Library

today's post is short and sweet....cuz i'm at one of the denver public library branches and i have only 20 minutes to use a public computer and i have to stand the whole time, too, ouch!

just learned that auraria library just put up their new website. they based their redesign on user input, wow! one of the nifty things they did was integrate their search box. it's all about one search, multiple finds. they named it "quick search" and you get the catalog plus database results at the same time. they used serials solutions, for those who care about the product behind the box.

when i tried to run a search just now, no results were returned. i may not have waited long enough (20 min only goes so far!) or this computer was being slow. i'm going to try again when i'm sitting and see how this runs.

check it out - what do you think?

its a drupal world

My track record for daily blogging is circling the drain! I feel I should apologize for not visiting daily to discuss and post.... the reason for not posting yesterday was due to a field trip! Some of the ALD staff visited Douglas County Public Libraries Philip Miller Library in Castle Rock. The purpose of our visit was to see the behind-the-scenes work of their new website as well as their intranet. Douglas is using drupal, an open source software.

This software has gotten more sophisticated over the years and much better, to the point that The New York Observer is using drupal as their content management back end system now. If you check out their site, be sure to notice their tagging ...... yea, yea you might say another tag cloud .... but this one IS different - tell me what'cha think!

We have also confirmed that one of our favorite library websites, Ann Arbor, uses drupal as their back end. Not only that but their tech guru, John Blyberg, is doing amazing things. Check out his blog for more info.

It's always good to visit other locales and see what's new. One of the things I love about library work is the willingness to share whatever we've learned with our colleagues.

We'll be taking what we've learned under consideration as we continue to develop the website.

In the meantime, you should see their new conveyer belt check in system - it rocks!

Encore v Aquabrowser

Kids w/ no homework = mom with time to use kids as focus group ...... My kids are used to me using them as guinea pigs and are pretty good humored about it (having chocolate cake as a bribe doesn't hurt, either)..... Tonight was a homework-less night in our house, pretty rare. I pounced on the opportunity to test Encore and Aquabrowser with them. They were each (and separately) directed to Nashville's site for Encore and then to King County to experience their Aquabrowser.

Interestingly enuf, both preferred the Aquabrowser experience! They did not like the tag experience with Encore but really enjoyed the discover cloud look in Aquabrowser. The tag cloud in Nashville was "confusing" and they did not like the layout of the page either. It never occured to me that they might want to narrow a search by "fiction" and "nonfiction" which is a fairly natural way to want to search the catalog. We don't intuitively provide this to them, do we?

My head is brewing with a focus group test with patrons. One of the things we heard loud and clear was "give us the catalog" - both of these products give them the experience, but is one better than the other? It feels like Pepsi v Coke or Honda v Toyota...both are great products so it boils down to what your preferences are as to what you choose to buy.

Weigh in now, play "battle of the catalog enhancements" (boy does that sound clunky!) .... anyway, vote now!

Oh Rosetta, where art thou?

Unlike any other database...... Rosetta Stone has prompted patrons to actually email and compliment us for offering it! They are so pleased to have language learning. I could'a fallen from my chair when the first email came in - i mean - how often does a patron compliment us about databases? Usage continues to rise among all of the languages, which is always a good sign, too, in database-land.

Then comes the call from Rosetta, they will no longer support the same public library model they just offered us! Come June 2008 when our current subscription expires, so will Rosetta Stone from our online offerings. Rosetta has chosen to offer their library service as a CD ROM product instead. Yes, you read correctly - CD ROM.....that which we moved away from, that which we no longer support, that which only offers patrons usage within a library - ick!

Since i've heard from a few staff asking about it, thought the blog could be a way to communicate it as questions arise. We will be investigating other products to see if there's another alternative. In the meantime, don't forget that Ovedrive offers some language learning.

Have a great weekend....I'm on my way to leaf-raking ...... isn't it a joy to live in Colorado?

It's better than finding $5 in your pants pocket!

What could be better than that, you might ask? One of the discoveries from the online website survey is that the majority who responded DID know about research databases - woo hoo!

As we continue to wonder about their use and effectiveness given their costs, it is reassuring to see this from our survey. In addition, we discovered that the teens from our summer focus group knew the term "research databases" because they were taught accordingly in school. In fact these teens were mostly quick to look for access to them and thought it was important. Granted our teen focus group was slanted towards library users in one way, shape or form....but i'm an optimist and will take good news wherever it's at....

Do you find patrons who are very much surprised over research databases? Is this still a common reaction or have we moved away from the surprise of it all?

Now onto the laundry, there may be more "green" surprises awaiting !

Categorizing middle school and high school books - your say?

{post copied from Alyson's teen blog entry, with her permission}

Denver's teen website lets you sort books by middle school or high school with many books being categorized as both. What does everyone think of that? Our teen focus groups liked the idea - especially the middle schoolers who seemed very conscientious about avoiding inappropriate material. I like the way Denver's works because all items show up, but viewers can choose to sort if they want

If we decide to do it all staff picks, bibs... would have to come tagged as MS or HS or both. What would our criteria be? Will we have to be extra sure that anything tagged middle school is really clean? What would be our source for justification if any are questioned given that the catalog just says 12 and up for all YA?

Please comment on this soon, because that sorting feature will have to be built into the teen site.

"I want to comment on the ALD Teen Blog"

Coming Soon....to a computer screen near you

While we are not making huge overhauls to the adult website, little things will still happen. We rely on John working his "web magic" to make new things happen as he has time. One of the changes you will see is the national Yahoo news on the right frame disappearing. Why, you ask? Well the focus group input says it wasn't highly important. They easily know websites in which to find relevant news. We feel we don't need to take valuable real estate providing it. Instead look to this space to provide ALD news and updates - that which you now find under the "latest @ your library" heading. It will still be headline based in terms of looks but its focus is ALD! We will be placing articles and other things where you now see "latest @ your library" information.

Do you like this?

Teen Site - Input Needed on Button Naming!

This post is copied (with permission) from alyson who put this up on the teen site.

One area of the new teen website will feature short to medium length blurbs about a wide variety of things of interest to teens. They will range from frivolous (like Timewasters now) to serious ( Like reminders of finding health and wellness material on Teen Health and Wellness). Basically anything we put up that is not specific to Books and Reading, Movies and Music, or Homework and Research will go here – kinda like the Lifestyle section of the newspaper. So what to call this area:

Teen Interests - “Teen” is redundant on Teen site?
Random Stuff – too trivial for serious subjects ?
Teen Topics – too serious?
Your Life – too vague?

I am leaning toward Random Stuff because it will really be random. Remember that all the items will go across the home page as well so, people will have the chance to read the item even if they don’t visit the “Teen Interests - Random Stuff –Teen Topics -Your Life” section. Any other ideas, comments please speak up now! Alyson

Link to ALD teen blog

Who needs library staff?

when you've got Bokomaten? Have you heard of this gizmo? Kinda reminds me of the bionic woman - something that does everything. It's a machine that can sit anywhere and provide library services. Think about seeing this at the light rail station....you're waiting to board and remember that you want The Astronaut Farmer dvd. Just skip on up to the machine and check out your copy! Not only that but i can return it to the machine too!

i'm being rather silly in pointing out no staff are needed because the machine needs to be refreshed with new materials from time to time.........

it's just quite the interesting concept that the library is where the people are, not the people having to come to the library. what do you think?

here are the links to further information if you'd like to know more:

youtube video

youtube video - the inside of the machine!

the post from librarian in black

LITA'ized

I'm in the process of decompressing - taking thoughts, ideas and putting into some cohesive, brainy conclusion of what all this means from this weekend's LITA National Forum. There were about 350 people there, added to the already huge numbers who were downtown taking advantage of all the events and happenings.

I'm pleased to report that the public transportation for going downtown runs well. Hopped the light rail to Union Station and rode the mall bus along 16th Street Mall. Ended up walking 2 whole blocks to my destination - how cool was that? Plus, i had 30 min of reading time instead of driving time...boy i could more of that!

Today i will just throw out some notes from David Lee King's opening session. David is a regular blogger who does some great things at his library, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library.

>Papercuts - their library's blog site where they post current events and such
>Lamson Library - they are a III library who chose to create an overlay of every item. search to find a title and see that the item record is not really their iii record but something created out of Wordpress. You have to click to request item which puts you into their iii interface. They somehow pull in subject headings, call them tags and allow commenting. How do you like this look?
>Danbury Library doing librarything....was this in a previous post?

Some great ideas he mentioned include

*teach blogging or flickr to businesses
*get involved in teen 2nd life
*offer myspace classes for parents

It's all about being relevant - who wants to start teaching myspace?

taking stock of where we are.....

it's a friday and as i sit at the keyboard my mind wanders more to what's happening this weekend, than what's coming out of my fingertips for today's post.......

i am fortunate to have the opportunity to attend LITA, the Library Information and Technology Association of ALA. Their meeting is being held downtown this weekend (if you're not going to be downtown for the Rockies game, the Broncos game, the Avanlanche game or the Komen Race for the Cure - get off your duff!). I hope to use future blogs to talk about observations from this meeting.

in the meantime, work continues on the adult side website. i'm downloading the survey results as i'm typing :) so that i can read what our 89 patrons who responded said about the website. our primary focus is to get the teen side to look differently (e.g. cool) and to put this up in January. we can't keep waiting for more data, more new technology, more anything! besides working on teen stuff we'll look at tweaks to the adult side page, too. we've heard mixed comments from patrons about the national news and we think it's time for it to go away.......

may you have an enjoyable weekend, it's lovely to be in colorado when the weather difference day to day can be 20 degrees!

Let's Go Encore!

We're all abuzz over Encore! You've heard about it way before you've seen it....now you can see it in action! Well, almost in action. Right now Nashville Public Library and Michigan State University Library have the Encore beta on their websites.

While some features say "coming soon" like tagging and the "my account" button, you get a general idea of what it is and what its intent is.....

Your feedback?

Are you all ears today?

Well you should be! We started our new service with Overdrive today, yea! The titles are in the catalog, the link is on the page ..... look under Downloads and we are getting training to assist patrons who may be stuck.

Our Overdrive service is limited to just audio books, so don't go thinking that our Overdrive collection is just like Denver Public Library - not now!

Here's a couple of hints when working with patrons 1) they can't download to Macintosh computers and 2) they can't download to an iPod. Besides that, it is similar to Netlibrary's in that a software needs to be downloaded.

I feel soooo 20th century when i confess to not listening to audio books. Why? Not because i don't want to... what better way to pass the time on a treadmill? It's because my household is mac and i have no audio device in my car. don't own an mp3 player, either. this probably makes me, like, in the .000001% of the population that can't/doesn't use Overdrive, but i'll figure it out (Santa, are you listening?).

take a few minutes to browse around in Overdrive, download something yr interested in and let me know how your experience went!

What's on your to do list?

Life is short.......take joy in the every day ness of it all........

Today's post comes with a heavy heart. One of my close friends just lost her husband, unexpectedly and way too young. When i grumble that my daughter eats all of the apples i just sliced and gnash my teeth over my son not reading for pleasure any longer, i need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.... they're healthy, they can read - how much more can i ask for?

As i strive to learn more about websites and databases and federated search and digitizing and the myriad of other technologies that are on the horizon (or maybe in my backyard for as much as i'm behind!) i have to remember to take a deep breath and take joy in my ability to work.....

For instance, just today john trained on editing podcasts. Way cool stuff! i feel sooooo...... professional ........ and it felt like my brain grew by a few synapses. Are there technologies you want to learn about? Things to try out? Post your "to try" list here! Make time.........life is short......

Research Database Info Galore!

Sorry - I meant to post on Friday but did not get to a computer fast enough. It was probably just as well, my head was spinning with all of the information i learned from the Surfing beyond search engines 2 day seminar at the Denver Public Library.

Geared towards those of us who manage the databases, I felt in good company to learn that it takes lots of time, is complicated and we all do the best we can! I heard from fellow practitioners who have undertaken extensive needs analysis, learned more about contract elements, and looked at some databases that I wasn't familiar with.

A side benefit was being able to meander through Denver Public Library's downtown location and act like a patron! I reserved and used their computer and found that I like our system better :)

I created a list of to do's that will need attention and follow-up in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you have questions or concerns about anything database related please give a holler!