Joel the Librarian

It’s kind of hectic in the library of my new school.  I’d like to say that’s because we have a huge number of students who just can’t wait to take advantage of all of our wonderful library resources.  No, we’re busy because the library assistant is also the one who takes care of textbooks and there seems to be a never-ending line of students coming in to exchange their textbooks.  Hopefully this will slow down next week and I can get a better idea of actual library traffic.

That isn’t to say, however, that nobody came to the library last week to use the actual library.  We did have a couple of classes come in to use the computers and I had the opportunity to score some points with an English teacher by giving her students some quick and dirty book talks as they came in to get some choice books.  Hopefully I can build on that and get a steady stream of classes in.  Before I can do that, however, I need to brush up on my databases.  We don’t really have much in the way of research database access through the school system, but the local public library system has an extensive selection and I need to familiarize myself with the options.

So, it was a pretty nifty first week at school.  I have a ton of stuff to do, starting with figuring out what to do with the mountain of 1.44mb floppies in my file cabinet and the dusty collection of ancient a/v equipment in my workroom.  Libraries are not dumping grounds, folks.  Anyway, here’s to going off to a place unknown.

Well, it took a while, but I’ve got a gig.  It’s a .5 job at a Portland (Oregon) high school.  Should be nifty.  I’ll keep y’all posted on how it goes, and I’m sure I’ll be seeking the advice of my fellow school librarians.  Keep on rockin’

So I had an interview recently. Rockin’. It’s at a school that is in my neighborhood. Rockin’. It starts right away. Rockin’. But now I’m in waiting mode. I think the first interview went pretty well, but they’re interviewing a few more people and they’ll let me know sometime this week or next whether I made it to the next round or whether I’ve been voted off Librarian Island. In the mean time, I have to finish up my student teaching (T-5 days and counting), finish up my portfolio, which can be found here (feedback please!), and get that pesky teaching certificate. Oh yeah, and start my paper for 763. MY LAST PAPER EVER!!!!! Well, maybe.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tbE1JZlRbQ

Usually the sun breaks my east-facing window blockade, raising my room temperature to “tropical” status and waking me up around 8am. The sun was merciful this morning, though, and I didn’t wake up until much later. Fully rested, I perform my normal morning routine of switching on the computer and having a glass of orange juice. I open up the browser and… nothing. Since I use Yahoo! email, I have Yahoo! as my home page and nothing came up. I tried a few other pages and they seem to be working fine, but no Yahoo!. That’s fine. Not the end of the world. I can check my Yahoo! email later. I need to log in to my Dominican email and send a message to the financial aid office, so I’ll just pull up Delicious because that’s where I keep my Dominican links, but…. Yep, Delicious is a Yahoo! company. So, no go on that front. I’ll have to look it up. Same goes for Flickr, although I have no pressing Flickr business at the moment. I plan on heading downtown to check out the Transformers set and see the giant eyeball, so Flickr better be up later…

The moral of the story is that my online life is partially paralyzed today because of the technical problems of one company. And it’s not just me. I looked up “yahoo down” on Twitter and found this amusing Tweet: 2neverland: “Try working at a public library when Yahoo goes down. Shoot me.”

So, while I am excited about the concept of cloud computing and all of the mobility that it will offer, it is days like this that give me pause. If I’m going to give myself over to the Borg, I have to have some confidence that the Borg won’t have a complete meltdown and leave me stranded. Hey, look at that! The Borg, I mean, Yahoo! is back!

new mug

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.  I think I heard that from a Family Ties episode or something.  Anyway, today is the first day of not employment.  I hesitate to call it unemployment because that has different connotations.  Student loans are going to be my best friend for the remainder of the year while I finish off my coursework and student teaching. Come January, though, who the heck knows? I’m sure there’s a support group for homeless librarians.

In other news, here’s summer’s number one jam.

Migration.  Mission accomplished.  I’ve changed the name to “The Guybrarian.”  I heard that term a while back from a girl who stated that she didn’t want to date any more guybrarians.  Yikes.  Anyway, I liked the term and I’ll embrace any geeky indentification it may denote.

I can honestly say that this has been my most enjoyable class at Dominican. Michael’s enthusiasm for the subject matter really comes through in our class meetings. I was more than a little apprehensive about taking a class that met on both Saturdays and Sundays, but the time really flew. On the last day we discussed some alternate scheduling arrangements. I think having the class meet for one more weekend, but perhaps for a smaller time window each day would work well, at least it would have for me. I found myself more excited about getting the work done on the days right after we met and having large gaps of time between meetings sort of dwindled that enthusiasm a bit.

Now on to the important stuff…. The subject matter of the class was great. A friend recommended the class to me and I wasn’t sure how applicable it would be for me, as someone who wants to get in to school libraries, but I think it’s definitely an area that all librarians, even those in schools, should pay special attention to. A chunk of my paper dealt with meeting the needs of the user and if we’re entering into a period where a significant portion of the population is using social media extensively, then libraries need to responsibly react and adapt to these trends. I think we can do that and still stay true to our core library values.

And now for no apparent reason:

When libraries open up their doors to user-generated content, they are forming a mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship with their users. Library patrons, when interacting with the library through social media or other library-centered creative endeavors, feel a strong sense of ownership of their library experiences. They feel like members of a real community and their input, whether it be writing reviews or recommendations on the library’s OPAC or using library resources to create an audio podcast or other creative project, helps build and strengthen the library’s catalog and collection. The collection can be, locally stored, hosted online, and even put on to the greater Web to expand its reach through social media sites such as Flickr or YouTube.

User-generated in the library can take two main forms. Library users can interact with library specific Web sites like the catalog, a library blog, or a social media presence. Or the library user can engage in more intensive creative projects using library-provided resources, support, and knowledge. By fostering both of these avenues of user-generated content, a library is staying true to its roots and core values. A library stays trues to its values by meeting the needs of its users, especially when those needs change.

machiela 768 research paper

For our group project, Augmented Reality and Location Awareness, we used quite a few different social media avenues for collaboration. To get the ball rolling, we created an outline on Google Docs to store ideas and links about what we were each researching. That helped us get our focus together and we had a pretty good idea, right away, of the direction we were going to go.

The Google Docs page, however, wasn’t dynamic enough for us to take our ideas further so we then decided to move everything to a Google Sites wiki. The wiki was much easier to use for our purposes because we could create separate pages and sub-pages to better organize our presentation. After starting the wiki, we used the “comments” section on Google Sites to notify each other of changes we had made. However, the comments were not “in your face” enough to get each others’ attentions, so we started using Twitter and Facebook to update each other. Twitter, too, was a less-than-reliable way to communicate to each other, so we ended up using Facebook to talk to each other and give each other suggestions about the project.

The only other social media platform that we used was YouTube, but we didn’t really use it for communication, per se, but more of a place to test-run our videos so we could all see them and approve them.

So, overall, we used social media a great deal to complete this project. Since we all live in different areas, using social media to collaborate was not only useful, but necessary as well. We attempted a few different work flows and it didn’t take us long to figure out which sites worked well for communication and which didn’t.

This is a social media policy geared toward a high school library. It might be a little on the “twopointopian” side, but I think it’s a good place to start. Social media use is fairly pervasive at this age level and I think it would a good thing to foster its use for creative purposes. After all, in my fictional school library, we use a catalog that employs social media functionality. I’m taking the approach that our library is going to see how it works and then make adjustments as it goes, but I want the policy to start out fairly liberal. I don’t feel like we have to block social media sites or make the students feel like they have to hide what they’re doing if all they’re doing is updating their Facebook status or tagging Flickr photos. Most inappropriate use of social media sites would already violate the acceptable use agreement that the students already signed, so as long as the students are using the sites responsibly, then I see no point in restricting social media use. I thought that stating the guidelines and then explaining them in easy language would help alleviate some of the inevitable “why?” questions that students have when presented with rules.

What is Social Media?
You might not know it, but you probably use social media every day. Social media are online sites that let you post and tag and share things. If you use YouTube to post videos or comments then you’re using social media. If you have a Facebook or MySpace page or even a blog, that’s social media. We even have social media functions on the library site. When you write a review in the catalog or recommend a book for a friend, you’re using social media.

Is social media allowed in the library?
Yes! (and no). We at the library want you to use social media sites. They’re fun and they encourage creativity. But (isn’t there always a “but” ???) we want you to use the sites responsibly. We just have a few rules, and we think they’re pretty reasonable.

Computer resources are finite, students working on schoolwork have priority
When you’ve typed up your paper and you still have some time to kill before the class period is over, it’s fine to go play online for a while if there are plenty of computers available. But don’t you just hate it when you need to print your paper for the next class and everybody in the lab is on Facebook? So keep your “messing around” time to a minimum and keep in mind that your classmates may need to use the computer a little more than you do at the moment. If it’s crowded in the lab, keep the online fun time short and sweet and then give up your seat for another student.

Be respectful of other students
This is still the library and we like to keep it quiet in here so that it can be a reliable place for people to go and study. So, if you’re the kind of person who actually laughs out loud, instead of just typing “LOL,” then maybe you shouldn’t watch a bunch of funny videos on YouTube. And if you are watching some YouTube videos or listening to songs online, make sure you’re using headphones. If you don’t have headphones, you can check them out at the circulation desk.

Follow the School’s Code of Conduct
You know that sheet of paper that you had to have signed by an adult at the beginning of the year that says you read and understood the school’s computing rules? Well, those rules apply here, too. You have to use the computers in a respectful, non-disruptive manner. Don’t post things that might hurt others’ feelings and don’t look at things you’re not supposed to be looking at. Just use your head. If you’re doing something you think might be inappropriate, then it probably is. Playing Internet games is fine as long as you’re following the other rules about keeping quiet and letting other students use the computers if they need them for schoolwork, but we don’t want anyone installing any games or playing games from personal drives or disks.

Think About What You Post Before You Post It
This isn’t really a “rule” as much as it is something to consider when you’re using social media sites in general. Being mean is being mean, whether it is on the Internet or in the cafeteria. The big difference is that words said in the cafeteria tend to be forgotten pretty quickly, but words typed out on the Internet last a lot longer. You might think that you’re okay because only your online friends can see it. Well, if one of your friends sends it to one of their friends who isn’t one of your friends, then it’s no longer in your control is it? So think twice before talking about your classmates. It’s not just about being mean, either. Personal posts, pictures, and videos that you might not want everybody to see have a tendency to escape your control. Just be careful and think about the possibly bad things that could happen before you post that “awesome!!” video you took last weekend.

What else?
That’s pretty much it! As long as everybody uses social media in a responsible manner, we can all continue to use and enjoy these sites. Have fun! Quiet, respectful fun!