For the last four days, my home internet connection has been on the fritz. Mostly down but still sputtering off and on. In fact, if you listen very carefully I am fairly convinced that you can hear my router coughing and hacking away in the corner. The reason this is a fuss for me is that (as you may have seen on the news), Seattle has had the most snow it has seen in years (something like 40 years last I heard). So, if you work at WebJunction; at home because you are snowed in and you have no internet, what ever do you do? Well, you build a seven foot tall snowman of course!

And as you likely know, building a seven foot tall snowman is no simple feat. Especially when it has a goatee made of native NW flowering shrubbery (hey, half of WebJunction is based in Seattle, right? I had to make it as authentic as possible). So needless to say, this snowman making, in addition to being surprisingly good exercise, gave me time to think about enjoy the no internet/huge amount of snowfall situation at hand. So as I am rolling giant balls of snow around the yard during work hours it struck me that this is part of why I work in Libraryland. No, no, no, not because I got a partial snow day! *rolls eyes* The thing is, if I really wanted to, I could have trudged through five blocks of un-shoveled walks to get to my neighborhood library. And even if they had no internet I still *could* have still used their resources (you know, ask the librarian for books on how to build a fire, maybe a nice work of Yeti-related fiction). And even if the library didn’t have internet it would still have a solid permanent collection (including non-circulating reference if the situation got really, really tough and all the books got checked out).

And while chiseling those handsome features into my mammoth snowman *rolls eyes at self*, I started thinking that even though much of what WebJunction does is on the internet, the connections (pun intended), useful conversations, shared resources, tools and learning that have happened on the site are still with us all, even when we are “away” (by choice or chance) from the web. So I guess with this post I wanted to show you my snowman, tell the story of what was running through my head while making him and thank you. Thank you for being a part of it all. And as the year winds up, it snows in lots of places and people gather to be together as friends and family I wanted to thank you for reading this, for being a part of Libraryland and the WebJunction family, and also thank you for doing the important, always valuable work you do in your community. Even if things like inclement weather, technology challenges or tough economic times affect us. Regardless of our situation, we can often find a snowman to make and I can’t think of a better group of professionals I’d like to help me lift that 80lb snowball head to the top of this giant snowman. While that was very, very far from the perfect analogy, we do want to wish you all well and thank you. And if you have time off this season, enjoy, drive careful and much Libraryland love to you all.

Runner Sam Thompson got his Seattle Public Library Passport stamped at 11 different library branches throughout Seattle yesterday.

“I heard about the library-passport program and thought it was really cool,” said Thompson, 28. “I love going to my library. It’s such an incredible resource. My goal is to get people excited about visiting their local branch.”

Thompson had originally planned to visit all 28 branches of the Seattle Public Library system in one day, but freezing temperatures and early library closures shortened his list. Besides the 11 branches he was able to reach before snow forced them to close, he also visited 6 more branches which he photographed.

Seattle Public Library created the Library Passport program to celebrate the completion of its Libraries for All program, encouraging library patrons to visit the new and remodeled library branches.

To read more about Sam Thompson’s library marathon, see the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s article, A marathon task: Runner logs 50 miles visiting library branches in one day. Also see SPL’s recent news release on other locals’ programs centered around the Passport.

I can’t say that I have ever fully committed to a New Year’s resolution. I like the idea, but something about it doesn’t click with me. However, I do think that as a year comes to an end, people inevitably find themselves reflecting back on how the year went and what exciting or challenging things are to come. (A trip to Alaska to see friends and bears in Katmai National Park is my biggest plan for 2009 so far!)

The project that I work on at WebJunction is called TechAtlas for Libraries. These free, online tools can help libraries with their technology planning and management needs. Which got me thinking that writing a technology plan is a bit like writing resolutions for the new year. Sure, the technology plan is on a larger scale and much more formal, but the intent is the same - to make things better. Technology plans are filled with objectives, goals, budgets that are written down and all designed to improve services to patrons and staff.

We’re offering a free webinar on January 29th to introduce you to the TechAtlas planning tools and how these simple resources can help make the planning process easier. The tools can be especially helpful for libraries that need to write a technology plan for the E-rate program or any library that sees how valuable a technology plan can be. For more information on the session and to register, please visit the TechAtlas Webinars page.

Good luck with those resolutions!

-Kendra

WebJunction is now listing webinars and other event start times in our Calendar of Events in Eastern Time Zone (they were previously listed in Central Time Zone).

The start time has not changed for the webinars. Please visit the Calendar of Events to confirm the start time of the webinar for which you registered. You do not need to re-register for the webinars. We apologize in advance for any confusion this may cause.

We’ve updated the http://www.webjunction.org/hot page on the site for December and wanted to share with you here as well. Subscribe to the Hot Topics Category to stay informed of the monthly update which includes both new and popular courses, documents, discussions, groups, and webinar archives. Contribute today and be spotlighted next month!

If you are affiliated with a WebJunction Partner state, be sure to access these courses via your affiliation’s course catalog to take full advantage of many free and reduced-priced courses. For more information on affiliations, see the User Guide.

Here are some new and popular groups created by members on WJ. See the User Guide if you need help creating or joining a group and to browse other groups, view the Groups tab in search, using “group” for the search term.

Group: Tough Times

Group: Flickr & Libraries

Community First: connecting people & service through the decades

Group: Digital History Projects

Group: StoryTubes including a press release about the project

Group: Drexel University Alumni and Students

Group: Book Discussions

Group: Nebraska 2008 WiFi Connectivity Grant

Group: WordPress for Libraries(wp4lib)

Group: WorldCat.org Librarians’ Corner

December Virtual Town Halls: Focus on Tough Economic Times

Bite-size Digital History Webinar

Implementing an Online Helpdesk Using Event Tracker

Your Library’s Role: Bulls-eye or Fringe?

30-Minute Webinar: Go Team! Quick Tips to Help You Build a Technology Team

Latinos and Public Library Perceptions Report - November 2008 Webinar

Why Public Libraries Close

Attend Upcoming Webinars or view additional Webinar Archives

Today marks the beginning of Employee Learning Week. It was initiated by ASTD to emphasize the importance of staff learning and development in every organization. WebJunction and CLENE (Continuing Library Education Network Exchange) are celebrating the week with a webinar that explores the development of the learning professionals who guide employee learning:

Learning for Learning Professionals

As trainers, continuing education coordinators and staff development managers, we believe in lifelong learning. We are committed to helping library employees improve their skills and build successful careers. As cheerleaders for organizational and individual learning, do we sometimes lose sight of our own learning? What are we doing to invest in ourselves? What are the competencies that we will need as we lead our libraries in future skill development and employee learning?

Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1546

Thanks to all who gathered for yesterday’s town hall, the first in our Economic Tough Times focus for the month. We’ll be gathering again on December 12 and December 18 to keep tackling the issues and experimenting with this exciting new format, the virtual town hall.

We started the session with a poll to decide which areas to discuss, and as you can see from the poll’s results, the topic is *huge* and the group wanted to discuss just about everything related to libraries in economic tough times:

We did try to focus on the top 3 poll winners (hottest topic: Demonstrating Impact), but as you can imagine there was plenty of overlap, because you can’t talk about funding without talking about how to demonstrate your value to funders and taxpayers, and you can’t talk about staff training without talking about increased demands on staff. You can view the archive, a new pathfinder, and lots of discussions on these hot topics in a brand new Group: Tough Times. The town hall was just the beginning of the discussion and community building around the topic, so be sure to join the group and jump in with your own questions and strategies.

I’ve started 3 discussions myself with these excellent questions from the first town hall:

• How do we deal with the increased demands on libraries? And what are they?
• How do we, through training, increase staff capacity and learning to have the tools to meet the growing demands?
• How do we prioritize all of the work related to increased demands, and building awareness to community and partners?

We got some great feedback on how to tweak the format for next time, namely that we need to focus the topics, but everyone was very excited to see that the format works well and we can look forward to future WebJunction Virtual Town Halls on topics that are important to you! See you at the next Town Hall…

Posted on behalf of Marcia Dority Baker

I had a great time leading the 24/7 Librarianship: Reaching Patrons with Digital Tutorials webinar for WebJunction. This was my first time teaching an online class with Wimba, which is really cool software. The best part of the webinar was interacting with library folk who wanted to join the presentation. I appreciate that people took time out their busy day to learn about digital tutorials.

So, what is a digital tutorial? A digital tutorial is a how-to guide for your library customers. It is anything that helps customers find and use information. Moving from the old “how to” VHS tapes to digital videos on the library website allows libraries to maintain contact with customers in a new way. During the “24/7 Librarianship” webinar, we discussed how libraries can use digital tutorials and spent time brainstorming what could work in participant’s libraries.

Some great ideas for digital tutorials included:

• how to ILL
• promoting author visits
• showcase your story time
• a poetry contest/slam
• library tour
• how-to do something library specific like use the self-check out
• finding tax forms
• previewing new compact shelving
• checking out e-books and resume writing

Digital tutorials are an opportunity to provide information to customers beyond the usual library hours. Learn and use the technology available at your library when creating a digital tutorial. Give yourself enough time and pay attention to the details. Find someone outside the project to review the tutorial and offer advice before it goes “live.” Finally, let library staff be innovative and have fun!

Fresh back from a couple of days off, I wanted to send a mildly belated “Thank you!” to the lovely library staff in Minnesota I met last week at the Minnesota Library Association Conference.  A big thank you especially to Ann and Jennifer for their hospitality and conversation.

Also, just wanted to toss in a plug for our upcoming series of fresh new Town Hall Webinars.  I’ve been listening to old school rap today so please pardon this somewhat informal invite.  The content will be rock solid despite how “chill” this plug is.  You see,  I’ll be your “MC” for our new Town Hall format this month.  Our subject for this series will be: “Focus on Tough Economic Times”.  The Town Hall format will allow for lots of participation, questions, conversation and sharing.  Problems, questions, solutions or examples of things that work…come join your Libraryland peoples (aka peeps) here. Fresh MC MP will be on the mic with DJ Jazzy JP and Funky Fresh Emily to the Inlow-Hood.  It will be #3 on the phone (good ahead, look at #3 on your phone)  Get more info and register here.

Check out this great article about libraries reaching out to Spanish speakers in their communities by Críticas. Several libraries and trainers who have actively participated in WebJunction’s Spanish Language Outreach Program are profiled in the article including: Kim Iraci of the Pioneer Library System in Canandaigua, NY; Jo Caisse of the Deschutes Public Library in Bend, OR; and Sara Martinez from the Tulsa City-County Library in Tulsa, OK who was part of Siga Adelante (Moving Forward) Program (a partnership between WebJunction and the Oklahoma Department of Libraries.

Interested in learning how to create local history documentaries to share online? Want to understand how libraries can better serve bilingual children? Curious how to create a laptop lab or how to improve your skills as a learning professional? Want to develop strategies to help your library plan for change in the tough economic times ahead?

Then register for one, or all, of the great WebJunction webinars lined up for December.

View all events here:
http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventcalendar.asp

Times listed in Central Time Zone.

Bite-size Digital History
Date: Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Start Time: 10:00 AM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1509

Town Hall: Focus on Tough Economic Times
Date: Thursday, December 04, 2008
Start Time: 12:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1538

Libraries and the Bilingual Child: Understanding Issues of Language Acquisition
Date: Monday, December 08, 2008
Start Time: 12:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1545

Laptop Labs: Creating, Maintaining, and Using Them (MaintainIT)
Date: Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Start time: 1:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1544

Top 10 Tips for Effective Application Training in the Virtual Classroom
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Start Time: 2:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1533

Learning for Learning Professionals: Competencies, Strategies and Resources (CLENERT)
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008
Start Time: 1:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1546

Town Hall: Focus on Tough Economic Times
Date: Friday, December 12, 2008
Start Time: 1:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1539

Town Hall: Focus on Tough Economic Times
Date: Thursday, December 18, 2008
Start Time: 2:00 PM
Register here: http://evanced.info/webjunction/evanced/eventsignup.asp?ID=1540

The Latinos and Public Library Perceptions Webinar scheduled for last month has been rescheduled for next Tuesday, November 18th.  Join us to learn about WebJunction’s recent partnership with the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) to survey more than 2,800 Latinos about library use and perceptions.

Report authors Harry Pachon, Ph.D., President Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and Ed Flores, doctoral student and Tomás Rivera Policy Institute Research Fellow will discuss the report’s findings and recommendations.

Webinar details:

Latinos and Public Library Perceptions
When: November 18, 2008, 12:00 PM Central
Register for this webinar

WebJunction.org/hot has been refreshed with the latest Hot Topics from across the site. Some of the top items this month include:

• a new course—Influence: Even When You Don’t Have Power or Authority
• a hot new resource—Open Source Library Website Initiatives
• a discussion to get your input on the upcoming Town Hall: Libraries in Tough Economic Times
• an Internet Librarian Presentation: Ubiquitous Computing and Libraries
• and the on-demand archive of a fresh new webinar: Branding Libraries and Their Services.

Your new resources and discussions keep popping up all over WebJunction. Make a note to regularly check webjunction.org/hot so you can keep up with—and share—the freshest and hottest in the WJ community.

In his first webinar, Visual Design: Theory & Best Practices for Library Websites, guest presenter Michael Leach of Harvard’s Cabot Library and Simmons College presented basic concepts of visual design for library websites. In his second webinar, Branding Libraries and their Services, he covered aspects of branding, particularly in the online environment, for libraries.

He did a wonderful job of bringing these general concepts into a sharper focus, providing lots of good, and not so good, examples from real libraries. Participants learned and shared about what makes a good brand. My favorite tip was shared by one attendee who said “My rule of thumb is to be able to recreate it [the brand] in cake icing. Of course that was before digital photos on cakes!” 

We were thrilled to have Michael present two webinars for us. Let him know what you thought by commenting on his WebJunction profile or on the webinar archive pages.

A powerful and provocative new program that was first presented in Denmark in 2000 and has been replicated internationally finally arrived in the United States last month. In October the Bainbridge Island branch of the Kitsap Regional Library System in Washington State and the Santa Monica Public Library in Los Angeles County, California both presented the Living Library program to their patrons.

The Living Library is an innovative project designed to promote dialogue and reduce prejudices. It gives patrons the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan” in order to challenge stereotypes and prejudices in a very personal and positive manner. These “living books” represent a wide range of ages, genders and cultural background and can be “checked out” by patrons for one-to-one or group discussions.

For example, the Bainbridge Island living books covered such diverse topics as life as a quadriplegic, a female police officer, a young gay man and an atheist, and the 14 Santa Monica Library “books” included a former homeless woman, two Buddhists, a raw-food expert, a feminist and a nudist (clothed). Both events were very well-received and each drew in over a hundred participants.

For more information about the Living Library program, see their website at http://living-library.org. Also check out articles in Library Journal and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and on MSNBC.com, and listen to an interview from KUOW, the Pacific Northwest’s NPR affiliate.

I got my library passport stamped this weekend at the International District/Chinatown Branch of Seattle Public Library. SPL has handed out passports with all 27 library locations represented, to celebrate the successful completion of the Library’s 10-year building program, Libraries for All. Patrons who get a stamp from all the libraries by January will have a really cool passport with 27 unique stamps and get entered into a drawing for a prize. The architect of my local branch even created a special additional stamp for the celebration. There are groups, like the hiking Mountaineers, who are working together to visit every branch, passports in hand.

Not only do I love the serendipitous discovery of stuff on the shelf at another branch (eg. after Sunday’s find, I now have a new favorite movie Waitress), I’m a big fan of passports and stamps. At school, my kids have been doing the Passport Geography Club, another fine example of motivational learning. And I know that there are summer reading programs for all ages all over the place, but I’ve been thinking…

Why don’t we use a similar motivational effort to encourage folks to explore libraries and learning in other ways? What about a “Reading Passport” with sections for different disciplines or literature from different periods? What about one with a section to stamp if you were a part of a discussion about a book or if you did an impromptu book talk on the bus? And how cool would it be if we got to the point where people would include their library passport credentials on their resume or as a part of their political campaigns?

I know, it’s a solemn reminder for the day after, but I wanted to check in with folks who were hoping for the passage of library bonds yesterday.

I’ve heard both good news and bad about library bonds passing. I’m hoping folks will share their stories here as a comment or in a WJ discussion. Because we’re getting ready to launch our Virtual Town Hall in December these types of conversations will also be useful in helping the WJ community build a solid foundation for the series.

Virtual Town Hall: Focus on Tough Economic Times

This December, WebJunction is hosting a series of three webinars on the topic of Libraries in Tough Economic Times. Join us in a new Virtual Town Hall format designed engage all attendees with questions, brainstorms, stories, and to collect practical strategies. We’ve picked 3 different days and times to accommodate as many schedules as possible, but you’re encouraged to join us for as many of the sessions as you are able.

• Thursday, December 4, 10:00 PT/1:00 ET Register Now
• Friday, December 12, 11:00 PT/2:00 ET Register Now
• Thursday, December 18, 12:00 PT/3:00 ET Register Now

I’ve started a Town Hall discussion to get the conversation rolling and to get input as we decide on topics for focus. I think that library bonds are certainly worthy of focus. Other ideas include:

• library budgets
• library closures
• staffing cuts
• and new patron needs in tough times.

Please plan on bringing your questions and strategies to the events. All attendees will be encouraged to participate, but if you’ve got something meaty to share, let us know so we can get your slides or pictures into the Virtual Town Hall before the session begins.

I’ve been itchin’ to use the Wimba Classroom for more informal virtual gatherings like this and look forward to the series. With your participation, we as a community can begin to tackle many of the challenges that lie ahead for our libraries.

Yesterday was a big day: we elected a new president, after a long, heated, powerful campaign season. Based on the intense public discourse during the past year, we can assume that people are experiencing everything from euphoria to despair. My pre-dawn idea this morning was: We should write a letter to our future self, to describe our thoughts or feelings today, and then compare them to how we feel at some point in the future after the rhetoric and hypotheticals have been replaced by tangible experiences. There is a very cool little website that allows you to do just that: www.futureme.org. You simply write an email to yourself, and postdate it to the day and year of your choosing, and you’ll find it in your in-box on that date. ta da.

A big thanks to Chrystie for including me in the LITA 08 Design for Participation program. It was a great way to get my presentation feet wet with WebJunction.

As I was working on my slides for the program, I flashed back to a library-school instruction course assignment that tricked me into evaluating various presenters and presentation styles.

A byproduct of that work was a collection of rules and or tips I compiled and shared with the class.  It was a good exercise then—anything that keeps me from being the dork at the podium is a good thing—and it keeps on giving; I’ve used the work to prepare for many presentations since (thanks, Mike!).

You probably have some similar guidelines or tips you use (please share!); here are a few that have worked for me:

1. Text is boring. Animations are distracting. A middle ground can be images that evoke concepts and text used as graphical elements. Of course, that didn’t stop me from including a some boring text and a few animations in my last deck (which is why this tip #1. Maybe I’ll remember to do better next time).
2. Like Elvis, keep your slides everywhere (in the cloud, on a flash drive, on your phone, on a friends phone. Whatever it takes). There’s nothing like that feeling of panic when your machine won’t come out of hibernation right before your presentation.
3. Notes are optional. Or not. My actual need for a ginormous, tree-killing stack of 3×5 cards is inverse to the amount of time I spend creating them.
4. The AV guy is your new BFF. My cord-plugging/key-toggling skills can go head-to-head with anyone in the high school AV club. But that doesn’t mean I have to get down on the conference room floor in a suit if a paid professional is willing to help.
5. Bring a drink. Your hosts may not have liquid refreshment and that’s when you’ll, cough, cough, need it. (Water. Not vodka, at least not until after. See note #8)
6. Inverse Time Syndrome: A fear of not filling my time makes me go faster. Worry about going over? I normally do. Fight this through preparation (see rule #3.)
7. Alternative tools can be nutty fun. Whiteboard? Wii? Video? Flickr? Nothing but your soothing voice? Sometimes PowerPoint or Keynote is the only acceptable choice. Occasionally, though, you’ll have an opportunity to try something new. It’s all about knowing your audience.

   For example, I had this wacky idea to chuck the slides and project our scribble and doodle-filled notes from a yellow legal pad. To me it was a metaphor for the WJ brainstorming activities we described in the talk. Chrystie, knowing the audience, thankfully threw down some veto power on that one.

8. Have fun from the start! By the end of the talk I’m normally pretty loose and enjoying myself. I really need to to remember this so I can enjoy things from the the first slide (But whatever you do, don’t go all rogue on Rule #5 as shortcut. It will go badly.)
9. Watch good presenters present. Meld their ideas to create your own style. Al Gore and Steve Jobs come to mind as true podium gurus.  You don’t have to be a fan of these folks to admit they know their way around a slide deck. My personal favorite? Lawrence Lessig. In fact, just remembering some of the magic he worked in Seattle last year with a single word on a black slide makes me giddy. Ahhh…

Those are just a few of my go-to reminders. I’m sure I’m missing a some. Do you have any presentation tips or rules? Please share them with the community!

I’m struck today by Seth Godin’s blog last week about leadership as a marketing strategy.

What works is leading. Leading a (relatively) small group of people. Taking them somewhere they’d like to go. Connecting them to one another…Go down the list of online success stories. The big winners are organizations that give tribes of people a platform to connect. Go down the list of fashion businesses or business to business organizations. Same thing. Charities, too. Churches, certainly…People want to connect. They want you to do the connecting.

Is your library positioned to lead your community in this desire to connect? Is this something we can do better than other community-based organizations?

Librarians sometimes lament our lack of resources and our lack of ability to be on the leading edge of the information industry. That’s fine. If we turn the information industry upside down and think about it from an intimate, local perspective, does that make it easier to imagine us leading this charge? And what would that do to our brand?