August, 2008

Happy birthday to Chris Peters, MaintainIT Cookbook author and one of my favorite people to turn to when I need to better understand something about library technology. If he doesn't know the answer to a question I ask, he sees that as a challenge and soon he does know and explains it to me, too.

This was a question that Micheal Krasny, host of the Forum on NPR's affiliate in San Franciso asked of his guests yesterday in an hour-long program called "The Future of Libraries." Al Escoffier, City Librarian for the Burlingame Public Library, Jane Light, Director of the San Jose Library, Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association, and Martin Gomez, President of the Urban Libraries Council were on the program.

There were many great discussions at today’s Book Club webinar on Avoiding Wireless Networking Problems including: wiring for wireless, planning for access points, using repeaters, how to minimize interference and even how to improve bandwidth. There was a great combination of techie experts, novices, and in-betweeners.

I’ve noticed lately that libraries are beginning to be co-opted into different local government departments. In Roseville, CA, the library is under the Recreation Department and something similar has been done in Palos Verdes. Most recently I’ve noticed the Library Director job is being defined as "Community Services Director" in San Bruno, where there will only be an Assistant Library Director. These are just a few of the examples of libraries I can give from California; I’m sure there are many more.

At the MaintainIT Project, we're always working to find new and useful ways to communicate about library technology, so when I recently encountered the Reelfoot Regional Library System's Reel Wiki, I asked Joyce Gunnels if she would share some information about it with me. Luckily, she agreed and here are her responses.

The first time I heard someone talk about the struggle to prepare students for careers and jobs that don’t currently exist, I could only imagine some sort of futuristic science fiction type of world. But now I realize that this has already happened in my life. The methods I use to contribute to the MaintainIT project were not possible in the early 90’s when I was in library school--webinars, blog postings, and downloadable books. But really, the skills I focused on in my formal education: writing, research, and librarianship are still the foundation of my work today. However, it made me start thinking about how technology affects libraries and librarians today.

An interesting thread on publib last week covered a discussion around web 2.0 and how it's used in libraries. I think Sara Weissman from the Morris County Library (NJ) said it best when she mused, "What are the patrons getting out of any/all of this?" Sara continued, "the most effective channels to/for our patrons, to date, are an events listserv (995 subscribers, no postage!) and electronic reference via good-ole web form/e-mail."

I have to admit, after listening to the Aug. 13th 30-Minute MaintainIT Webinar, the Gershwin song "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" kept going through my mind. No, not because I wanted to break up with MaintainIT (we have such a great relationship!), but because of the title, "I say tomayto, you say tomahto: Communicating with techies and non-techies: Can’t we all just get along?"

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Cara Sawyer from the Cherryfield Free Public Library, a small independent library in Maine. Cara informed me that she recently decided to replace their little-used web site with a MySpace page, and she enlisted the teens that use the library’s two public access computers to help her set it up and maintain it.

This spring, I had the pleasure of attending a regional conference in Colorado, sponsored by the Colorado Consortium of Libraries (CLiC). I met so many inspiring, creative, and hard-working librarians. Most everyone in attendance worked in a rural library, and everyone had much to share. One session I attended was about open source, which featured Judy Van Acker, Kieran Hixon, and Jesse Weaver, from the John C. Fremont Library District in Florence, CO.

Remember how I was a library director the last time I blogged about Koha? Life was so much simpler then. Koha migration from the administrative side is full of "opportunities for creative problem solving," like figuring out how to keep track of decisions, discussions, questions, bugs, problems, perks, and quirks related to the catalog and the migration process.

When a computer breaks down, do you have problems communicating your issue to a techie? When you're trying to convey a technology concept to an end user, do you struggle to make clear your point? Do you feel sometimes like techies and non-techies speak diifferent languages?

Nothing like a big sigh of relief and an accompanying yelp of unfettered joy about a job well done--a deployment with zero explosions--as expressed by Evette Atkin, Systems Librarian for the Michigan Evergreen project at the Michigan Library Consortuim (MLC). Kudos to the Branch District Library for being MLC's first member library to migrate to Evergreen.

Faithful followers of content on the MaintainIT site may have noticed a shiny new chapter now available on the Cookbooks page. It's a sneak peek at the forthcoming Cookbook - a chapter on Communicating with Techies and Non-Techies. And it's here just in time to complement the 30-minute webinar we're hosting over at WebJunction on Wednesday.

Thank you to everyone who attended this month's train-the-trainer webinar! We discussed ideas for using MaintainIT resources in training. I highlighted resources that are available, talked about examples of trainings that are taking place, and asked the participants for ideas, too.

I've never forgotten something Eric Brooks--a tech department of one from Placer County Library System (CA)--said to me when we sat down to chat at his library last year.

Each month, Brenda Hough assembles trainers and those interested in learning more about the MaintainIT Project in a FREE webinar. She shares tips, techniques, and resources around incorporating the Cookbooks into trainings. Each month, the webinars evolve, as more people share their ideas and their experiences.

On Friday, August 1st, I attended and presented at the Northeast Kansas Library System's annual Tech Day. Michael Porter, AKA Libraryman, kicked the day off with an inspiring and engaging presentation about "gadgets". It was exciting to hear about technologies that will be impacting us not only in the future, but also right now.