Why Libraries Rock

It's Blogathon Day for the Louisville Free Public Library. They were victims of a terrible flood that put over 4 ft of water into their basement and destroyed so much. See how you can help at this wiki. All of the details are there as well as links to other blogs participating in today's Blogathon.

So, why do libraries rock you ask?

-free
-fun
-programming
-family activities
-computer access
-computer training
-reference staff to answer ANY question you have
-community building
-dvds
-books and more books
-electronic databases
-summer reading program with PRIZES
-did I mention free?
-help with job searching and writing resumes
-from birth to grave, they are there!
-continuing education
-expanding knowledge
-travel to foreign lands without leaving the building
-new technology trainingdiv>

Well, I could go on and on, but I think I'm preaching to the choir here. Please take a moment to add YOUR comments on why libraries rock and help out the LFPL by donating and/or passing along this information.

Blogathon for LFPL - I Need Your FEEDBACK!

I recently posted about the flood at the Louisville Free Public Library. Andy Woodworth of the Burlington County Library System in New Jersey is organizing a blogathon for the LFPL. See more information about it at the wiki he set up or on his blog.

I have signed up to participate in this blogathon and today I found a great way to do so. With permission, I am totally copying Amy Kearns idea from the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative Blog.

The theme of the blogathon is "Why Libraries Rock" (well that's the PG version, see the wiki for the true theme...) Rather than just hear my own take on why libraries rock, I'd love for the readers of the blog (and that can be anyone, anywhere!) to leave a comment below sharing why YOU feel libraries rock. I'll add my thoughts and all of your contributions into the post for Monday August 31st (blogathon date). It can be one word, a sentence, a paragraph, whatever moves you.

Thanks for pitching in and I look forward to reading your comments!

Learning Methods Need To Change

I just posted a very cool video showing how important it is to change the way we impart information over at the ALA Learning Blog. Go check it out.

Check out the ALA Learning Blog

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new blog, ALA Learning sponsored by the Learning Round Table of the American Library Association. See the press release here. I'm honored to be one of the contributing authors to this blog. Plus, I'm in great company. Add us to your reader or bookmark us to stay on top of the latest in continuing education and learning for library workers.

Save POWER Library

Glenn Miller, Executive Director of PaLA sent out a note to the PASYS listserv. I am recopying it here and urge everyone to follow these steps. Note I have added this to the top right side of this blog and my emails have been sent. PLEASE click the link and do the same!

"Good afternoon, library supporters.

Pennsylvania’s library community has done a superb advocacy job throughout this ongoing state budget crisis. Our challenge now is to keep up the pressure and broaden our reach.

While much of our energy has focused on the Public Library Subsidy, other important library programs such as POWER Library, the Access PA Database, and Ask Here PA, are under attack, too, and may face elimination unless we raise a ruckus.

PaLA has launched a new email advocacy tool in support of POWER Library. You can help spread the word and educate your POWER Library users that the service may be eliminated unless we speak up forcefully.

Please help save POWER Library. By adding the following link to your website you can help your users contact their State Senator, State Representative, and Governor Rendell with a clearly worded message in support of POWER Library. We encourage all library websites to join in this statewide effort.

If you are able to help, please forward the following instructions to the person(s) responsible for maintaining your website. They can easily copy and paste this sample HTML code.

1. Near your POWER Library icon on your website, add some text such as "ALERT – Online Services of the POWER Library to End: Take Action!"

2. Hyperlink the text to http://www.palibraries.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=64

Thank you for assisting with this and helping to save POWER Library. Our plan is to expand this advocacy service soon to include other library programs in jeopardy. Stayed tuned!

Glenn

Glenn R. Miller
Executive Director
Pennsylvania Library Association
220 Cumberland Parkway, Suite 10
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055"

Enjoy the Ride - Music and Life

WOW! Thanks to Nannette Miner from the Traning Doctor for pointing me to this short animated clip. If you're aiming for success, don't forget to enjoy the ride - enjoy the music!

Promote Your Library during the Dog Days of Summer

Check out the great promo video from Arizona State University. Makes me want to go to one of their libraries immediately. Though it would be quite a commute for me. Why not make your own video, upload it to a video sharing site like YouTube and put it on the front page of your Website? Don't worry about it looking as professional as this one, just do it!

Social Media Revolution

Yet another testament to the importance of Social Media. This time, sources are cited for the information. This all comes from Socialnomics.

Here's the video - WATCH it!



Here's the blog post that shows all of the sources.

Still think it's a fad? Shame on you!

Disaster at the Louisville Free Public Library

You have probably already heard about this by now, but I've had on my list of things to do to write a blog post detailing various links to help the Louisville Free Public Library in their time of need after a devastating flood. Rather than rewrite the details, Sarah Glassmeyer does an excellent job of it. Steve Lawson from LSW is collecting donations. Here are some Louisville news reports and photos from Greg Schwartz. How devastating and a reminder to all of us to be prepared! My heart goes out to LFPL.

Our Cataloging Department Rocks!

We use Mindtouch's DekiWiki as our Intranet here. I was so excited when we implemented it over a year ago. We have a lot of work to do to increase its usability, but it's a definite improvement over our old static web page Intranet that only one person could update!

When I present on using Web2.0 technologies, I always stress the need for collaboration and agreed upon standards before rolling out something new. This, of course, doesn't always happen, but it's a nice ideal to strive for.

Well, the Cataloging Department here where I work put together an Intranet Team a few months ago and the 4 members of that team have been working very hard to create a streamlined experience for anyone stopping by their area of the Intranet. It's really too bad that I can't share this with the world, but we do have a password protected Intranet for obvious reasons.

So, to ALL of you who read this blog and work within this library system, I STRONGLY URGE you to check out the new and improved CDTS area on LILLY (the name of our Intranet). To the rest of you, let me try to explain the improvements in word:

1. First page of entry includes a table that links to all of the other areas making it very easy to find what you're looking for
2. Clean look not cluttered with a lot of text. Concise and to the point (Okay, when do I get a lesson from the team to help me on that one!)
3. Do not have to rely on the left nav bar to find things as that can be very confusing.
4. No reference to attachments at the bottom of a page; instead, links within the text of the page that take you to the appropriate doc/spreadsheet/pdf whatever instead of having to figure out what each attachment relates too (those of you who work with wikis KNOW what I'm talking about)
5. A link to a Suggestion Box asking for feedback (yes, I am singing out loud on this one)
6. A "Fun Stuff" link that takes you to a page that utilizes the Social Media aspect of a wiki with YouTube videos, RSS feeds of fun blogs, etc. (Remember, these are catalogers, so this is HUGE - just kidding...)
7. All of the staff's contact information is listed and easy to find and it looks like they may even be adding their pictures to it - kudos for TRANSPARENCY! (I immediately decided to copy that idea and will be adding my pic and bio to the Training area, I am more than an email address and phone number - duh!)
8. Incorporated the use of Google Forms for people to submit processing requests, etc
9. Could go on, but I'll stop now...

I truly enjoyed helping the team to get started and reviewing with them in the end. HOWEVER, they did all of the work and came up with so many innovative ideas I had never thought of. I've learned a lot by their example and as all things Web2.0 will be 'borrowing' those for my own area :-)