Libraries and Autism

This post is a little outside the parameters set for this course, and is not part of this week's assignment. However, the information did come to me through one of the feeds I've set up on Bloglines, which is like getting Christmas presents every day! "Libraries and Autism: We're Connected" is also an excellent example of how libraries can use Web2.0 to reach their staff, and simultaneously, their clients.

I think that everyone who works in a library (correction, everyone) should watch the 2 part video, and access the resources collected in this joint project by the Scotch Plains Public Library (NJ) http://www.scotlib.org/ and Fanwood Memorial Library (NJ) http://www.youseemore.com/fanwood/.

The video, though "a customer service training video primarily for library staff to help them serve individuals with autism and their families more effectively" can be accessed by anyone directly from a link on the libraries' websites. The website for the project is an impressive collection of resources on autism spectrum disorder (Autism, Asperger's Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder or Rett's Syndrome). Please take the time to check this out:

http://www.thejointlibrary.org/autism/resources.htm

And this link to Autism Speaks gives a very good, basic overview of what autism is:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/whatisit/index.php

Rolf Hicker and icebergs as art

This is how you take the road less travelled. In my last post, I inserted a breathtaking, and copyrighted, photograph of an iceberg. I was called on it, and in future I will keep this in mind before blithely using someone else's art without at first asking, or giving credit where it is due.

I removed the photograph this afternoon, and used the 'contact us' on the website to request permission to use it; I was amazed that I got a response, and approval, so quickly and easily.

So, here is a link to the incredible photography of Rolf Hicker (who is also the webmaster), whose only requirement for my humble blog to use his work is to "provide a valid link to our iceberg pictures".

http://www.hickerphoto.com/iceberg-pictures-photos.htm

How does this have anything to do with libraries, and this course? Well, it means we have to do our research, have to make sure we give credit. It means that since we are in the public eye, we have to be conscious of it. As far as Web2.0 goes, I think that this showed me that even with all the fancy tools we are using, we should not forget the basics. Like asking permission, saying please and then thank you.

So thank you, Rolf, for allowing me to show a few more people your excellent work.

The library Titanic

Tonight I read Rick Anderson's 'Away from the "icebergs"'. Written by someone who is totally embracing the new technology, he says these threats to libraries are "remnants of a bygone information age, practices and attitudes that no longer make sense but which we have difficulty letting go." One of these, he says, is reliance on a print collection, because now everyone can have access to everything, and we don't have to have the information in print. He refers to a staggering drop in circulation (55% over 12 years) in his library, and suggests we have to be ready to move away from print, lest we end up in a life raft called the old fashioned book format, no doubt using our hands instead of paddles. I disagree with this in our library's situation. Though we have a lot of patrons who are Internet and Web2.0 savvy, we also have a very large client base who are not. An example of this is the number of Introduction to Computers courses we have run over the years. These are our clients... they are seniors, they live in a rural area with dial up, and they are learning to use a mouse. They read books; they like books. I agree more with the article I read yesterday, where the author stated that we have to evaluate our clientele and do what works for them. I *do* agree with the statement "if our services can’t be used without training, then it’s the services that need to be fixed—not our patrons". We have so little time to help our patrons as it is. If something is so convoluted they can't figure it out without a training session, then it won't be embraced by them... so it will be a dud. In the author's opinion, the "come to us" model of service is dead. He says "this means placing library services and content in the user’s preferred environment (i.e., the Web)". I agree that libraries are no longer the be all and end all where information is concerned. I disagree that the preferred environment is Web, at least in our library system (see above). That does not mean we ignore the new in favour of the old. It means that there is a balancing act going on here. If you fall out of the boat, you drown! It is important to keep in mind that we are serving a rural population, many of them very conservative, that considers the library a community meeting place, where they can browse, chat and ask for help... there's nothing leaking and this ship is sound. Maybe we just need to keep a vigilant watch for those big, lurking bergs, and steer a careful path. We can make ourselves accessible. One big step is a more attractive website, with a user friendly interface.

Addendum: In my enthusiastic search for the perfect iceberg, I neglected to pay attention to copyright. As it turns out, my first choice was copyrighted. I have contacted the photographer for permission to post it, but in the mean time, this stock photo (of a less beautiful, but still impressively sized group) will do just fine. Something to consider!!

The essence of Library 2.0

The way the week is going, I thought I'd best break down this assignment. Tonight I read Meredith Farkas article, and the comments back and forth. I appreciated her thoughts on technology and libraries, and I especially agree with her comments about the need to assess, and reassess, in order to provide our clients with what they want, not to show off the latest bells and whistles. As she says, "I know libraries can feel like technology is passing them by when they see all this cool stuff other libraries are doing, but if you’re focused on the needs and wants of your service population (including people in your community who don’t use the library), you shouldn’t worry." Those of us taking this course are learning a lot about web2.o. I wouldn't be surprised if my fellow RWLers would agree that many of these tools, though impressive, wouldn't get used by our clients. The people who want to interact with me come into the branch. It also takes time and effort to maintain these new additions. Thought provoking, and worth further discussion. YZ

Swimming in the Social Soup

Here I am in the Social Soup. I'm in the middle row, third from the left... We have a week off from our course (yesss!!) but I'm hooked on some of the web2 discoveries I've made. I'm adding more and more feeds to my bloglines account, and then discovered I could also use my yahoo site to do the same thing (that makes one too many choices right now). One of the things that showed up in my feeds today, and that I tried to insert (but couldn't), is a video about Generation WE. Its a book, but its also a website with this video. Oh yea of nonpolitical bent, be forewarned. It brought tears to my eyes, and it made me recognize why so many kids the age of my children feel lost, depressed, and hopeless. I know the emotions are being felt in Canada too, but what about the activism? This is a very smart group, with some powerful points to make. OK, here it is: http://vimeo.com/2032854 I am having fun with delicious, and soon I won't have those gazillion bookmarks anymore! The other day, Carol and I discussed how we could use blogging to communicate between branches and staff.

The Elf speaks

I got my first email from Library Elf today, telling me I had a book due tomorrow. It showed me that it was an Interlibrary loan, and the calendar showed me the other dates I had items due. Like most library staff, I sign out things on the fly, unlike our clients. So Library Elf is a great reminder. I can envision it being incredibly useful for some of our very busy, multitasking parents who are juggling not only their jobs and kids' school responsibilities, but also sports and the library. YZ On a personal note: If anyone is looking for a great bike ride, take the Cambridge to Paris trail. It is built on an abandoned rail line so you can cycle side by side, its mostly flat, runs a scenic route along the Grand River, and its part of the Trans-Canada Trail. Wonderful! http://www.grandriver.ca/index/document.cfm?Sec=21&Sub1=84&Sub2=0

Library Elf - what happens when there are no more overdue fines?

There is this great little creature, an online tool called Library Elf. Bookworm and I were talking about it today, and I decided, in the spirit of adventure of this Web2.0 course, that I'd blog about it. Its a simple username / login (no skill testing questions) and you can list multiple library cards. RWL is on the list.

I can tell Library Elf how early and how often to remind me of material coming due. I've now set it up as an RSS feed to Bloglines, but the reminders come to whichever email address I choose. I could consolidate my family's loans. How good is that? I think we'd be doing our clients a great service by promoting Library Elf. And it was Bookworm's suggestion to include a link on our website. Here's the link: http://www.libraryelf.com/ I also like this because it is a Canadian product. woohoo! YZ

I'm back on delicious. The chocolate is too (delicious).

Note to self: eat chocolate before falling apart. That way, at least you won't care about the falling apart. I went back to delicious. I tried every single email address I've used in the recent past. I finally found myself! and reset my password. I also figured out how to add any bookmark I like (thanks Lisa) and I'm good to go. Technorati was way too technorati for me; overwhelming, actually. You'd have to really be into this. I think I'm getting a good handle on what's out there, but there was just too much of a "good thing" for me to go beyond skimming the surface. Incredible, though. Good night, moon. YZ

I'm trying to find myself. Have you seen me lately?

OK, I have to admit that I recycled the title from a t-shirt I wore when I was still living in Calgary, but it's really how I feel!

Last night, I thought I'd do a bit more exploring of some of the tools and sites I've been learning about in the Web2.0 course. I've decided that if I'm going to go to the trouble of learning about them, creating user accounts and adding things, and then blogging about them, then I don't want my efforts to become orphans overnight. So I went back to Flickr and downloaded some of the photos I took on the hike I took at the Huron Nature Area in Kitchener on the weekend. I grew up in Kitchener, and I've always seen the city changing by things being torn down and by more strip malls being built. This area is totally the opposite, and it is a wonderful gift to the residents of the city. yay!! Then, on a roll, I decided to go onto delicious and see how many other people tagged some of my favourite websites. oh oh. In my last post I think I talked about how I struggled with a user name and password for this site. I've never encountered a site that made it so difficult for me to get in.

Well, now I don't know what either my user name or password are. So... if someone, anyone can use delicious to bookmark Local Initiative for Future Energy Co-op, would you perhaps share the newest of the 2 people who did this? That would be me.

If you supply me with my user name I'll give you chocolate! (and I will not criticize you if you use it for makeup...)

I thought I would blog out my frustrations. Everything was fine until hit 'publish post' and I got a very weird error message. Spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure it out (learned I am not alone, not a big help, thank you!) and by then I'd forgotten what I was going to say anyhow. This is my tale of woe. I'm going to do a more positive post about Technorati, OK?

delicious is now easier to spell

I've always wondered about the strange name, so with this assignment, I satisfied my curiousity about it; after Yahoo bought del.icio.us from developer Joshua Schachter for between US$15 million and US$30 million (!) it was redesigned, and (sadly) renamed. Its easier to spell, sure, but knowing its owned by yahoo sort of takes the "romance" out of it, y'know?? I had fun playing around with the bookmarks after my initial struggles with trying to create a user name / login combination that the site would accept. I don't have any more room in my brain for more usernames! I've done some tagging with Flickr, and I liked how this site offered suggestions. I was disappointed, though, that delicious did not find the website of my local paper, newhamburgindependent.com yummy enough to allow me to bookmark it. Or IBistro, which I use a lot. So there are limitations. Your little website of choice may end up being a crumb on the web2.0 floor. That's all I'm doing tonight. Oh yes, I guess I can add some labels (tags) to this post too before I go. Happy Thanksgiving (burp).

[global domination began yesterday]

I happily skipped into GREEN because you can on Facebook; it impressed me that this page has been operating since 2006. I checked out the other nonprofits from the link. Tempting to go further down that road, but its getting late. Will check that out later. Nice to see people of all ages and from all parts of the world paricipating; there are always party poopers, though, and I think I found the biggest one. I saw the note that GREEN had launched a website in January 2008. How great! Maybe they have (showing off her considerable knowledge ;-)) an RSS feed. Well, some big black thing has taken over the site, with the name as the title of my post. Something called SQUARED WORLD ENTERPRISED (tm). http://www.greenbecauseyoucan.com/Welcome_to_Squared_World_Enterprises!__Squared_World_Enterprises.html Who gets to trademark a black blob that takes over someone else's website?? The power of Facebook pales here, because people have been saying since September that the website doesn't work and no one has noticed. Or cared. Or done anything. Maybe they are ignoring it in the hopes it will go away... like global warming. Or maybe the new site was a hoax to begin with! Well, I digress. Lets not let ourselves go totally paranoid here. Facebook is an incredible social tool. Everybody does Facebook. I have an account. I don't use it much, but if/when one of my boys heads out to the far side of the globe, I imagine this is how we will stay in contact. Now on to LibraryThing. You dear sweet LibraryThing! I've had people rave about it, and I've checked it out, but until I took the time that this course asked me to I did nothing. Well, those days are over. I went nuts. I did a retrospective (a nice trip, thank you) of some of my favourite fiction titles. Only added very recent nonfiction. Total = 45. (see previous adjective, nuts) I'm very visual, and I love book covers! So though I tried to do my searches using the stalwarts such as the (misnamed on LibraryThing) National Library and Library of Congress I ended using the ubiquitous amazon.ca to get the covers of the copies I'd read. My big annoyance with LibraryThing?? Someone has already used my user name! I don't have enough brain cells to remember yet another new user name. Maybe we should be given unique user names at birth?? Anyway, this assignment was a great adventure. And I'm pleased to say that I'm using bloglines to track my feeds- 10 of them - and its great. I did add Community Development 2.0 to the list but the new assignment did not show up as a feed. Don't know what's going on there. Tomorrow is a full day, so its time to drop out of cyberland into dreamland. Yvonne

Too much news

I spent a lot of time on RSS and ended up with more information than my little brain is willing to hang on to. There's so much out there! I subscribed to other participants' newsfeeds (lucky them?) in the hopes that they can either shed more light on this for me, or they too will admit to being somewhat overwhelmed by this. I've got an embedded newsfeed on my blog, CBC books, which I am finding the most useful feed because it deals with new titles, awards and nominations for awards. Some of the other blogs are just ramblings and... well, I ramble quite a bit myself. I think this particular feed would be a good addition to our library's website for the reasons I gave for adding it to my blog. The RSS feed sites had a lot on them, but it would have taken me too much time to whittle down what I'd want, for the time I'm giving it right now. Maybe I'll go back later. I did not like http://www.topix.net/ because even when I narrowed it down by country and province, I found very little content on what was useful to me; this annoyed me so I let that go. I think the focus of these newsfeeds are more U.S. based, and that's not what I'm looking for. All in all, its been very interesting. Now I am off to ReThink Waterloo, where the energy co-op I'm secretary of (LIFE) has a booth set up. Looking forward to hearing Robert Kennedy Jr. speak tonight. Yvonne