AGLIN Forum here I come

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AGLIN Forum, ALIA Sydney, workshops

Getting ready to go to Canberra for the AGLIN forum on “New technologies: value and practices in libraries”.  Looking forward to an informative day and possible networking opportunity.  This comes after a very informative and enjoyable evening yesterday at the ALIA Sydney “Knowing Me, Knowing You” networking event.  Fun time and lots of information for all who attended.  Especially good to see a good cross section of people from different sectors of the library and information industry as well as varying professional backgrounds.

One thing that came through in all the discussions is that if you have a passion for something follow it and you’ll find the perfect job for you.  The passion may be in libraries but it may also take you out of libraries as well.  Remember that your skills are transferrable to any role you take on.

AGLIN Forum “New technologies: value and practices in libraries”

Tags

AGLIN Forum, professional development, technology

Just organising my trip to Canberra for the AGLIN forum on “new technologies: value and practices in libraries”.  There is an interesting mix of people speaking.  I’m interested in looking into the semantic web and what that is about.  At the moment there really is a lot going on technologically both globally but also within libraries and sometimes it’s hard to keep up.  Will be blogging from the forum and tweeting if possible.

Online training

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online training, PD, professional development, training

As more training gets done online these days I’m finding myself evaluating things that I like and don’t like about it and what bits are helpful.  I know we all do this but I’m finding that there are times where I wonder why I’m doing the training.  I’ve recently had to do some systems training and as the LMS provider is in the US the training has been done online.  Now I know there are technical difficulties that arise and there are time zones and other issues but I really struggle to follow a training session where all I’m doing is sitting at a desk watching my computer monitor and listening in while the trainer is showing me different links and areas of the system.  While I do find it interesting it becomes a bit of a battle trying to remember everything – while taking notes – and not to fall asleep during the session as it becomes a bit of a one way session.

I’m not talking about a session that is only 1 hour – this is a 6 hour training session that can become monotonous when all you have is one person talking and all you need to do is remember to move your mouse occasionally so that the screensaver doesn’t come on.   It gets worse if there are no training manuals provided – or are provided 5 minutes before the session starts and you haven’t had time to print them out.    I know there are limitations to what you can do but I’m not sure that anyone learns a lot in that situation.  I know that I’m usually left scratching my head and wondering what was it that I’ve just learnt.

Through the door

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#blogjune, library use, non users, Public libraries

Lately have been wondering about how you would reach the non-library user?  How do you get them using your collection or telling you what they want as far as services / collections are concerned so that they will use your services.  With limited funds the libraries, whether academic, special or public libraries, need to be savvy with the way they use their funds and what they offer as far as services are concerned.

In the context of the public library, which is mainly my focus,  you get such a different range of people coming through that you can really be stretched.  I’m not only interested in the range of collections – do we focus on fantasy rather than science fiction or crime etc. – but also do we cut out the audio books in tape format – & yes we do still have some (some of our patrons will not  give up their tape recorders) – in favour of e-audiobooks or do we continue to purchase audio tapes, audio cds & e-audiobooks?

The question also arises for those who don’t come to the library – why not?  Is it not enough time? or we don’t have the resources/ things of interest? or are they just not aware of the services the library has to offer?  I’m continually getting surprised looks when I tell people what I do when I’m at work at a public library.  The usual assumption is “but you just loan out books don’t you?”.  There are days when I feel like I’m the counsellor, careers advisor as well as the person who loans out the book you want to borrow.  They get surprised when I say “yes I loan out books but I also train people on how to use computers, how to send emails, search for information, how to use Twitter and Facebook as well.”

It’s fair to say we can’t be all things to all the people but we sure can try and provide as much reasons as possible for them to use the library and to find value in what we do provide.  I don’t pretend to know the answers but I know that it’s something that I’ll continue to try and answer – who do we get the non-user using the library?

 

Resistance to social media

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#blogjune, staff training, training

Time really flies and I’ve realised that I’m having to get ready for the next semester of study, planning what courses we’ll be running in the library for August through to September and deciding on how to implement some staff training – especially in social media applications.

How do you implement social media training for staff that are resistant to using computers in the first place.  They use the LMS because they have to but as much as possible will not look at any new technology.  My normal reaction is that I won’t push anyone into doing anything that they don’t want to do but management has let it be known that all staff need to be made familiar with the technology and how to use it.

This means finding a way that each individual can accept doing something that they don’t want to.  I’m continually surprised that that people will use technology but still be resistant to using the technology or learning about new technology.  This is the continuing challenge of convincing people that change and new technology can be a good thing.

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Questions to be answered

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#blogjune, Information literacy, Literacy, technology

When I’m not reading textbooks on information technology I’m looking at information on literacy and information literacy.  The thought that keeps popping up for me is ‘how can technology be best utilised to aid in literacy learning and information literacy’.  Literacy encompasses such a large area that I feel like I’m drowning.  The issue becomes also that if we are to use technology to teach people literacy then we need to be sure that the public knows how to use the technology in the first place.  It’s no use to assume that because someone knows how to send an email, for example, that they know how to search for information on the internet or where they actually type the address of the search engine to use.  There is no guarantee that the person even knows how to use a computer.  This brings you to first having to make sure that there is basic computer literacy  there in the first place so that the person can benefit from the information literacy training being provided.

We are so used to thinking that everyone knows how to use a computer that you have to stop  yourself and realise that there are those who do fall into the ‘digital divide’ area who don’t know or aren’t proficient in using the digital technology but aren’t comfortable letting you know that this is the case that they will hide this.  Finding the best way to reach out to these groups and let them know that you can gain the skills at a library is something that needs to happen and needs to be done in various ways to make people comfortable in approching the institution to gain the skills.  Literacy starts early but it certainly is never to late.  At the moment I’m reading a paper from the NSW Adult Literacy & Numeracy Council Seminar from last year (2010) by Mylee Joseph “Family literacy who cares! the role of public libraries in fostering family literacy” on family literacy and early literacy but I’ve got others still waiting to be read on various aspects of literacy.  Needless to say I’m continually  wondering how best to reach people.  More to think about I guess.

Time flies …

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#blogjune, ALIA Sydney

My New Years resolution was to do more blog posts but unfortunately life happened.  This year has really been a whirl of activity and I don’t know where the time has flown.  With settling into a new job and trying to work out what is going on there, studying again, activities with the kids and the professional activities organised with ALIA Sydney the time has really flown.  I’ve also committed to joining in on the #blogeverydayofjune for ALIA Sydney and will post on the ALIA Sydney blog on 18 June.  I will though try to blog on this blog as well as much as I can. #blogjune

Impatience or the dangers of being impatient

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ALIA Sydney, Conferences, Information Online, PD, personal development, study

All I seem to be lately is impatient – impatient for the Information Online Conference to start, impatient for my material from CSU to turn up so I can see what I’ll need to do for my studies, impatient for Uni to start even.  I know it’s not long until the Online Conference but I’m excited to be going for a number of reasons chief of which is that there are a lot of sessions that sound very interesting.  I’m also participating in the mentor/mentee program which should be interesting.  There are also a lot of exciting things happening with ALIA Sydney.

I’m really going to have to curb my impatience and just wait but I just can’t help it – I want things now!  I will definitely try to blog and tweet from the conference – something that I said I was going to be doing more of but haven’t had a chance to with new job.  Study is going to be an interesting prospect in more ways than one – me to actually discipline myself in actually doing it on time (and not playing Cityville, Enchanted Island etc) and the kids being used to Mum studying.

Delicious and all that jazz

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Delicious, Diigo, Mister Wong, Pinboard, social bookmarking, web 2.0, Xerpi, Yahoo

Beginning of the week started with finding out on Twitter that Yahoo was going to “sunset” Delicious.  Began to realise that if Delicious is not going to be available anymore then I had to move my bookmarks away from Delicious and find another social bookmarking site or go back to being tied to one computer or copying things on more than one computer.  A prospect I wasn’t looking forward to – I had over 500 tags in Delicious which I found very useful.  Some of the sites I’ve looked at included pinboard, diigo, xerpi and Mister Wong.  Xerpi doesn’t seem to like importing from Delicious while the others have done it. So far I have found that Mister Wong seems to be the one I like the best.  It allows the tags to be displayed in a list or a tag cloud and seems to be the closest to showing the list like Delicious does.  It also allows you to add your Twitter links.  Pinboard also allows for tags to be shown but appears to only be as a list while I couldn’t work out the way diigo presented the tags, especially the imported ones.

Needless to say there is more investigating to be done but I’m ultimately hoping that Yahoo’s announcement that they are looking for a new home for Delicious comes to be and I can keep that account.  Much like what happened to Bloglines.  Though this has pointed out that you still need to:

1. Back up all your tags and
2. Possibly have more than one social bookmarking account going to try and limit the damage.

More fun and games.

HTML, CSS and other headaches

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computers, CSS, HTML, logos, web design

Really had an eventful week this week after a good weekend of Xmas parties.  Monday had a fall – thankfully no damage done (apart from pride), followed by a very nice tour of the Rare Books Library, iResearch, Law Library and SciTech Libraries followed by dinner.  It was very interesting looking at some of the rare books – 1cm bible was very hard to read! 

Now I’m trying to get my head around HTML, CSS style sheets and other such things.  Trying to resize a logo so it would fit in the header area is an interesting exercise.  Going to have fun trying to work out what is what.