Don't forget the Almanac

Last Friday I was subbing on the reference desk at HQ ~ and loving it! ~ and received a call from a gentleman who wanted to know about current US troop levels around the world.

A short parenthetical comment: this is why I love working the reference desk. I love getting questions that need thought and detective work! It is so fun to not just follow your own creative, curious lead, but follow one for a complete stranger. The world becomes so big when you discover how many questions people have, how many things they wonder, worry and want to know more about.

So, I took his name and number and spent several minutes looking online for information. I tried the Department of Defence web site, Ask sites, and, of course, the information landfill that is Google. I asked the two other reference librarians for suggestions, and they also typed in ever narrower and more specific queries. We found articles and information about this country or that country, this defense issue or that pundit's ideological calling card, but no simple, straightforward answer to the patron's question.

Then one of my co-workers said: "Try the almanac."

Within 45 seconds of touching the book, I had the patron's answer. A simple table of information: troop levels by country and region. Perfect.

We librarians stood there and shared a moment of joy. All the Internet's information power at our fingertips, and we found the exact answer we needed in a book.

Royalton Library Centennial

The Royalton Library held its centennial celebration today. The ladies from the Royalton Woman's Study Club, the group that founded the library, held an open house with a historical display and refreshments. It was great fun to hang out and chat with everyone. I spent some time looking through the old ledgers and such. There were a couple of ledgers that listed all the books owned by the library and who had donated them.

I also discovered the notebook kept by the secretary of the Royalton Library Association, begun in April 1912. I found the Rules and Regulations passed for the library, and had to share.

Rules and Regulations of the Royalton Library Association

I. Adults living in the city or village of Royalton... are entitled to draw books by filling out application blanks. Children under the age of sixteen (16) must obtain the signature of parent or guardian.

II. Each person entitled to draw books from the library will be given a card, which must be presented whenever a book is taken, returned or renewed. If the card is lost, a new one will be given, after seven (7) days notice or upon payment of five cents.

III. One book at a time may be drawn on a card. Two volumes of the same work are considered as one book.

IV. Books may be kept for two weeks, and once renewed for the same time. Books marked "Seven Day Book" may be kept for that time only, but may be renewed once only for the same time.

V. A fine of one cent a day will be imposed for the books kept over time.

VI. A temporary resident may obtain a borrower's card by filling out an application blank and obtaining the signature of a resident-free holder, or by a temporary deposit, equal to the value of the book.

I found an inflation adjuster online and figured out that the five cents it cost in 1912 to replace a card would be $1.06. And we charge $1. Similarly, that 1 cent fine for overdues would be 21 cents today... and we charge 20 cents for adult items (10 cents for juvenile, and $1 for all videos). I think it is pretty amazing that these charges have remained relatively the same for a hundred years!

One more bit from the same document of 1912:

A motion was made and seconded that... all books, manuscripts and papers detrimental to the good morals and public order shall be barried from the library. Carried.

Personally, I much prefer the sentiment of Jo Godwin: A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.

Back to the school year routine

Well, it was 54 degrees at 6:15 this morning when my sweet, grumpy Gabi left for work. At least she had a great breakfast to look forward to, thanks to the Elk River Bank. The school district can't afford to treat the teachers to goodies, so they call on various businesses to pitch in. It's so great that they rally.

I got up about an hour later, ate a small breakfast and then took my walk around Lake George, passing by the new St. Cloud library. Workers were busy, busy, moving in boxes and crates of something. After looping the lake I came back and looped the library and saw three or four children's program staff standing among the browser racks at the front of the library, looking intently at some piece of paper.

I am so happy not to have anything to do with the big move.

We moved the Royalton library a couple of years ago, just a block, and it was a hectic, chaotic, nerve-wracking few months of buildup and then an utterly exhausting weekend of moving and reshelving and setting up in the new location. And the Royalton library is about 1/100th the size of HQ/St. Cloud Public Library. I just can't imagine.

But back to my original thread... yes, the school-year is back on, and the old routine is calling. Tomorrow it's back to my writing and the endless joy/struggle/excitement/exhaustion/etc. of following characters and plot lines as they weave into something (I hope) meaningful. Also, I weighed myself this morning and I have successfully lost all the weight I gained on the marital bliss road trip, plus 1/2 pounds more. So, yes, we're back on the calorie counting wagon as well.

And, truth be told, I'm feeling quite content.

I doubt, however, that Gabi would say the same.

READ - seriously!

I feel like jumping for joy ~ the summer reading program is done! It finished Saturday, and today I compiled all my stats, did all my prize drawings, put away the left over prize books until next year and directed my aide to tear down all the posters and bulletin boards. It's officially done.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the Summer Reading Programs. Nothing is more fun that working with the kids who are so excited about reading, geared up for programs, and just looking to have a good time at the library. But it is a lot of work. Sort of like the holiday season... lots of joy and good memories but it's a relief all the same when it's over.

We broke some records again this year. Over 200 kids participating, which is awesome for our little town of not-quite 1000 folks. Of course we pull kids from nearby towns as well, but I'm still impressed. And all these kids read a lot of books. So phenomenol.

Just to make it an even better day, while playing around online tonight (during commercials while watching The Closer) I discovered the new ALA READ poster generator. It is so fun. I'll have to get some pics of Royalton kids to make some local posters. What a hoot.

Check out the Flickr READ posters here. Lots of great ideas out there, from library folks and book-lovers alike.

TheLibrarianIsHere TheLibrarianIsHere

A couple of summers ago, as I drove into Royalton on my way to work, I had the window down and was enjoying the lovely day. I saw two boys riding their bikes along the road, and as I drove past them I heard one of them yell to the other, "The librarian is here the librarian is here!" It came out in one long multisyllabic breath as the boy stood up on the bike, peddling as fast as he could while wearing a huge smile on his face. Half an hour later, when I opened the library for business, the boys were there, eager to sign up for the Summer Reading Program. I can't remember whether they brought their library cards with them. Probably not.

After all this time, it still makes me smile.

Yesterday was the Summer Reading Program kick-off. Our theme this year is "Look What's Cookin' at Your Library," so we're having lots of fun with food oriented programming. Gabi came up (after teaching summer school all morning) to lead a demonstration on using a pizza box to make a solar oven that would melt English-muffin pizzas. My aide staffed the craft table where kids made suncatchers out of paper plates and clear contact paper. And my branch assistant thrilled the kids with her facepainting and story telling skills. I cooked pizza (in a most-definitely-not solar oven) and did the paperwork of signing up 50+ kids. Not a bad turnout for a town of under a thousand.

So, yes, summer is officially here. The reading has begun!

For a great look at (someone else's) pictures of the pizza-box solar oven, click here.

For any parents/teachers/library staff out there, both the pizza-box solar oven and the paper-plate suncatcher are great kids' crafts. The idea for the suncatcher came from our SRP resource guide. Basically, take a dessert-sized paper plate and cut a 3 1/2 to 4 inch circle from the center of the plate. Cut two circles from clear contact paper, making them the same size, about a half-inch larger than the circle in the plate. Put one contact paper circle over the bottom of the plate, so that the sticky side is facing up. Decorate the sticky circle; we gave the kids glitter, confetti, pieces of brightly colored tissue paper and colored feathers. When they've finished decorating, place the second piece of contact paper over the "bowl" of the plate, sealing in all the decorations between the two pieces of contact paper. Punch a hole in the top of the plate, add a ribbon, and you have a suncatcher.



I found the picture above here. It gives you the basic idea, but I have to say that our kids' suncatchers were way more creative and pretty than this one! I wish I had thought to take my camera.

Scrappy Entertainment

Today (congenial bows) I successfully pulled off a "tween" program on Scrapbook Journaling. I wasn't sure I would. First, I'm not a scrapper. Second, I haven't done a teen program before. Third, well, I was just plain nervous about it. The 12-14 set can be a hard group to impress, and I've spent the last few days doubting myself about it.

However, the program went off well. Four kids showed up -- a small number but very comfortable. It would have been hard to spend adequate time helping them if there had been many more. We made a mini "explosion scrapbook" with three big squares of scrapping paper. Very easy, then I let them loose with piles of markers, stickers, ribbons, old magazines, scraps of cloth and glitter glue pens.

We also did the "I am" poem, and I had the kids cut up the three paragraphs of the poem to add to different parts of their scrapbook. Plus they had a little envelope to glue on so that they could add notes, pictures, or, in the case of one boy, baseball cards. These were particularly touching with the pink and yellow daisy-themed paper (this was the younger brother of one of the girls, and I just loved his paper choices!). He decorated his scrapbook with pictures of baseball players and candy bars.

It was great fun to see the way the kids decorated their individual books. The most entertaining part of it might have been to see how much fun they had with the fabric swatches, bits of trim, sequins, and other bits that I brought from my private stash. They were incredibly creative.

Thing 20 - MySpace & Facebook

Sometimes I think of MySpace and Facebook as black holes... I go near them and all sense of time and place is forgotten...

I haven't actually spent that much time on them. Don't have pages of my own and have zero inclination to start one, but I'm just totally fascinated by them all the same. It's the whole idea of "social networking" and how these sites are creating a paradigm shift in our definitions and perceptions of privacy, identity, place, community, association... even the definition of "friend" has undergone this strange transmutation. It's fascinating and perplexing.

In my professional capacity, I think of MySpace in two primary ways: first, to protect kids' right to go online and connect with their friends (however they define "friend.") Second, to learn as much as possible about these venues so that I can talk coherently with the parents who come in to the library and are concerned about their kids going online and therefore being exposed to the evils that may lurk in cyberspace. For them, I want to know enough about MySpace to be able to sit them down at the computer and give them tips on how to explore it as well as being able to suggest books that might help them parent in this new frontier.

I watched a PBS Frontline episode called Growing Up Online. It's available for viewing online, and I would highly recommend it to parents/teachers/library staff and other concerned folk. The program covers a lot of ground, from kids spending so much time online that they have more of a virtual life than a real one, to cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying.

I was struck by one of the parents in the program, a New Jersey mom who was incredibly concerned about some "bad man" stalking her daughters online. I don't want to minimize this concern in any way, but how is this worse than the greasy, doorway perverts who we grew up learning to avoid? (One note from the Frontline episode: the reporter said that in every case where a teen was stalked online the teen had been an active participant, at least initially... It stands to reason that it's much easier to block an inappropriate advance online than face to face with a real person.)

I think one thing that will be very interesting to watch unfold is what these online networking sites will mean for our evolving definitions of privacy. The little time I've spent bouncing around on MySpace shows me that people put the most unbelievably private info out there. And I'm not talking sexual things. I'm talking about cell phone numbers, place of birth, age, full name, etc. Everything but the social security number. (This while we hear more and more about identity thieves creating endless havoc for their victims.)

This should matter to us as library professionals because we (should) put a great deal of care and thought into issues around protecting privacy, not to mention media literacy, copyrights, etc. What does that mean for us as professionals to be zealously guarding patrons' privacy, then watch them put their entire life up on MySpace? I'm guessing that we haven't even begun to imagine how this will play out.

Then there is the whole issue of our privacy. We are out there in the public eye, and I have no doubt that there have already been several occasions, whether it be bored teens or bitter patrons, where individual staff get Googled. Not a bad thing if you lead a stereotypical librarian's life. But what if you don't? Is it safe to be Out in your blog if you identify where you work (okay, that might fit a certain librarian stereotype, still, I think you can get my point)? Then there's a whole gamut of choices and behaviors that fall into the category of "questionable taste." You have to wonder how many ways it could come back to haunt people. We all did stupid stuff as kids. Many of us do dumb things as grown-ups. But hopefully by now only a few people remember, and we can count on memories to fade and fugue with time, details to blur. The nature of people's memories allows a lot of room for compassion and forgiveness.

But when it's sent out to the Internet... it's really there. Forever. Any anyone can access it. The new NEA Today came today, and in it is an article called "The Whole World (wide web) Is Watching." The article gives several examples of teachers who were fired because their students or administrators discovered "inappropriate" content on their MySpace pages. In every case cited, the teachers had sexually explicit content on their pages. None of the examples involved interaction with students or minors. So the teachers were not blogging about things that were technically illegal. Still, they were fired.

The article goes on to say:

But what about free speech? Don't school employees have the right, on their own time, to blog about their private lives without fear of losing their jobs? Probably not... It's the general rule that school employees can be disciplined for off-duty conduct if the school district can show that the conduct had an adverse impact on the school or the teacher's ability to teach.

The article ends with the comment:

There's an old lawyer's adage that goes something like this: Never put in writing anything that you don't want read in open court or by your mother. Maybe it's time for an updated adage: Never put in electronic form anything that you wouldn't want viewed by a million people, including your colleagues, students, and supervisors - and your mother.

I don't think that these Internet social networking sites have made life more dangerous, although it is more overwhelming packed with options and opportunities for catastrophically stupid choices. I think there are some really, really good things about these sites (I'll get to that with Thing 21). It's just that it was safer to screw up when your friends were folks in your neighborhood, and you knew their secrets as much as they knew yours. But all of you could leave your neighborhood to go elsewhere and start over, making all new mistakes with all new people.

Now, you misstep online and it could follow you everywhere and for always. That's a really big paradigm shift. I'm not sure the ape side of our brains is up to processing the full ramifications of that.

Thing 8 - Online sharing

The presentation sharing possibilities in Thing 8 look very promising. I did an early literacy presentation last month for expectant parents, and was frustrated with the pile of left-over handouts at the end. I can see uploading my presentation (I'm assuming that PowerPoint presentations can be uploaded into Zoho or the others...) and then just offering a few printed copies to those participants without easy Internet access.

Of course, this brings me back to that first blog and my concern about the gap between the haves and have nots with respect to online access. My partner is a high school science teacher, and yesterday she received the March issue of NEAtoday. The cover story is "Mind the Gap," about the "participation gap" between those kids who have access to online technology and those who do not.

"For more affluent kids, using technology is like using a pencil... After second or third grade, they no longer think about how to hold the pencil; it's become second nature.

But at-risk kids aren't able to use technology every day and haven't had exposure to it at home and have to play catch up to learn the technology as well as the lessons. When they're concentrating so much on the tool rather than the lesson, it costs them time and presents a steep learning curve."

Later in the article a teacher suggests that kids who feel more comfortable using computer and Internet technology are more likely to want to go to college. If they don't have an understanding of the technology, then college may feel doubly intimidating to them because they know the technology is out there and that they will have to learn both it and whatever subject matter they are interested in pursuing. When kids don't have computer and/or Internet access at home, they rely on their schools and libraries for that access.

What excites me about the 23 Things program is that I am learning about this stuff so that hopefully I can help some of those kids. The problem is that I don't see them very often. Most of the kids who come in to the library to use the Internet are coming in to access myspace and facebook, and they are already familiar enough with the tools to neither want nor need my help.

What makes the technology so exhilarating is the opportunity for spontaneous exploration and creativity. But I wonder how enticing the library computer will seem to someone when they know they can only have it for up to an hour and anyone else in the room can see their frustration when things don't work out properly the first seven times they try.

Thing 7 -- and that's it for the day.

I have successfully putzed away the better part of the day by looking at the Thing 7 tools. Now I'm supposed to take this information overload, sift, shuffle, collate, and bring forth something that sounds moderately intelligent? Ah, well, crazier things have happened.

Let's take it step by step.

E-mail. Where would we be without e-mail? It's brilliantly useful for communicating some things, but not nuance. I learned early on to never use an e-mail to communicate information that could be misinterpreted (of course, having learned this doesn't mean that I always remember). Person-to-person or phone will always be best for that.

And IM'ing, which I've done a few times, is even worse for losing contextual niceties. I would love to see GRRL offer some kind of IM reference. In that context, I think it's an amazingly good idea. However, I worry about branches being called upon to provide similar service. At our little branch we have only two staff people - myself and my very part time branch assistant - who answer patron questions. We're one of the slower branches in the system, but I still can't imagine doing any kind of competent job if I were asked to provide IM responses to patrons. First and foremost, we need to be getting out from behind our desk as often as possible. We need to be engaging the people who are in the library and finding out if they need reader's advisory suggestions, if they're finding what they need. We need to be building relationships and creating connections.

I did go onto the Google 23 Things group and post a reply to someone's comment about the 7th Thing. It was easy, but I don't know that I would be going back to check for new postings on that group if I was not knee-deep in the 23 Things project.

Text messaging... FWIW, and I readily admit that IANAE, but I find it obtuse, obscure and just plain ridiculous. IYKWIMAITYD (Lost? Try www.netlingo.com.) Are there ways that libraries could use it, such as holds and overdue notifications? Sure, that's a possibility, I suppose. But I really, really hate Text Messaging. IMHO.

Thing 2...point oh?

Okay, first off, let me announce my alliance with those who don't like the name Library 2.0. I DO, however, like some of the definitions I've read, about keeping libraries relevant, staying up on technology and giving our patrons and staff more "room" to communicate ideas. It's obvious, I think, for any library staff who see the public using our Internet computers that (especially) the younger generation is using technology to communicate, and that that in turn is opening up huge possibilities for how we can/should/could join the conversation or start one of our own.

However, I have to say that in the small town where I work (population under 1000) there are also quite a few rural/elderly/unemployed/poor folk who have not joined the online conversation and don't want to. What they want to know is why they can't apply for a job with a good, old fashioned piece of paper instead of a keyboard, why they have to create an email account just to get a brochure and why, ohwhyohwhy, that bloody mouse can't figure out if it wants to be clicked one time or two.

I can count on my work as a branch manager at a rural library to keep me enthused, entertained, and optimistic. It also keeps issues of the division between the haves and have-nots front and center. And this is not just my patrons that I'm talking about. We have one Internet station for public use. We have one computer for staff use. This is not enough on either point. My concerns do not go unheard -- I know that admin at GRRL recognized the need. But where will we find the funds? We're cutting thousands from our collection budget even as it looks like we may, in the not too distant future, have to re-purchase our video collection because the powers that be(and want to make more millions) have decided to go with Blu-Ray and let good ol' DVD become obsolete.

So yes, the possibilities are enormous. The ideas are exciting (I LOVE the idea of having a way for patrons to post their reviews of library materials on the catalog or elsewhere. How COOL would that be! And, wow, if I could find the time, how fun it would be to talk back to them). But I am worried about pursuing the new and the future so much that we become irrelevant on the other end.

Libraries can be the great equalizer, providing resources for those who have the least. At the same time, technology can make the world a bit schizophrenic when it is gets too much attention. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, West Africa from 1990 to 1993. I know there are cell phones and Internet cafe's there now (which blows my poor mind). I also know that while my life has become only more rich and blessed, many of my Togolese friends have died of malaria, malnutrition, inadequate health care or AIDS. I've looked at current PCV's blogs and You-Tube video essays and I realize that those cell phones and Internet stations haven't reduced the misery in Togo, only made it easier for the wealthy to ignore and the cynical to complain. I look at the economic situation in the US, the struggles of the working class and poor, and as much as I like new-fandango-gizmos (and yes, oh yes, I like them very much) I get itchy about how they call to us to follow them, put our hopes, energy and enthusiasm in their high-tech pockets. I get so very itchy.