Monthly Archives: December 2008

Looking back – the year in review

December 22, 2008
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Looking back – the year in review

The year isn’t even over and I’m already looking forward into 2009, as far forward as April!  I thought before I get too caught up in what’s to come, I should take a look back at 2008.  This list is more for me than you, sometimes I get so busy I forget what I’ve been up to, so I’m picking one major event from each month to remind myself of all that has happened in 2008 January – Library Learning 2.1 kicked off February – cohosted a two day Web 2.0 workshop for the state library March – attended Kansas Library Camp April – Presented at a conference in England May – the laptops from my grant arrived enabling the library to offer new patron and staff training, starting me on a 6 months journey of patron training June – presented at Mobius (state consortium) July – I successfully start my first library meme – A Day in the Life of a Library …. takes off! August – cohosted a 4 day workshop on Web 2.0 September – I brought this idea back from a vacation in Denver, we’ll be using it during our National Library Week celebrations in April

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What DO you wish your patrons knew?

December 12, 2008
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What DO you wish your patrons knew?

I copied this post from The MLXperience to ask you – What DO you wish your patrons knew? Seattle Books Examiner’s Danielle Dreger-Babbitt took an informal poll of librarians in Boston, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York City, and Portland about what they wish library patrons knew or did. Here’s the shortlist: 1. Use us! 2. We support Intellectual Freedom 3. Be respectful of our library patrons 4. Pay your fines 5. Return your items on time 6. Tell us what you like 7. If possible, check out all materials at once from the circulation desk 8. Please listen to us the first (or even second) time we say something 9. Practice good hygiene 10. Let your librarian know what materials you’d like to see on the shelf 11. The library has almost as many DVD’s as your local video store 12. Hang up your cell phone when you come to the reference desk (or circulation desk) 13. Please be patient with us 14. We like it when you thank us 15. Please respect the desk barrier 16. Come to our programs! 17. Do not leave your child (or children) unattended- for their safety 18. Ask us what we read 19.

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Using Stories

December 9, 2008
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Using Stories

Last week I attended a WebJunction townhall meeting on Tough Economic Times.  I got some good info from it (there are two more coming up if you’re interested). Someone in the meeting said we need to appeal to people’s emotions. It made me start thinking how we can connect with patrons emotionally to demonstrate our worth to the community.  Showing them numbers isn’t enough, we need to connect with them on a personal level.  Today I saw this slideshow from Nancy Dowd.  She participated in the Pecha Kucha at Internet Librarian and she showed us a video of the type of stories she is teaching Librarians in New Jersey to create.  It was a slideshow of still photos with a voice over,  and it was  it was very moving and effective. It was a great example of how we can demonstrate our worth by tell the stories of real people and how the library has touched their lives. Using Stories to Market Your Library View more presentations from Nancy Dowd. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post

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What 5 blogs do you think are MUST read?

December 8, 2008
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What 5 blogs do you think are MUST read?

Here is the deal, my RSS reader, its overwhelmed, I have waaaayyy too many blogs in it.  I’ve tried weeding (something I’m known for being good at around the library) and I’m still not down far enough.  I think I have a new plan. I’m going to unsubscribe to everything.  If its good and worthwhile it will find its way back right? So if you were going to recommend 5 blogs to someone starting a new reader account what would they be? Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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T is for Training

December 5, 2008
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T is for Training

I am way overdue on this post.  Several months back my friend Maurice recognized the absence of a specific forum for library staff to discuss and share information about training, so he created the T is for Training podcast.  Every other Friday a group people get together (virtually) to share tips and tricks and discuss training related issues.  If you’d like to call in or join the chat session you can find information here.  If you’d like to listen to the podcast you can find it here. This week, among other things, we’ll be discussing Roy Tennant’s Top Ten Techie Traits post. Other Library related podcasts: Future Tense Library 2.0 Gang PALINET Podcasts Quirks and Quarks Tech Therapy Podcast Ted Talks Uncontrolled Vocabulary Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Tell a friend

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photo by Beth Tribe

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