Since my position at the library is new and the idea of a digital services is still emerging and the idea of a digital librarian is evolving, there are a lot of changes. I just finished writing my job description last week and already my title has changed. With all the tasks, responsibilities, and initiatives my position involves it’s been bumped up to manager level. Since no one actually reports to me, I get the title of Digital Services Coordinator. My responsibilities don’t actually change other than they seem to constantly be growing and developing. Today I worked with vendors to pay bills, schedule training sessions and promotions for next year. Work on the Library’s Facebook page, had two long meetings, talked with people in Public Relations, Children’s, IT, and Reference. This week I have one-on-one meeting with two different staff members to wrap up questions from Learning 2.0. Then I’ll be writing Library Learning 2.1 lessons. Plus 20 other things that will pop up that I haven’t thought of yet! I can’t wait! If you’re interested in minute by minute updates follow me over at Twitter. Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Share on FriendFeed Buzz it up Share
Social Tools
Flickr – the other side of social networking
This week has been a bizarre, if not ironic, clash of work and personal life. I love social networking sites, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr etc. In fact I teach my coworkers and patrons at the Library about them. I present to other Librarians about them and why they should do them. I spent a lot of my personal time on Flickr and blogs. I have a pro Flickr account, but a couple of weeks ago I made the choice to move a LOT of my pictures to private due to some weird comments and emails. Then Monday Robin points me towards this article about Library Flickr accounts and polices regarding them. I read it I think about my Library and our policy and how I will write it the policy, becuase that’s my job. I think about what I’ll do if someone “favorites’ a picture of child and when I look at their pictures or profile it seems inappropriate to me. How will I write a policy that address freedom of speech and expressions and interests of the individuals and at the same time protects the children and patrons of my Library. I’ve been roughing this all out in my head
Social Tools for Your Library
Today I attended one of the pre-conference workshops Social Tools for Your Library by Aaron Schmidt. He covered a lot of tools many of which I’m already familiar with and we’re already using or have plans in the works to use (Myspace, Flickr, Youtube, RSS Feedreaders, Blogs). Either way it’s always good to review old topics and see them in a new light, become rejuvenated about them, and see how others are using them, plus some things we’re not using. There was plenty of food for thought and I walked away with 4 pages of notes. Some things that really stood out (these are a combination of his points and my thoughts about them) Digital Relevance Google is for profit, Libraries are not How many barriers are we putting between us and our patrons? What message do our signs send? – NO CELL PHONES – bad, Step into the Zone, the Cell Phone Zone is in the lobby and stairwells, Please be courteous of others, turn cell phone ringers down or off and conduct conversations in a low tone – good If 90% of MP3 player users have an iPod, why do we even bother with Downloadable Audio? Why are
We are del.icio.us!
With a “to do” list a mile long I feel as though I’ll never get anything finished. Technically this isn’t finished either as it’s meant to be a living page and it’s well on it’s way. My library is using our del.icio.us account to create our Weblinks page for our patrons. Robin set up the page using dishy and I’ve been busy adding links left and right. This is so much easier than maintaining a classic weblinks page, the Reference staff only has to know how to use del.icio.us and agree on a taxonomy for tags. No need to know html or use page editing software, which makes our website designer happy too. No creating each link manually or worry about ordering and descriptions. All I have to do it find the webpage, tag it with del.icio.us, assign my tags, add any descriptors I feel are necessary and voila it’s on our page. It’s just as easy to delete or update links too. As I’ve been browsing other Library’s Weblinks page for links to include on ours, I was surprised to see no one else using this method. I’m sure they are out there, I just haven’t found one yet.
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