21st Century Library Ideas

I attended a Webjunction webinar today that discussed Ideas for the 21st Century Library. It was presented by Kim Bolan Cullin and Rob Cullin. Here are some bullet points of their presentation, which focused on library space and library services.

Space:

• What are you currently putting money into that you shouldn't be?
• what can 'go' so you can make room for new; ie fewer and smaller physical collections
• create a space where people want to be
• move toward a mixed use facility and away from the more 'traditional' library
• no more computer training labs
• move away from computer pods where people use the internet and check out laptops instead
• self service and lots of signage so library users can navigate on their own
• no library jargon

Service:

• no more big service desks
• small service kiosks that are non-cluttered and mobile
• eliminate barriers between you and the library user
• provide drive-up service
• provide vending-type branches where you can select a book from a book vending machine
• provide uncommon collections for borrowing like hand and power tools, cake pans, jello molds, portable electricity meters, fishing equipment
• provide space for digital creativity where the library provides the tools for users to create their own audio and video projects
• don't restrict cell phone use; embrace the technology by creating mobile websites

One of the statements made during the presentation that really rings true is:

"when you walk in the library - everyone's a librarian"

Library Snapshot Day at the SD State Library

The South Dakota State Library is celebrating Library Snapshot Day on Thursday, November 4th. The week of October 31st to November 6th has been set aside for libraries in SD to gather information about what they do all day. The information gathered will be used to demonstrate the importance of libraries in South Dakota communities, school districts, and higher education.

SDSL will be hosting light snacks and coffee in the main lobby that day, and staff invites all SD state employees and Pierre citizens to stop up between 10-4. While you enjoy your refreshements, you can:

• meet your librarians
• take a tour
• get a library card
• learn more about the services available to you at your State Library

Join us on Thursday, November 4th!

Library Snapshot Day is an initiative promoted by the American Library Association and the South Dakota State Library for ALL types of libraries. Using Library Snapshot Day, we want to demonstrate the impact that each library has, on a local and statewide level.

SDLA 2010

I'm about to leave for the 2010 South Dakota Library Association conference, where I, along with a co-worker, will be doing a presentation on setting up library policies and procedures. In addition, we will be facilitating a panel discussion on building library websites. It will be a great conference this year with the Unshelved Guys www.unshelved.com, the Awful Library Books bloggers http://awfullibrarybooks.net, and Vicki Myron, author of Dewey www.deweyreadmorebooks.com.

Reference Renaissance 2010

Reference Renaissance 2010: Inventing the Future was held August 8-10 at the Denver Marriott Tech Center.

By attending RefRen 2010, I hoped to hear great speakers on an international level, and get ideas on the future of library reference work. After the first day, I was ready to implement some of what I’d learned. Keynote speaker Andrew Walsh from the UK started the conference with a prediction that the smartphone will be what the future will build around and that desktops, laptops, and handheld computers will be used less and less in favor of the smartphone. He also talked about QR Codes and how these are becoming more used as technology advances. Walsh encouraged librarians to change their signs at the door: toss the sign that basically says ‘no cell phone use’ and replace it with a sign that says ‘cell phone use allowed; please turn sound to silent’.

I learned a lot about web based reference statistics, LibGuides, library services and generational research. Did you know that those born between 1988-1994 (the youngest of the millenials) are also being referred to as the 'screenagers'? Marie L. Radford surmises that the future of reference work will include a lot of merging services, work shifting, outreach, and working from places that are not your traditional library setting. It won't be so much "go to your library", but "go to your librarian" and your librarian could be 'virtually' anywhere.

There were 318 attendees from 39 states, as well as many from Canada. Attending a national conference is so important for obtaining ideas and making contacts that one cannot do at a state conference. Reference Renaissance was a wonderful opportunity to do just that, and was worth paying my own way and taking the time to go. I am hopeful that the conference will continue to exist as BCR (the major sponsor) is closing operations. The organizers are looking for a new host, and I hope they find one, as I will plan to attend the next RefRen conference and will highly recommend it to other librarians in South Dakota.

The value of one on one training

Training is imperative in almost any professsion, and finding a venue for learning in which everyone can benefit is sometimes the biggest challenge. Training opportunities exist via many different avenues: webinars, conferences, large or small group hands-on, large or small group lecture style, or one on one. Although one benefits regardless of the type of training by gaining information that they did not have previously, I always appreciate the added value of one on one training.

A colleague and I just returned from such an opportunity and it was great! Being able to sit with one or two others, watch someone go through the material, and be able to ask questions whenever one popped into our heads was a great way for us to gain knowledge. As one librarian pointed out, it is harder to ask questions in a larger group setting for fear that everyone else in the room knows the answer except for you. Even though there is no such thing as a dumb question, it is much easier to ask those questions when there are fewer ears and eyes in the room.

We are happy to have had the opportunity to travel to Brookings, visit with the SDSU librarians, tour the university library, and tour the public library as well. It was time well spent!

This book is overdue!

I recently started reading This book is overdue: how librarians and cybrarians can save us all by Marilyn Johnson. Being in SD, I particularly enjoyed the description of the Deadwood PL at the beginning. It is also nice to know that library consortiums in other states have had nightmare experiences when migrating to a new system. I've only just finished chapter 3, but I can tell this book will be worth my wait in the hold queue.

Wrap-Up

Great wrap-up, ERC's! Way to highlight all of the extra goodies on the SDSL website. Librarians don't need to create handouts, etc, because you guys have done it all for them!

I would have to say my biggest discovery were the resources that I have not used before (ArchiveGrid and CAMIO) and also being able to get a little more practice with the Gale Virtual Reference Library. I think sometimes patrons get so overwhelmed with the number of databases out there that it's hard to remember what there is to search. If I can't find it here, then I can always try there. I can only imagine the number of databases large academic librarians have to keep track of. I think the SDSL offers a good number of databases covering a nice variety of areas.

I've already had a chance to plug Learning Express Library to a patron, and am planning on plugging the rest of the databases covered in the challenge and more when I visit the Capital University Center classes this fall. When I give an overall presentation to state agency employees, I include a large variety of our databases to highlight. Even though state employees may not necessarily use World Book or Learning Express in their daily jobs, I can usually catch their interest when I ask if they've got kids in grade school, high school, or college. There really is something for everyone.

Ancestry etc.

1. I found myself via my maiden name in the U.S. Phone and Address Directories, but I do not exist in the census records via maiden or married names.

2. Found my paternal grandfather in the death index and right underneath that was the record of my grandparents marriage, so that was cool. I made a copy for my dad.

3. Lots of neat digitized images of people, places, and pages from books that mention South Dakota

4. It took a while of playing around, but I finally got some interesting hits when I did a search for Fort Pierre in the places section. Doane Robinson's encyclopedia of South Dakota as well as his A brief history of South Dakota are both full text in Heritage Quest.

5. I am starting to recognize some of the old buildings in Pierre, but probably not enough to pinpoint what they are now to what they were back in 1884. On one of the 1927 Pierre maps, the HWY 14/34 bridge that now crosses the river next to the railroad bridge was called the Wagaon Bridge. It is interesting to see how cities grow over the years by starting with the first year available and then checking the last year available. When I worked at RC Public Library, we had a lot of people come in to look at the Deadwood Sanborn maps as they were researching historic preservation areas and the old Chinese laundry buildings.

Learning Express Library

This database is one I've used a lot and I think it is one of the most amazing resources around. People are always floored to hear of the variety of tests, learning activities, and skill building Learning Express offers. I actually had a few tests already set up for myself, as I was using them for training purposes. As I was continuing one of the math tests I started a while back for this activity, I was thinking how useful this database would also be for those who just want to give their brains some exercise. The push is to keep brains active to fight off alzheimers, so this would be a great resource. I play Brain Games on the Nintendo DS at home to keep from becoming a slug, but LEX tests would work for that too. It is nice that the results give one not just the correct answer, but also an explanation or detailed diagram of how the correct answer was calculated.

Ebooks - Back in one of those "what do I want to do with my life" times, I thought about doing a major career switch and going into real estate. I still think it would have been fun for a variety of reasons. The info in Learning Express ebooks would have been useful to me at that time. Books with info on why choose a real estate career, do you have what it takes, educational preparation required, how much it would cost someone starting out etc are very valuable to someone looking into this field. Read the books in the ebook section, then practice the exams in the jobs and careers section, and you'll get a really good idea if real estate is a career option.

ArchiveGrid & CAMIO

I have not had a chance to play with either of these resources, so this challenge has definitely paid off. What a neat resource ArchiveGrid is. Although the majority of the items found in it I'm sure are not available for ILL, just the knowledge that they exist will be a boon for the genealogy folks. A number of genealogists are retired and plan their travels around searching for family history, so having a resource like ArchiveGrid will assist them in planning those research vacations. The summary on Sitting Bull hits the high points. I've actually read quite a few books on Native Americans and SD history, so the info was not new to me.

Out of curiosity, I typed in Verendrye, then Verendrye National, and Verendrye Plate to see if the Cultural Heritage Center would show up in any of the results. Alas, not so. However, I did learn that ND and Fort Pierre both claim a Verendrye National Monument. The State Historical Society of ND lists a Pierre la Verendrye in their record information, while the City of Fort Pierre lists the names Chevalier and Louis la Verendrye as the brothers who buried the plate. Different explorers from the same family? Good stuff! I'll have to go visit the Heritage Center now and look at the plate.


CAMIO: This would be a great resource to push to educators for student projects. Who knew Paul Revere made things like tea urns and sugar bowls? I certainly did not! It is things like this that would put a research paper or project over the top as far as information and effort. When I present to CUC English classes this fall, I am going to use this.

More than paintings, I enjoy looking at the Sioux items like beaded dresses, pipe bags, bowls etc. Amazing how resourceful these people were using every part of the buffalo that they harvested. Unfortunately, I'm not very artsy, so I don't have a favorite artist. I do, however, have a wonderful painting of Mt. Rushmore done by Del Iron Cloud. Del incorporates a lot of Native American icons like wolves, buffalo, dream catchers etc into his paintings, but you have to look closely at the painting to find them. CAMIO did not have any results for Del.

For #5 exercise, I did a search using just Arizona. I love art from the southwest, and found some great images of pottery and kachina dolls. If I were a student doing a report, picking a few of these, adding them to favorites, and creating a slideshow would add so much to the presentation. The images are very vivid and one can see the cracks in some of the pottery. Further, you've got the information as to when the item was created and some history of the creators and their culture. Neat resource.

WorldCat

Exercise #1: Title The great eight

• three records found
• libraries worldwide that own #1 - 621
• top library - Mitchell Public Library (SD) - I like that WC puts regional libraries that own titles at the top of the list. Makes ILL much easier.
• call number - LC: BF575.H27 Dewey: 158 or 796.912092

The record contains a plethora of info that is useful to a cataloger. In addition to call number, there is OCLC (accession) and ISBN numbers, contents, description, year of publication or copyright, full title, author, publisher, and more. I noticed that some terms are used differently. For example, back when I started cataloging, an accession number was the number one physically stamped in the book for library records. Thank goodness most libraries have done away with this practice! In the record, accession number refers to the OCLC number. Also, I found the call number choices interesting. My first thought when I picked up the book (which I am currently reading) is that it is more biographical. Then again, it could also go into the sports section as a memoir of an ice skating legend. The book does deal with psychological issues, but that would probably be my last choice. That's the beauty of an online catalog. You can see where other libraries put a book, and use that info when you catalog it for your library.

Exercise #2: OAIster

WorldCat has a lot of neat stuff. The hardest part for me would be to remember all of the databases that can be used and to actually go in and use them! I liked the idea that the OAIster database includes things that might be considered out of the ordinary such as theses, research papers and image collections. More resources to make research and writing easier and more widespread than just getting a book from the library, as I used to do.

NetLibrary

Discovery exercise #1. I was pleasantly surprised at how many full-text titles (581) NetLibrary carries on a South Dakota history search. I redid my search using quotations around my keywords and that did limit my hits to 42, but still a good number of full-text offerings! A lot of the titles are actually referenced in the South Dakota history magazine, but still relevant to my search.

Exercise #2. I think one of the very best things about NetLibrary is the fact that one can view the entire contents of the book, just as if you were picking it up off the shelf and viewing the table of contents. This is very useful for anyone working on a research project for a class. Even better is that you can search the eContent, eliminating the 'old way' of trying to figure out which chapter might include the info you need, then having to skim the entire chapter. So, for this exercise, I looked at the table of contents of my book choices and liked the subject matter from The ultimate New York body plan. I also like the fact that the author states he's not big into encouraging people to go under the knife to make themselves look better. Work with what God gave you.

Exercise #3. I got 83 hits with my Oklahoma publisher search. Number 41 was The Rapid City Indian school, 1898-1933. Might be worth a glance. Out of curiosity, I went back and added western as a keyword, which narrowed things down to 10. I'm not a person to read an entire book online. In fact, some of the titles I ran across in these exercises prompted me to find the physical book to check out. However, for research, quick info, and for those who do like to read entire books online, NetLibrary is the ticket.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Book title: WWII reference library

Search for: atomic bomb, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki


I'm thinking I assume too much, because I just figured that there would be a chapter or section that talked solely about the atomic bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I checked the first two volumes with no luck, then the primary sources. I finally had to utilize the cumulative index to pinpoint where I could find info on this topic. I then backtracked to the main article in the second volume called "The defeat of Japan", then "The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki". A little cumbersome, but good experience to figure out how to get to the information, and a great resource for history projects.

I actually decided to use the zinc exercise for part 2 because my gut reaction to finding the answer to this was to go right to the medicine section and choose the Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine. When that did not pan out, I backed up to the basic search, tried 'foods with zinc', and still did not get results I wanted. So, I went with 'zinc' and the first artice from the Gale Encyclopedia of Nursing and Allied Health (which would not have been one I chose to search in) provided the information to answer this question and make me feel slightly guilty that I don't eat more meat. However, I do try to eat yogurt every day, so hopefully that will balance things out. The ReadSpeaker was very pleasant and conversational, not choppy and robotic like I've heard some other read features.

Kudos to SD DOT

I took a quick little trip to Denver over the past week. The trip on the way to and from Rapid City was less than enjoyable with icy roads, frost, slush, snow and whatever else mother nature could throw out there to slow traffic to 40 on I-90. However, I am proud to say that the SD Department of Transportation crews (most likely Murdo, Kadoka, and Wall) were out in full force and helped alleviate the stress a little.

Good job guys and gals! It's been a tough winter on all of the highway workers in SD, and as the daughter of a 39 year (now retired) DOT veteran, I remember many Christmas mornings when presents had to wait until Dad finished plowing the roads so everyone else could arrive safely at Grandma's house.

Check out the latest DOT newsletter for some photos of the roads they have encountered this winter.
http://www.sddot.com/docs/newsletters/newsletter_0210.pdf

ProQuest

I need a new carpet shampooer, and knowing that ProQuest indexes Consumer Reports, I figured this would be an exercise where I could accomplish two things at once. My initial search for carpet shampooer only yielded one hit, so I backed up and tried carpet cleaner, which got 90. I like the suggested topics when you do a search. If I'd not been able to get many hits from the terms I was using, clicking on one of the suggested topics would have helped.

I found that carpet cleaners means a lot of different things, from the actual guy/gal who comes in to clean, to the spray/foam products to clean stains, to the actual shampooer, which is my topic of interest. It looks like the article that will be of most use to me is not full text. However, my library does subscribe to this magazine, so it will be easy for me to retrieve the article and read it.

I did a keyword search for publications with library in the title and got a list of 23. All but three appear to be full text. Using references from professional journals is always helpful when we go out to do trainings. I've used examples of what is happening in other libraries (citations and articles obtained from ProQuest and Ebsco) when doing a policies/procedures training session. It is good for training attendees to see how policies/procedures are adapted depending on the size of a library and population served, and real life examples can be obtained from professional journals in these databases.

SIRS Discoverer/Issues Researcher

Happy Birthday to Dr. Seuss today!

SIRS Discoverer:
Scott Hamilton has always been my favorite Olympic athlete. From the moment I watched him win gold at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, I've admired him. Reading his biography on Discoverer just emphasized to me what a great athlete and person he is and the trials he has faced in becoming such an exceptional person. There were no photos or activities associated with Scott, so I did another search for Apolo Ohno. I spelled his first name wrong but last name correctly. Interestingly, Discoverer did not pick up on that and I got a "no results" message. I tried adding his middle name Anton and still no results. I finally Googled his name, discovered my error in spelling of his first name, went back to Discoverer and put it in correctly, then finally got results. That part seemed a little cumbersome. Maybe Discoverer will add a "did you mean..." like Google at some point. Anyway, I did not find a lot of biographical information about him, but there were plenty of headlines as well as some photos.

Since Chile and Haiti have been in earthquake news lately, I chose them for the second exercise here. I loved the country facts organizers for different age levels and that Discoverer gives lots of basic info about each country including maps and flags; just the kind of stuff the K-9 age group would need when writing a report about that country.

SIRS Researcher:
I chose bullying as my subject of interest for Researcher. I was impressed with the research tools section: timeline, global impact statistics, etc. I found the timeline to be especially sobering on this topic. Clicking on the topic overview link takes a user to a page that carries a lot of useful information as well, so clicking around and exploring all of the different links is important when using any database.

Having not used the curriculum pathfinders before, I found this to be a really neat tool. The stuff students have now, compared to when I was in grade and high school, is just mind boggling. Under the math heading, I noticed math careers. I chose to look closer at that because I was a math major in college. At the time I got my degree, I figured the only thing I could do with a math major was teach. Then I discovered that I really didn't like teaching middle and high school. That's another story, but if there had been more resources readily available like we now have online and in databases, I may have been more ambitious about researching what else I could do with a math major. These resources are great for grade and high school students, and even college age.

World Book

World Book has definitely evolved from the book version I knew as a kid. I've always enjoyed encyclopedias, but the online versions nowadays are so much more interactive with activities, games, videos, etc. There is actually quite a bit of difference between WB Kids and WB School edition. I searched for 'bear'. WB Kids gave me about four paragraphs of text, a few pics, some additional website referrals, and citiation info. WB Student, on the other hand, provided a lot more information, broken down into topic areas of a bear's life, bear's bodies, and the different kinds of bears.

WB Advanced Exercise: I think the type of info that is most valuable to a patron depends on what their purpose is for using the info. I picked England as my country to learn more about. If I were planning on vacationing there, I would be looking at information such as climate during certain times of the year, maps, facts in brief, food and drink, history, the Tower Bridge, Cliffs at Dover, etc. If I were planning on a job relocation to England, then I would be more interested in history, the people, the way of life, economy, education, religion and government structure. Anything in WB Advanced would be perfect for reports, no matter what age!

New Challenge

I'm signing up for the latest learning opportunity offered by the SD State Library, the Electronic Resources Edition Challenge http://sdlibrarychallenge.blogspot.com. I am planning to learn a lot more about the electronic resources so that I can use the information in my job as well as my own training sessions.

There comes a time...

Well, yes, there comes a time (or maybe an age) where one does some reflecting. I've been in that mood lately. Where would I be if I'd stayed...what would have happened if I'd done this instead of that...where would I be if I'd had the guts to...and if one doesn't like where they are now, what does one do to change it?

A great book that I read recently that seems to deal with the same type of issues is Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and her daughter Ann Kidd Taylor. Both authors face roadblocks at different ages, and in alternating chapters, write about their struggles and their thoughts. It was a really fast read for me, and I really enjoyed it. It also spoke to me about the power of journaling, which I need to get back to doing on a regular basis.

Reference Question of the Day

Fun and timely as we in the midwest want to maximize the warm air flowing throughout our houses: which way is a ceiling fan supposed to spin during the winter?

I love these types of ref questions. You know the answer is out there and it is a matter of who can find it first. BTW...all of the sources we found said clockwise.