The Fiona Principle

Lunch – wraps, sandwiches, fruit, pepsi max.

Web 2.0 (Michelle McLean – CaseyCardinia)

Michelle ran through various web 2.o tools & which libraries were using them. CoBLS is using all of them except 2(?).  One we’re supposed to be using (& I’m supposed to be doing it -ooops); the other we should be using (imho) and when i get back to work I’ll be having a look at it in more depth.

my learnings

must back up blogs (blogbackup, backuputility)

google analytics on blogs

set up searches for mentions of CoBLS (netvibes)

addictomatic

using delicious @ info desks

What does your library need and for what purpose.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and to pull the plug if it doesn’t work.

Darebin Library Website

The scheduled speaker had pulled out so the web designer from darebin stepped in and spoke about creating the Darebin Library website. He spoke about accessibility, no flash etc., uncluttered design, easy to update, easy to navigate.

Yarra Plenty – Bibliocommons

(Also replacing the scheduled speaker) Fiona from YPRL spoke about their new library system (bibliocommons) which they will be launching next year.

Afternoon tea

yummy cakes plus tea, coffee, water

Final session.

Pam Saunders (Gen X library user)

Belongs to many different library services, talked about what she expected/wanted from a library in terms of customer service, website, e-newsletter etc.)

Elwyn Murray (Gen Y)

Graphic Design student. Spoke about how he and a some fellow artists got a grant and produced a book of their art. Spoke about using social media (mainly fb) to promote the launch.

Was asked why a book (given the amount of time he spends online etc.) His response – they could have used the money to fund a high end website and asked people to donate but they felt that if people are paying money they want something tangible (like a book) in return.

Although Elwyn didn’t talk about libraries as such I found his talk to be really interesting because of the way he & his fellow artists had gone about producing their work, and the methods they used to promote and launch it.

Marketing Awards presentation

CaseyCardinia – for their Quicksand (teen) blog.

Eastern Regional – for their program (in partnership with Borders) which enables library patrons to purchase books for the library from Borders (20% discount).

The End.

An interesting & thought provoking day. I have added several things to my ‘must think about when I get back from holidays’ list.

After a scrumptious morning tea (danish pastries, scones n jam n cream, tea coffee, orange juice, pineapple juice) we headed back into the conference room for the continuation of the morning session.

E-newsletters (Matthew Van Hasselt -SLV)

The newsletter needs to grab the reader in the first few seconds or else the impact is lost as people won’t read on.

Mentioned some e-newsletter software:

mailout (what slv uses), mailchimp (CoBLS uses), iContact, vertical response.

Some egs of good e-newsletters. upcoming.org, awg.com.au, empireonline.co.uk

Decide what you want your newsletter to say (and why you have a newsletter)

Viral Marketing

Leith from Frankston Library stepped in to do this presentation after the scheduled presenter pulled out.

She showed Frankston’s coffee video (on youtube) as well as a couple of other youtube vids that American libraries have made to promote their services.

The CoBLS posse was inspired to suggest to Bookboy a possible teen activity…

Accessible online places for your events

Hobsons Bay use Eventbrite (as do CoBLS) – I was impressed by the way they sort of got round the ‘they pay you pay’ aspect of it.

Suggested other sites to promote events.

Big Diary (abc)

pleased.net.au

Leader newspapers

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the Libmark Digital Marketing Seminar (thank you CoBLS) @ William Angliss Conference Centre.

First speaker up was Darren Sharp from Collabforge on Social Media, Marketing & Public Libraries.

- What are you trying to achieve (website, blog, twitter etc.)

- it’s about discussion, debate, feedback

- common purpose, group forming networks, self organised

- reputation/trust (build them)

- how can we leverage new forms of value to engage?

- enable crowdsourcing

Interesting presentation. Great stat showing that gen z are less active in social networking than gen y & baby boomers.

ETA: 35-44 yr olds represent the largest demographic online at 2.3 million. Even the 45-55 age group outnumbers the 18 -24 year olds. (from Darren’s presentation. Click here to view the presentation.

P.S. If you look at slide 17  -  I’m the main contributor to 3 of the 6, & minor contributor to 2 of the 6. Feeling quite proud of myself! (& shallow!)

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Second speaker up was Matthew Hunter from Thorpe-Bowker talking about aquabrowser for libraries, librarything for libraries, & Booksinprint 2.0.

Aquabrowser looks like fun – though in one of the examples – chick lit was paired with alzheimers (scary thought), in another – cyberpunk & baroque.

I really liked the layout of aquabrowser (tho’ it may be the way auckland uses it).

It used the third of a screen approach. One third of the screen displayed the search term as a tag cloud.

The search term features in the middle of the tag cloud with related terms radiating out of it.

In a different colour are alternate spellings (something that library catalogues have needed for ages).

In the central third is the ’standard’ search results display.

The other third contains search refinement options (format etc.)

__

Librarything for libraries – people are having fun with it, it’s a useful addition to the catalogue.

__

Globalbooksinprint soon to be rebranded as Books in Print 2.0.

Like a lot of people I have a wireless network setup at home that allows me to access the web from any room in the house.

Recent events forced me to think about the gadgets I own (or that have visited me) which can take advantage of the network.

Laptop

netbook

smartphone

dumbphone

ipod

nintendo dsi

ebook reader

other games consoles

There’s bound to be lots of other stuff as well (that I haven’t thought of) that could also access the network.

Unfortunately, as yet, the toaster & coffee maker do not have wireless access.

How can you access the web at home?

50 Excellent Open Courses for Techie Librarians

Innovate pointed me at this list of free online courses for techie librarians. Mayhaps this is what i need to spark my interest.

There’s courses on open source, engagement, technology, information & research, copyright (american so probably not that useful).

I’m interested in open source so will definitely follow up on those offerings.

And some of the others look interesting as well.

Marketing, for example, is one of my current soapbox topics. Recent events have me keen to learn more about how we could, and should, market library events.

I did marketing as part of my MBA subjects and got enthused, then lost interest, and now am enthused again.

It looks like most, if not all, the courses are from U.S colleges but still I should, hopefully, be able to pick up some tips for work.

PC Mag has released its top 100 websites  for 2009 list.

For me the main drawback of the list is that there are quite a few american centric sites listed (It’s a US mag so I know that’s fair enough).

Of the internationally flavoured ones – I use, have used, or have tried, a lot of them.

A couple caught my eye as being worthy of further investigation.

gdgt ( a new gadget site by the engadget guys)

aviary (a competitor for one of my most used sites – picnik)

Will report back when I’ve played with them.

July 27 was the 2nd annual Library day in the life so – what the heck – here’s how I spent my work day.

I work in a Public Library in Melbourne.

I should point out that it wasn’t a typical Monday for me.

For the past five weeks I’ve been Acting Team Leader at my branch but today my boss came back to work so I went from being ‘empress of all I survey’ to Collection Maintenance & Adult Services Librarian. (my usual job).

So I rocked in to work at 9.15, coffee in hand, to look at the disaster that is my desk area.

It’s not usually this bad but there is a computer in a box sitting on the floor behind my chair. It was put there cos the Civ guy reckoned he’d be back in 2 days to set it up. That was 7 weeks ago. (pssst anyone want to buy a pc!)

Signed in, checked the roster for changes as I walked past, logged onto my pc, checked my pigeonhole for notes from the weekend, collected my reservations; then it was 9.30 and the call for ‘all hands on deck’ to help with the van run, reservations and getting the library ready for 10 o’clock opening.

9.45- 11. Read and replied to emails, updated my to do list, renewed my loans, started working my way through the requests module.

11 – 12.15. Briefed boss on what had happened while she was away.  This included showing her my plans for world domination (aka new shelving, new partial workroom layout).

12.15 – 12.30 added things to my to do list.

After lunch I headed out on the Info desk (I was splitting the shift with another librarian). In a (rare) quiet moment I wanded the newly processed reservations through returns and sent them on their merry way to the requested pickup locations.

Then it was back to my desk and back to the requests. As patrons can request items themselves the details for each request have to be rechecked (if indeed there any details other than  author title there at all)

Worked on the requests until 2.30 when I switched my attention to XML. I know some XML (from a previously pondered career change into the help desk area) so I was looking at what we  needed to do to install a gadget/widget/doohickey on our web page.

Couldn’t test the doohickey at work so will need to try it out when I get home.

3.30 -  3.45 Afternoon tea – found a freddo frog in my desk drawer – bonus

3.45 – 4.15  Wrote a list of the technology that I need to beg, borrow, or steal, for the technology petting zoo I’m running in September.

4.15 – 5.15  Checked where I was at with ongoing projects.  Created a survey for web 2.0 project. Followed up on possible author visit for November.  Did some  more work on the Personal Finance booklist I’m updating. Tried to think of something interesting to blog about for the library blog (epic fail there may I say).

5.15 – 5.45  Read and replied to emails, updated my to do list, checked my diary for tomorrow, tidied my desk (as much as was possible).

5.45  Log off PC, get bag, sign off, head out the door (and decide in a moment of complete insanity to walk  all the way home)

Eventually arrive home. Doohickey installation doesn’t work. Swear and give up for the evening.

Tomorrow is another day.

So after the disappointment of not getting the job I asked the panel chair for feedback on my interview performance.

She was very complimentary -said I did nothing wrong – it was just that there were 2 applicants better qualified than me.

She also suggested one area to work on (project management).

So now what?

Do I do some more project mgt courses to prepare for a job that I didn’t get and that may never come up again?

Do I look at getting another qualification or finishing my MBA?

Do I give up?

Well definitely not the third – I still believe that in the right job I can be an extremely useful contributor and performer.

I just have to work out some way of getting that ‘right’ job.

So I applied for a job.  Almost the perfect job. (Would possibly have been perfect had ‘must have initials FMM‘ been added to the mandatory selection criteria).

I didn’t get the job. Bummer.

Here’s how it unfolded.

Got invited for interview. Got sent pre-interview paperwork. Filled in pre-interview paperwork.

Turned up ridiculously early for interview – loitered in hospital foyer until reasonably early time approached.  Must have looked like I belonged there as several people approached me for information and directions and I was able to help them all.

Apparently my charcoal interview suit with red power shirt looks remarkably similar to the red polar fleece vests worn bythe volunteers ! (yes I mentioned this at interview – the helpfulness not the interview outfit – the panel could see I as wearing charcoal and red)

Was given the list of questions that would be asked at interview (what a brilliant idea – love it, love it, love it)

Had an interview that went for an hour and a half. Loved every minute of it. Didn’t seem like an hour and a half.

Walked out feeling really good about myself and the interview.

Saw a large German Shepherd named Rocky in the ladies toilets. Woman  accompanying  Rocky  tells me he’s lovely with the patients.

Not sure about Rocky’s ‘loveliness’ so decide not to take him to task for being in the ladies  toilet when he’s a boy dog (and older than 6).

Went back to work feeling good.

Found out a couple of weeks later that  I didn’t get the job – so where to from here?

MinutesPlease is a website that allows you to place limits on the amount of time you spend on a particular website.

For example if you want to cap your facebooking to 10 minutes – then go to the minutesplease website and enter the facebook address and 10 minutes.

With one minute to go you’ll get a warning popup that you have 1 minute left and when your time is up you’re taken back to the minutesplease page (so you could go straight back to fb for another 10 minutes)

You can also drag a 10 minute button to your toolbar, or use an ‘all-in-one’ type url too (rather than going to minutesplease and then entering facebook address and time)  such as: minutesplease.com/15m/facebook.com which sets your facebook limit to 15 minutes.

I reckon if you’re prone to ’stuffing around’ on a site this would be a very useful little tool.