Fallibility in a print source

As a librarian and teacher, I’m always looking for examples to point out that just because it’s printed (or on the Internet) doesn’t make it so. I found a wonderful example tonight of something really wrong on the pre-printed part of our family kitchen calendar — the Norman Rockwell version we got from our dog kennel last Christmas.

In the block that says November 26th, the calendar printer put “Advent.” Now, any good Lutheran (of which I have been said to be) knows that Advent begins 4 Sundays before Christmas, which is Monday, December 25th. So Christmas Eve, which falls on Sunday, December 24th, is the 4th Advent Sunday.

Guess I’ll save this calendar to use in research classes to illustrate that it’s always a good idea to check 2 sources. It’s not only the Internet that sometimes gets the facts wrong.

Let ’em down with a smile

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it” — a really good thing to remember when we’re thinking about customer service. I pulled up Bloglines earlier this evening to find out what’s buzzing in the blogosphere, and though not successful (at least for a while), I couldn’t help but smile at the resulting screen below. Although we try really hard not to say no, sometimes it’s unavoidable. Finding a way to say it good-naturedly and leaving them smiling is certainly a good goal to reach for.

Bloglines Plumber

Delivering the keys to ELM

Would I like to do training for a library on a Holiday? Would I like to teach that class at 8:00 a.m. at a location 45 miles away? and finally . . . . would I like to travel to that class in a snowstorm that was dumping 3 inches per hour over roads that were not plowed? Hmmmm . . . . the answers are “Sure”, “Well, OK”, and “What?”

Such was the case on Friday, the observed holiday of Veterans Day. I have been working with Wabasha St. Felix School and had assisted them in getting their IPs authenticated so that their students could use the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM). ELM is a state-funded collection of online magazines. Friday November 10th was their scheduled staff in-service day, and they invited me to teach them how to use ELM.

One of the top reasons I love my job is visiting schools and libraries, showing people how to use ELM. Subscription databases of magazines that are funded through state $$$ have become so commonplace to me, that I am frequently surprised anew when I find out how many libraries and individuals have not discovered them. When I do training, I feel like Santa Claus – giving away huge amounts of magazines and references to expand their libraries. Every session I’ve taught has been nothing less than exciting. I constantly beg libraries to let me come in and teach exploratory classes in finding magazines that will be useful.

Friday in Wabasha was no exception. As tough as the driving was, all the teachers were there — many traveling as far as I had through the 12-inch snowstorm. It took the technology teacher an hour and a half to get from Goodhue (a distance of about 30 miles). We had great fun and all reported that they’d found valuable resources for their classes. One said she’d not used the computer much, but intended to practice using ELM.

And once again, I’ve got this warm, fuzzy feeling that I’ve contributed in a positive way to kids’ education (of course after I’d returned safely home through the snow). Next stop for the ELM roadshow — LaCrescent-Hokah, 3 weeks from now. I only hope for better weather.

Veterans Day Salute

Today is Veterans Day. Coming from a heritage that places a high value on commitment to patriotism and many years as a military spouse (career and now retired), I know first-hand the pride, satisfaction, and cost of military service. Few of the Veterans in my family talk much about their time in uniform. In fact most are reluctant to talk about their part in an era of family contributions that span World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and all the years through the Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.

Veterans Day Salute

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000. It is a collection of audio- and video-taped oral histories, as well as documents such as letters, diaries, maps, photographs, and home movies, of America’s war veterans and those who served in support of them. The collection is maintained through the Library of Congress and is being built by volunteers — including many libraries and history centers.

As a librarian, I also take seriously my professional role in preserving democracy and individual freedoms. We call it intellectual freedom — that assurance that citizens have a right to uncensored access to information. No unit of government should make a policy that supresses anyone’s access to a broad range of ideas. In cultures of oppression, the government doesn’t want people to know or see anything in oposition to the philosophies of the powerful. Education is not nurtured or may even be denied.

Today is a good day to review the Library Bill of Rights: from the ALA website

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval.
III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment.
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.
V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
VI. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

I also can’t help but comment on the salute to Veterans Day posted on Ask.com and the noticable omission of observance by Google.

Ask.com Veterans Day 2006

What I did all week

What do regional libraries do? What kinds of libraries should they serve? How can we define their role and justify state funding for an institution that some librarians publicly say has outlived its usefulness? These are questions that a group of us struggled with last week as we wrote talking points to accompany the multitype library regions’ request for funding for the 2007 Minnesota Legislature. Writing talking points is particularly painful in a group that belabors the twist of every word and makes liberal use of a thesaurus to wordsmith the document. While I highly respect my colleagues and value their friendship — personally, after I have participated in the annual-writing-of-the-talking-points, I never look at them again. When I talk to local elected representatives, I talk about what I and our region accomplish with libraries to serve citizens.

As I think about what I did this week, I feel pretty good about what a region that is positioned to provide service to all types of libraries can accomplish. Here’s a week in the life of a multitype librarian:

A week ago today — I was at the media centers’ annual state conference, experiencing and planning with my colleagues in schools how we can bring back what we learned to improve student literacy.
Monday — I trained members of our regional staff how to use the State Library sponsored Minnesota Library Directory and keep it updated, so that everyone in the state has a directory to all libraries.
Tuesday – along with our cataloging librarians, I spent several hours at a small college, planning for their integration into the regional library network. Inclusion in the regional catalog will give their students greater access as well as giving the rest of the region (and the statewide network) access to the college’s unique collection.
Wednesday — My Director and I met with an enthusiastic library planning committee, which is working to start a new public library in their community.
Thursday – I assisted 3 public libraries in starting library blogs. Then I met with the representative committee that advises development and use of the integrated library system for over 80 libraries of all types.
Today/Friday – A public librarian and I met with the director of the historical society in her town, inviting them to join the library network, which will extend the environment for potential cooperation and collaboration.

Wow! It’s been a good week of service for our region – and (I hope) one well worthy of continued funding.

2006 MEMO

Minnesota Educational Media Association is meeting this week. Here is what has stood out for me in presentations I’ve attended:

Opening session featured panel of 3 Minnesota leaders in education and technology: Kit Hadley, Minneapolis Public Library Director; Scott McLeod, Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education at the University of Minnesota; Gopal Khanna, Chief Information Officer for the State of Minnesota.

Kit Hadley opened, quoting Joey Rogers from the Urban Libraries Council, reminding us that all libraries are part of a larger institution and libraries’ financial well-being is directly linked to that of the parent institution. She said that “Ready for K” (for instance) is an economic issue and one that will get attention for participants. She warned that proposed legislation will not be effective when it is the same issues over and over, albeit repackaged prettier and wittier.

Gopal Khanna said that information and technology literacy is a workforce issue. Historically, education has been a passing on of memorized information from generation to generation. Contemporary education needs to be based on research and learning. It is important to teach not for today’s world, but the world students will encounter in 15 years. He further challenged us with the idea that society has 2 sectors – the public and the private, which react in different ways and that the private sector has much to learn from the public sector. He said the private sector too much “loves to celebrate the problem.” Nobody comes to meetings with a solution — they are focused on talking about and agreeing on “the problem.”

Scott McCleod (presentation online) listed 4 trends that will continue: increased diversity, increased technology, globalization, and aging population. We have no idea what the workplace will be like for children, but we must prepare them for it. The folks in charge “don’t get it.” Kids find schools irrelevant. He said that technology has brought in a global environment. We need to ask what it means to write for a global environment. We ask kids to write for the teacher, but when they go home, they write for the global environment. Which is more relevant, meaningful, exciting? He quoted Seth Godin: “They say we can’t handle this much change. I say, your relevance is in jeopardy. What choice do you have?”

Constance Steinkuehler delivered The Digital Collective and Commons: Massively Multiplayer Online Games and the New Media Literacy. She spoke knowledgeably about the cultural and intellectual significance of gaming. Kids are using textbooks as cheats for their games. Exciting!

Keith Johnson spoke about using blogging in the classroom. He brought student Trevor Born, writer of the Twins blog, TwinsJunkie.com. Trevor has gained the attention of the Star Tribune and done a radio show. A great testament to the positive impact of blogging on kids who participate.

Printers**!*!+@##^

There is nothing that has given me more trouble since the dawn of technology than printers. I even have a collection of printers that defy every troubleshooting tip I’ve read. And for most of the printers I’ve given up on, I even have a few ink cartridges (some of them unopened) that don’t fit anything, but I put them away just in case. And I suspect that I’m not the only one suffering from revenge of the bubble jets.

Yesterday I visited my octogenarian mother who said rather apologetically, “can you look at my printer?” She asked apologetically, because it seems like about every other time I visit her something’s wrong with the printer. None of her other peripherals give her a moment’s problem – but the printer (actually all 3 that she’s had) periodically goes into a snit and has to be cajoled, or even re-installed, in order to perform its task of simply printing the job sent to it. Lately this printer has been displaying a great deal of terrible twos temperament, in keeping with its age. Well, after doing everything I could think of (and cleaning out the print queue list of documents the poor lady has sent to it multiple times) I managed to print out one test page, by gently tugging on the paper as it came through. The HP tech support site confirmed my fears – that the feeder-thingamabobs are worn, and the printer is fulfilling its planned obsolescence. As I promised Mom that I’ll bring her a new printer next time I come, she confessed that she has just bought new ink and could I please try to find a printer that uses the same ink (since she’s lost the receipt) – not potentially likely, I suspect.

I’ve gone through countless printers in my home office. The super-deluxe Epson printer-scanner-FAX-no-it-doesn’t-make-coffee on my desk, bought to save space, lost its ability to receive a print job mid-way through its first year. After hours of going through the phone support maze tech-support-guy-half-way-around-the-world and I decided the only thing to do was package it up and mail if off – not likely, or even prudent. So, I made my way to Best Buy on the corner and bought a cheap Canon-which-does-just-fine to use until some miracle lightning bolt might make the scanner-FAX-but-doesn’t-print wake up. Hasn’t happened, and now I have 2 devices where there used to be one which replaced 3.

While I was grousing about this recently to millennial niece, she said to me straight-faced, “Did you try shaking it?” Seems that when she had a problem with her printer, and called the manufacturer tech support, they told her to unplug it, hold it upside down, and shake it —- and it worked! Go figure, but no, it didn’t work for me.

MLA-blogging on the last day

Who cares about blogging on the last day of a conference at 8:30 a.m.? Well, apparently more than a few dedicated librarians. Good on them!

When I saw that our session “To Blog or Not to Blog” was scheduled for that dubious time-slot, I was not encouraged. Then, when I saw that we were in the same time slot as not only “Thinking Big: the State of the State Library” by Minnesota State Librarian Suzanne Miller but also “Cool Story Programs for Kids” by the legendary children’s programming guru Rob Reid, I was sure that I and my colleagues Aurora and Mary Beth would be talking to each other. How wrong I was!

Approximately 40 people attended our session and what fun we had! AJ, MB, and I get really pumped when we have an engaged audience, and this one was one of the best. We started with what is a blog, demoed how some libraries are using blogs to build community, and then brought up a real live audience member who set up her very first blog (thanks, Kathy!) I tell ya, reality TV has nothing on us.

I am really encouraged that so many people are open to using social software. There were many good questions and lots of head nodding. 2 years ago a team from our organization did a program at MLA on electronic communication and the part about blogging was by far the most popular. Now, this year again it’s been a real upper to bring something that I hope will enhance Minnesota library service through community building.
Aurora, Barb, Mary Beth

Sarah Long at MLA

When Sarah was president of ALA from 1999-2000, her theme was “Libraries Build Community.” She has worked in every type of library from starting out as a school librarian, to working in the Ohio State Library, to a stint as an academic librarian, to several public libraries and library systems. She is also a past president of the Public Library Association.

  • Sarah challenged us that it is no longer enough to keep the book — something has to be “going on”.
  • Talked about the difference between marketing and PR. She says marketing is research, what you do before. PR is telling the story.
  • She said (1) get rid of the old stuff; (2) build on your assets; (3) try some new stuff (don’t be afraid of failure)
  • Her take on the future of libraries (my question): get more IT and marketing staff. Library has got to change. “Will we change fast enough?”
  • We have a “fearsome” future – both fearful, but also wonderful. Left us with “this is the best time”