LibraryTrax

We all heard about it at the Technology Institute, and today I can say for sure that Facebook is open to everyone because I just signed up for an account. Facebook was once only available to students and a select group of businesses that created networks for their employees.

For those of you who are nervous about MySpace, you may find Facebook more appealing. Yes, there is still sharing of personal information and photos and opinions and such, and yes, there is advertising, but the ads seem less obvious. Facebook has always been considered a more sophisticated alternative to MySpace, and now that I’m in it, I can see why. The format is cleaner. The privacy options seem stronger.

I also have a MySpace account, so it will be interesting to explore the differences over the long term. I’ll blog more about it as I learn, and I hope you’ll share your comments!

Last Thursday, in
Charleston SC, Cynthia Bledsoe was showing our newest staff member, Julie Boller, the Charleston County Library. On our tour, we stopped by the Children’s Room to see what’s going on. What we found was a wonderful environment for children. You enter through a bridge (you know the bridge to reading) and there were murals everywhere to dress up the room.

As much as we have been concentrating on emerging technologies, you can’t beat the warm feeling I have when a visit these environments that encourage a love of reading. Take a look at my pictures and see if you don’t agree!

My colleague Deborah sat down in my office after a blog-heavy morning and said, “You know, this whole social networking thing, doesn’t this seem a lot like the old days when we got together on friends’ front porches in the summer evenings to chat, drink a little beer, talk politics, clear our heads a bit after the day?”

Of course the days she was reminiscing about were college days and maybe our heads weren’t so clear, but you have the picture. I remember those nights well: the screen porch, the conversations, the smoke drifting upward, the hard edges of political and social give-and-take somewhat blunted in the warm South Carolina night air.

That was time well spent, but time we no longer have, nor the front porch to gather on. People are more isolated now and more apt to hunker down in the evenings after work. Maybe the new “social” space online appeals because we are tired of hunkering in front of the TV…maybe the books from a new crop of writers are less than enthralling…maybe our peers still have conversation worth picking up on.

Where IS our front porch these days? As Deborah says, “We never play outside anymore!” Aren’t we really looking for a sense of neighborhood, connections that allow us to hear something amusing, say something important, feel less isolated?

Maybe we need to connect, more than ever before. There’s the computer sitting over there (still warm from our last session on E-bay) but didn’t we hear lately about something called Second Life? Didn’t we read an interesting blog over a co-worker’s shoulder at work today…what was that URL? And there were some neat photos in Flickr, librarian trading cards. Who thought that up?

The fact is, people all around us are connecting in so many new ways. Mostly younger people, at least for now. The USA Today survey that told us that college students would rather give up beer than Facebook gave us the news: These kids are not out on the porch, and they are not in the public library…not even in the college library. They are chatting it up, making friends, and passing information around online.

Of course, they could be online in the public library. The public library as front porch for the community…something to think about.

Cluetrain Manifesto – the End of Business as Usual was one of the books mentioned by our speakers at Tech Express last week. In today’s E-world, companies (and therefore libraries) will have to change and mold to the new social environment. This book is key to your exploration in marketing to today’s people and it is available freely online.

Here is Michael Stephen’s Tame the Web comments on the Manifesto and its application to libraries.  Wikipedia has an article on the Manifesto, too! If your library does not have the book, you could link to the online version on your catalog.

Stephen’s Lighthouse has a great post yesterday (9/19) about the usefulness of streaming video for your library. Take a look.

Logic+Emotion is one of my favorite blogs because this creative director visually constructs the concepts of the social network environment.  Take a look at the post on the working class blogger.  Another recent post from the same blog is about  staying in the lines (something librarians are always doing) – let’s try coloring outside the lines and see where it takes us.

More than 250 public librarians from South Carolina (and a few of our GA and NC neighbors from the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg County) gathered in Columbia on Wednesday, September 13, for the State Library’s first Technology Institute, affectionately known asTechExpress. Jenny Levine, Stephen Abram, and Michael Stephens spoke on Library 2.0, millenials, blogs, being user-centered, and other topics on the future of libraries. South Carolina Educational Television filmed the speakers so that we can make the presentations available aspodcasts at a later date.

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive so far, and we thank all of you who have taken the time to email us personally about your experiences. We can’t help but crow a little and share some of the comments with all of you:

“What a great day!!!!! I can’t remember when I’ve been both so challenged and enthused. We can’t wait to get into this.”

“This is one of the few workshops I’ve been to where I didn’t want it to end!”

We’ve also seen some great things written by our speakers on their blogs, like,

“Everything was planned and orchestrated so well… I just have to say thanks to all involved down in South Carolina!” from Michael Stephens on Tame the Web

Jenny Levine wrote on her blog, The Shifted Librarian, “Wow, do these folks get it.”

As much as we love the praise, AND WE DO, the experience wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun without our great speakers, Jenny, Stephen, and Michael, and we can’t wait to find a reason to have them all back again! (Thanks to Michael Casey for posting this great photo of our speakers.)

We’re working to get the presentation slides up on our website. SCETV is working on the editing of the audio and video as we speak. We’re also working on finalizing the date for TechTracks, the followup workshops that will show how to put the Library 2.0 principles into practice for your libraries. We’ll keep in touch here, but in the meantime, let’s continue the conversation. We’d love to read your comments.