Ho. Ho. Ho. (Holiday card exchange + Lisa’s M-Fing Holiday Mix, 2010)

Keep-Calm-Christmas
Wanted: Your addresses.
Why: To exchange holiday greeting cards.
When: Holiday season, 2010.
Every year I make a vain attempt to send out holiday cards and in some years, it happens but in others (like last year), it does not. 😉 Now that the major big stuff is over (I’ve graduated from Wayne and have gotten married), I’ve got a bit more time to work to spend on sending cards out this year.
The one caveat for this year is that I do not know where we’re going to be living in the month of December. We could be back in Grand Rapids or in another city entirely. I will not know until the end of the month (November) how this is going to play out, so, if you’d like to send us a card (Lisa + Justin and Wednesday the Pug), I am more than happy to update you when we get settled.
Please feel free to email, Facebook, tweet, LiveJournal or comment here with your address. Or if you prefer another method, let me know that too. If you’re interested in sending us a card, indicate that so I can notify you when our address is updated. If I already have your email address, I’ll be sending out an email within the next week or so with something similar to this.
IN ADDITION, I am (hopefully) will be mixing another holiday mix this season. I am soliciting for suggestions for a non-traditional non-denominational holiday muzak. Think kitsch and eyeroll, like 50 Shekel’s “Chanukah Jam” and “Jingle Belz” by Bootsy Collins with some Tom Waits and Pogues (always obvs choices) thrown in. Contact me at the above locations for your suggestions.

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part III

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part III: Using Social Media for Advocacy
When I began to outline this series, my goal was to make sure that each weekly topic flowed into the next so that the current week built upon the previous weeks discussions. As I spent time moving topics around so that each week would (hopefully) flow seamlessly to the next, I kept getting a nagging feeling that something was just not right. Two of my topics, advocacy and public relations/outreach, were the culprits and I finally realized why. The nagging comes in because at first blush, I tend to personally use the words advocacy and public relations pretty interchangeably and I wondered if I did that, it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch to believe that others might do so as well. So what is the difference between the two and why are each of them important?
In very broad terms, the definition of advocacy is the active support for a cause by influencing those in public, political or societal groups who allocate monetary and other resources that can help the cause out. Public relations/outreach, on the other hand and which I will cover next week, is the art of promoting and maintaining goodwill of a product/service/person to the public. The difference between the two is slight, but enough to necessitate that libraries/archives need to utilize both approaches.
It is also easy to see why I used these words interchangeably with the other, but the distinction between them is important to note. In the library/archives world, the public doesn’t necessarily see how much the services provided by these institutions are vital to their community until it is almost too late. Thanks to social media, the face of library advocacy is quickly changing but it is still not enough as we need to start and continue to do more. Advocacy, regardless of how it is done, should not be something that is done when the library/archives are in dire need but rather it should be kept up even in good times. This is where the public relations aspect comes in but since advocacy is more about, and I hate to use this word, pleading for monetary and other resources, advocacy should not be discontinued once the financial or resource goals are met.
Here are some steps, using social media, an institution can use to begin and maintain their advocacy:

  • Create a social media plan or policy
    If your institution does not have a social media plan or policy, it should probably draft one as it will not only protect you but also your patrons. This will be your cornerstone for any type of social media you use or engage in, regardless for what purpose. Tame the Web and Mashable have excellent tips on creating social media policies for your institution.
  • Define what services to use and why
    When constructing your social media policy, do not worry about the intricacies as this will always be a living document, but one thing you do want to concentrate on is what services you should use and why. Other than your website and blogging, the major services are Facebook and Twitter, withMySpace/LinkedIn/YouTube/Flickr and other smaller or lesser used services making up the backlist.
  • Create a portal 
    I’m currently doing research on the online presence of public libraries in Michigan and nearly 20% of public libraries Michigan do not have a web presence in ANY form (website, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, whatever). For those that have web presence, the presences are not connected. For example, it was not unusual for a library to have a website AND a Facebook page, but the Facebook page was almost never linked off their website or vice versa via Facebook info page. Whatever you decide to do, whether it is a single presence (website OR Facebook) or many presences, make sure you choose one as the main portal (aka jumping off point) to the rest of your web presences. This will also make it easier to scale and add web presences as they are needed.
  • Create a blog 
    If you have little time (or money or hours or employees or whatever) to update your website but you want to keep your patrons and community current on what is happening via online, you can always create a blog on one of the many free sites such as WordPress or Blogger. With the learning curve low, support and additional free features high, these sites are attractive option for libraries on limited budget or time. To make your time even more efficient, you can automatically feed your blog into your Facebook page or just update your Facebook page when you update your blog via cut/paste.
  • Email lists 
    I’m a big proponent of email lists and I know that many other people are as well. Why? Email lists are great for those of us who are not diligent in visiting a website, logging into Facebook or reading RSS feeds on a regular basis. Creating and maintaining a mailing list is an excellent way to keep in touch with your patrons without depending them to come to you for that information. When creating social presences, we often think that if we are on X social networking site, so too will the people we wish to engage with will be as well. This is not necessarily true. I have friends who refuse to use Facebook, refuse to use Twitter and only read my blog via RSS feed. Mailing lists, with the option to opt out of course, allows you to push information to the community without requiring the community to participate with you. The other nice thing is that you don’t necessarily have to format your mailing lists differently than your blog posts. You could, for intents and purposes, just cut/paste your blog post into your email and viola! Instant newsletter.
  • “Friends of”
    Another thing I have noticed in my research is that the “Friends of” support of whatever library’s website I’m looking at is almost always missing. This does not mean that that particular library does not have a “Friends of” affiliation, almost every public library has a “Friends of” board/group, but their information is almost always missing from the website/Facebook/blog itself. “Friends of” groups are hugely paramount in gaining and maintaining financial support of their particular library and because of the work that “Friends of” groups do, they too need their own space. Why? Since “Friends of” groups operate separately from the library, they should be treated as separate entities. Many “Friends of” pages were used to successfully campaign for money, resources, supplies while keeping the community up to date on donations, programming, speakers, and other activities happening in the community and the library. For many libraries, “Friends of” groups are directly responsible for maintaining support for the library.

Now that I’ve listed steps on how to get your advocacy group up and running from the ground up, I’ve also included web links below for additional sources on library/archives and advocacy. You might be asking yourself “Why should I do this?” Good question and also the point of this post: At the heart of library/archive advocacy is the active pursuit to continue to influence the community at large to the worth and purpose of the local library or archives. This pursuit should not be only when the institution is in danger, but constant to remind the community just how important and needed the institution is. Local libraries/archives will always be “in need” whether it is for resources, volunteers, money, supplies or something else and it is always good to keep the presence of the library favorable in the community’s opinion.
To paraphrase a presentation from #ALA10, “We are at war. Your portal/blog/website is your castle. Your community is your army to fight for you. Your social media policy is your battle plan. Use your battle plan to mobilize and deploy your army to help keep your library.”

Resources:

  • ALA 2010: REFORMA Advocacy & Social Media: Library Services for All in the Community – Breakdown of the presentation at ALA annual, presented by Andy Woodworth.
  • ALA’s Clearinghouse for Advocacy & Legislation
  • Everyday Advocacy: Making a case for libraries is easy with web tools.
  • i love libraries – ALA’s website dedicated to grassroots advocacy and organization, geared for the general public.
  • Save Libraries! – Nationwide grassroots listing hub of library advocacy campaigns.
  • Wikipedia: Public Library Advocacy

 
Next week: Part IV: Using Social Media for Outreach/PR

Wanted: Your (used, well loved, weeded, no longer needed) books

Librarians! Booksellers! Bibliophiles! I am in the process of doing a fairly large project that will be heavily dependent on used books. I am currently scouring local charity shops, used bookstores and library book sales for my needs, but thought I’d put the call out to the internets. I’m looking for a particular types of books, so if you have anything you think might be of interest to me via the list below, contact me via email, Facebook, Twitter or comment here and let me know what you have.
I will pay for shipping of the materials.
I am looking for:

  • Classic authors (think Austen, Brontes, Melville, Dickens, Joyce, Tolstoy, etc) whose works are in the public domain. If you\’re unsure, email me for clarification or see if their work is available on Project Gutenberg. I’m not picky about the author or the title, just as long as it is in the public domain.
  • Books by Ian Fleming, mainly James Bond series.
  • Not terribly picky about edition, publishing house or locality. Will accept non-US based English and also foreign editions.
  • Preferably hardcover but will accept paperbacks depending on size/condition.
  • Would prefer and love large print versions, but not necessary.
  • If the cover is ripped/torn/damaged, but the majority of the interior text is clean, I still want it.

 
Mwah!

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part II

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part II: Social Media Simply Explained
When we presented on social media at AMIA last year, we opined that social media could be easily explained by two statements:

  • Social networking is about connecting people with similar interests on a much larger scale.

AND

  • It is about conversations.

A year later, I still firmly believe that it really is that simple. As I said last week, the problem, however, is that in the last year there seems to be plethora of presentations, sites, workshops, and classes (to name a few) that will push the need for social media in libraries and archives but rarely will define what social media is. One hand, this is great as it gets the word out for the need of using social media as part of a librarians or archivists daily job routine. On the other hand, the pushing of the tool without defining the tool is still causing huge resistance in using that particular tool.
Why?
One answer is that the approach seems to be, “Everyone is doing it, so should you.” This approach is hugely problematic. If one cannot understand the foundation of using a particular tool, one is less likely to even use the tool. It is with this understanding that I believe is one of the reasons why social media has yet to be adopted more widely across libraries and archives.
I would like to add one more statement to the above list:

  • Social media is your institution’s virtual front door.

Just as one would not barricade the entrance to an institution’s physical location, why would one barricade or remove the front door to your virtual institution?
It is easier for an institution to visualize that, “No, we won’t barricade the front door of our library!” because by doing so would be incredibly silly. By applying the same logic to their virtual presences, it provides a better rationale (perhaps even logical) way to approach the why on using social media.
Many institutions still firmly believe that their virtual presence is not as important as their physical one, while the Pew Internet & American Life project illustrates the complete opposite. Information seeking behavior, according to Pew, is constantly changing and as such, content providers (i.e. the Internet) need to make sure they are keeping up with those changes. For example, within a year (2009 to 2010), the amount of seniors (defined as those aged over 50) using social media has doubled from 22% to 42%. While Pew documented that were also huge jumps across other age groups, the largest was with seniors.
What does this mean? It reshapes the perspective that the only ones getting online and using online tools are the younger generations and also illustrates the growth in the older market, as it were, is only going to increase as the population ages.
Let’s take a step back for a moment: The reason for this series is to explain social media and networking, what it is, why you should use it as well as giving tips and tricks to making the most out of it. So, let us answer the questions posed at the beginning of this post:
What is social media?

  • Social networking is about connecting people with similar interests on a much larger scale.
    It allows for libraries, archives, communities of any type or sort to create advocacy, marketing, public relations, transliteracy and communication device to its community both near and far while also acting as a discovery tool for that community.
  • It is about conversations. 
    Social media is dynamic. It allows the institution to engage with community and for the community to participate and be a part of the institution.
  • Social media is your institutions virtual front door. 
    Just as an institution is concerned with its physical appearance, it too should be concerned with not only having a presence online but also how the presence is being utilized. Having a website is good, having an active website is even better. Engaging with your patrons and community via your online presence is ideal.

Next week: Part III: Using Social Media for Advocacy

I iz a level 2 professional librarian, for realz

LoMCert-small
The last couple of weeks have not been that great: Mumsy was hospitalized with congestive heart failure, I did not make the cut as an Emerging Leader, I neared the 100 job application mark with nary a job in sight. While I’m thankful that I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, awesome friends near and wide and that Justin has a great job and is an AWESOME husband to boot, I really shant complain when I know there are others out there who are far worse off than I. But! As I often tell Justin, no matter how many awesome (mainly non-paying) projects I do, I still do not feel like I’m being a productive member of society or that the profession really wants me. I do not feel like I’m contributing somehow and that is the part that hurts the most. Forget the snide commentary about my student loans and obsession with Fluevogs1, let me make a contribution at least to our household GDP!
GAH. Did not want this to go into a rant or a pity party. ANYWAY, found out recently that for several public library positions I applied for in the state of Michigan require librarian certification. As my SLIS school never mentioned this was something we actually needed to HAVE to work at a PL in MI, I did some research and found out that the application process was actually pretty simple. As a recent MLIS grad, I qualify for a level 2 qualification, which meant all I had to do was have my transcripts posted to the Library of Michigan and viola! Certificate in hand. A level 1, top certification, would be my graduate degree and work experience of four years or more. Despite nearly two years working in an academic library, I still needed additional hours to make level 1.
This certificate also qualifies me to serve as director to libraries serving less than 26,000 persons. Which there are quite a lot of those in the state of MI.
It’s not much and it really doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot, but on days when it feels like this profession doesn’t want me, I at last have this. Right? Right.
1. I bought a pair of super on-clearance Fluevogs for my wedding shoes, fell in love and now I want more. Which I can’t get until I have a job. Shoe lust is a terrible thing.

Collection: 10/18/2010

Since I’m becoming more prolific as of late with my writing not only here but across the web, I thought it would be a good idea to compile a once a week posting of what I’ve written and where. This will also allow readers of the TLC to get introduced to other blogs/sites they may not have been introduced to before. Win-Win situation, me thinks.
Format: name of blog : direct link to article
{the farce.}: likely bedfellows: an introduction
AMPed: Your Virtual Front Door: Part I – Introduction
AMPed: Your Virtual Front Door: Part II – Social Media Simply Explained

Rated SFW: Reimagining the librarian stereotype through porn.*

*This is not a typo. [Though it DOES sound like a great article/book title…]
When I started library school a few years ago, I made a half-hearted attempt at collecting librar. related paraphernalia (books, t-shirts, etc), obtaining anything that gave even a passing nod on this topic. One of my “treasures” was an awful romance called, The Dewey Decimal System of Love [Pub date, 2003]. And yes, the book is as bad as the title sounds as I gave it a one star at LibraryThing and GoodReads, complete with a scathing review.
I put the collecting part on hold for bit as the librar. themed materials began to outgrow what my wallet would allow. It’s only natural that as librarians become more vocal in reimagining themselves in the public eye, so too must follow the send-ups, parodies, satire and love-letters (to an extent) to those wonderful keepers of knowledge.
What I was not expecting, however, was just how thick (pardon the innuendo) the treasure trove of heaving bosom romance/erotica dedicated to librarians has become in the last few years. Last night I was doing some research on professional development books for librarians on Amazon.com and found the mother lode of erotica and porn dedicated to and about librarians mixed in with professional development materials. (That also cracked me up, but at 3AM I’m fairly easy to please.) One result would be a guide to reader’s advisory and the next would be a XXX offering of hot librarian lurve.
What made this even better is that almost every book had a Kindle version (or was only available in the Kindle format), which meant they almost ALL had first chapters to read for free. So what did I do last night for several hours? Sought out and read terrible erotica with a librarian theme! And it was not terrible because I’m a prude by any stretch of the imagination, it was terrible when you have lines like “..feeling the bubbling juices squish luxuriously within my spasming cunt.” and “Cheryl Parker reached up to the highest bookshelf to grab the misplaced book with a tiny, frustrated sound. She made a mental note to speak to the new book shelfer.” Or lovely titles such as Lusty Librarians and Threesome in The Mattress Store [Pub date, unknown. Kindle availability only.].
As I am a mistress of obtaining, sorting and providing information – and for you own amusement – I’m including majority of the titles I read last night. You’re welcome.

P.S. Yes, it becomes clear that many of these are self-published for a reason but by the grace of Nigel, would it have KILLED them to use a spell-checker. Shelfer? Really? Ugh.
P.P.S. Now that I think about it, it would not be unrealistic to learn that with the plethora of new titles in the last few years, these were written by recent MLIS grads or librarians recently made redundant. Mortgages and student loans do not pay themselves you know. Or themselfs. Heh.

So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist?: Getting “Developed”

Image used by permission from the lovely John Kirriemuir.
Image used by permission from the lovely John Kirriemuir.

One question I am asked in almost every single interview is how do I keep up with the profession? Recently I started thinking about framing this question back when I started my MLIS in 2008. I remember in those ye olde days I had a very difficult time finding blogs, wikis, podcasts or anything really by library students or librarians themselves on the intertubes that discussed librarianship in any format.
That has changed significantly in the last two years since I started my journey down this rabbit hole so I thought it would be a good idea to put together a thorough resource encompassing how librarianating is done as well as include resources for free or cheap on professional development to develop ones ibrarianating.
Blogs
While plowing through mailing list emails one day, a conversation erupted on the “value” of professional journals and magazines, meaning that what is the point of spending several hundreds of dollars for a personal subscription to LibraryJournal when a print subscription to Wired, which some consider more relevant for librarinating, is only $10? Fair point. Bottom line: what is relevant to one’s profession is dependent on their interests. With that in mind, I created gReader bundles that pulls top libraryesque blogs by the rock stars as well as blogs by friends of mine who are librarians as well as one specifically on social media, web design and other similar flavors.

  • Librar*.*: A gReader bundle that consists of 80+ blogs by or for librarian/archivists. It’s got stuff like American Libraries Magazine, Librarian By Day, 8bit Library, Tame The Web to The Librarian Kate and The Steampunk Librarian and back again.
  • Web Lisa dot 1: Another gReader bundle that includes top tech, social media and web design blogs such as /.,A List Apart, ReadWriteWeb and more. If it’s specifically library+technology related, it’s in the Librar*.* bundle, if it’s general tech/geekery, it’s here.

Journals
There are loads of free-access journals and magazines on the intertubes dedicated to librarians and other information wranglers. Here is a smattering of them.

Podcasts
I really got into podcasts while I was in libschool and if there is a dearth of anything in this profession of ours, it is the lack of librarian produced podcasts. When I lamented about this on Twitter one day, Jason said, “Hey! I have a podcast that you can find in iTunes called Adventures in Library Instruction. And a girlcrush was born.

Webinars
What you learned or will learn in libschool is a drop to what you need to know to or get a big girl/boy job in librarianating. Why? Internships, practicums and volunteering are all well and good, but most of the experience or skills are learned on the job. Learning theory and how to catalog is one thing, actually being able to do it is another. The secondary problem is that if you went to libschool for every skill set needed or required, the degree would take a decade to complete. This is where workshops and webinars come into play. There is a PLETHORA of free or super cheap webinars that cover everything from academic instruction to using Zotero.

  • ALA’s Online Learning: Sorts by topic, subject or ALA unit (LITA, ACRL, RUSA, etc), with many of the offerings reasonably priced or free.
  • Cisco’s WebEx Free Webinars: Done by another tech industry leader, Cisco, these webinars cover management, leadership, information management and additional topics.
  • Emerging Technologies Summer Institute: I was asked by ever awesome Rochelle to participate in a one month only crowd sourced prof development blog. Unfortunately, that one month was in July and I spent most of it driving/flying hither and tither to job interviews and other fun things, so I didn’t get to add to the content. But I love this idea and she’s kept up the site, so while it’s not a webinar exactly there is loads of videos on how to do/use variety of different stuff.
  • InfoPeople: Provides fairly extensive on specialized topics by tons of names I recognize. Many of the webinars I selected to check out were free, so this resource is definitely worth checking out.
  • New Horizons Computer Training Centers Webinars: Concentrates mainly on Office based training, but that can be useful if you’re looking to brush up.
  • North East Florida Library Information Network Webinar Blog : Maintained by NEFLIN for area library professionals and originally intended for the locals, it’s become wildly popular go-to source for webinar roundup.
  • O’Reilly Training: Listing of free or nearly free tech training from the masters.
  • Techsoup For Libraries
  • WebinarListings.com: While some of the calendaring functions are slightly buggy, the “by category” and “search webinar” options are fantastic. Deals mainly with PR, marking, social media, best practices and some technology. Best of all: Most of the webinars are free.

Misc.
Anything that doesn’t fit in the above.

  • To:Librarianate – Amazon WishList This is NOT a ploy for you to buy me something, rather it’s a save-hold for books on topics that I think are important to becoming a librarian. Easier to create an AMZ wishlist than to list them out one by one.
  • The Library Route Project: Interested in medical librarianship? Music librarianship? Librarianship in another country? This project, started in October 2009, has librarians and info professionals from around the globe detailing their experiences. What makes this a great resource is not only to see the paths that others took to get to their career/jobs, but they are also choke full of resources for their particular position.

Please let me know, via comments, email or Twitter, any blogs, podcasts, journals, webinars or misc that I’m missing and should be included here. I’d like to keep this as complete as possible!
Updates:10.15.10 – Updated with two new webinar sites and book list for librarianating.

Your Virtual Front Door: Defining the Use of Social Media for Archives and Libraries: Part I

[This was first published at AMPed.]
Part I: Introduction
A conversation I seem to have a lot these days is discussing the use and instruction of social media, specifically for archival and library institutions. One particular topic that I keep coming back to over and over again in these conversations is that there is a huge push for institutions to use social media, with this push intensified by conferences and professional organizations (to name a few outlets). These outlets heavily advertise posters, panels and classes (to name a few methods) that teach professionals the hows of social media and networking with specific illustration of the more popular social media tools without really explaining the whys.
This in and of itself is not a bad thing. Last winter, Alexis Braun Marks, Kim Schroeder and I presented at AMIA‘s yearly conference on this very subject. Our topic, “When Are New Technologies For You?” was an attempt to give a general overview of what social media is and why it should be used while illustrating a few of the big players in the social networking world. Our audience poll at the beginning of our presentation only enforced what we knew from our research: Most institutions are desperate to get on the social media bandwagon and know that they should, but they have no idea WHY they should or how to go about doing it. Then what happens is that many institutions end up doing one of two things: they join every social network under the sun and then forget about it or they just ignore the siren call of social media in the first place, artificially secure that they don’t need it in the first place.
Therein, I believe, lies the problem: we have the knowledge of the hows but not necessarily the whys. In the the last year, since our presentation at AMIA, I’ve paid heavy attention to professional organizations and communities and noticed the rise in the offerings in classes on social media methodologies (good) but no real explanation as to they whys (bad). It is becoming widely accepted that these tools are to be and are being integrated into professional job descriptions and daily use, but no one seems to be clearly explaining why these seems to be so important.
This series is going to be a musing of and attempt to list and explain reasons of the WHY libraries and archives need to be using social media while hopefully doing away with marketing buzzwords and jargon. But before we start, let me offer up at least one simple reason as to why libraries and archives need to use social media:

It’s fun!

Next week: Part II: Social Media Simply Explained