Ravelry post about QR Codes in libraries

There's a discussion happening on Ravelry about the use of QR Codes in libraries that has some great ideas.

CPD23 Things - Thing One

I just completed 10 Things for a Capital District Library Council project with Polly Farrington and she told all of us about 23 Things and if you were truly ambitious and had far more time on your hands than any of us do, you would see that "what to do with this blog" afterward was one of my concerns. And Voila, I have now delayed that question for another 23 things worth.

I am one of those people who actually likes change and learning new things, so keeping on top of what's changing all around me is important to me. 

Cool use of QR Code

I read YA books. Last night I read Divergent and on the last page is a QR code that brings you to author Veronica Roth's blog.

Thing 10: Future Trends

First, thoughts on the reading:

I was reading this:

Seth Godin: Future of the Library  which led me to this:

The Mesh.  Now, here's the definition of a Mesh company:

"Mesh companies create, share and use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright."

Okay, so, libraries seem to be right on the cutting edge of this one - in fact, this sounds like it belongs in our long range plans, if not in our mission statements, with some nice verbiage about materials and programs for education, recreation, and information popped in there, maybe instead of  "goods and services."  Everything we've been doing for the past 10 weeks with CDLC, Polly, and each other, was about the first part of the statement and we've always been all about the second part.

• What do you think your library will be like in the year 2020?  Fewer staff and fewer physical books, with staff running programs and librarians acting as facilitators, educators, and social directors. As more and more people work and study from home, the library will become a gathering place for collaborating, a public place for learning together.
• What technologies will most affect how libraries operate in the future?  E-readers and their kin (smart phones, I-Pads, etc., etc) aren't just about e-books - they provide access to the whole world. The latest upgrade on my Nook Color lets me read and now respond to emails, browse the web, access my files, watch videos, listen to music, and play games. They're also getting cheaper all the time and as more and more people get them the divide between the haves and the have nots will widen. And guess what? The ones who can actually afford to pay for libraries are the same ones who will have their own access.  I'm already hearing "Why should I pay all this money so my neighbor won't have to buy his own copy of the latest Iris Johansen?"
• What opportunities are there that we’re not yet taking full advantage of? Thomas Frey said "Libraries need to begin offering access to these “tools of production,” and I think he makes some very good points about how and why people will still come to libraries. We will still be seen as safe free gathering places where people can work, learn, and play together.
• What services might we need to give up in order to move forward? I think our book collection will continue to shrink and that space will be taken over by areas for individuals and groups, segregated by purpose - play groups and story times for the littlest ones (no, I don't think story time is going anywhere, and it's a vital service, and children need to have places to interact and learn to share and caregivers need to be able to talk to, and learn from, each other), study areas, gaming areas, computer labs, and programming space.
• What new services do you think we can offer that will be valued by our communities? Free technology training is going to be in ever higher demand, especially if we offer those tools of technology Thomas Frey was talking about - podcasting, audio, video, and graphic editing, etc. We will need people who can maintain them and people who can teach others to use them.  We're also going to have to let the coffee into the libraries and let them use their cell phones while they're here if we want them to stay. All staff will also have to be seen as friendly, knowledgeable, and welcoming. There are people who come to the library because we provide a service they can't get anywhere else.- we listen to them, we try very hard to find them the answers (books, programs, movies, information) that they're looking for, and we are really good at reader's advisory.

 Here are some articles about libraries that have already been making some of these changes:
New Library
Cupertino
and finally, an essay contest that asked kids to describe the "Library of the Future."

Thing Nine: e-books

I have a Nook Color. I held out for a long time (long after my parents and sister had succumbed to the siren call of the Kindle) because I wanted a lot from my reader
1. It had to read .pdf's
2. It had to be compatible with Overdrive
3. Color would be nice

Confession: I'm not using it all that much for reading books. I'm using it as a web browser, a knitting pattern library, a photo album and sometimes to read books. I anticipate using it more when there are more books available through Overdrive and on vacations, but most of the books I've read on it were either free or things I thought I wanted to be able to go back and re-read or consult as reference material. Since I'm not a huge nonfiction reader I'm not doing a whole lot of that.

I do see the potential for using it to store even more knitting patterns and recipes once I get myself one of those portable scanners so I can scan the things I like in my knitting magazines and either get rid of them, give them away, or at the very least store them somewhere besides my bedroom.  On an aside, one of the things I love about Ravelry (like the way I got Ravelry into the conversation?) is that you can add all the magazines and books you own to your Ravelry Library and search them for that pattern you know you saw somewhere but can't remember where.

Thing 8: Video

I confess, this is a place holder so I can go talk about my Nook Color in Thing 9.

Okay,  now, as exciting as a video of me knitting would be (see Polly's comment), I thought perhaps I'd try to put up one of the oral histories the VolunTeens did at "A Celebration of Ballston Lake," in 2009. One of the potential problems with doing these is that of permissions, so I'd like to state up front that we made every single person fill out a form allowing us to put these on the web.

It took a very long time just to give me an error message. Trying again with a shorter clip.

Collage

Thing 7

Yeah, I didn't just pick two. That's like having two pieces of popcorn or 2 M&M's.

I already know I love Google Calendar because I can use more than one calendar (mine, community room, and home one) and they sync automatically with my Droid.

This makes Evernote attractive because it has an Android app.  Right now I use Facebook Notes in a similar but much more limited way - I put recipes and patterns there because I'm always misplacing the paper copies. My Nook Color is also very useful for this purpose.

Zotero looks very useful for research. If I ever decide to go for that Ph.D....

I signed up for Drop Box but I admit I was motivated more by the chance to give Polly more storage space than a burning need right now.

I use Astrid Tasks on my Droid for my to do list, but I'm not great about checking it. Now if it had a sticky notes option like my desktop at home, that might work.

I've used Google Docs with friends before and it did make it easy to share addresses but that's all we really used it for.

I want to play with only2clicks and see if it would be good for making weblists for patrons.
I need to take another look at the one that lets you mark up screen shots of websites and see if it would work for making instructions for using the catalog but I couldn't figure out the whole sharing part.

Todaysmeet.com was easy to use and did make me wonder if it would work for staff meetings since I have a predominantly part time staff, but I would have some who would have trouble with it.

■Thing 6: Online Meetings & Webinars

I have attended a few Webinars and they are certainly time and money saving (and I can knit while I attend, imagine that).
I still need to learn to run them myself and I'm wondering if that would help with my staff meeting issues since the vast majority of my staff is part time and has trouble getting here for staff meetings.

I also find myself wondering if this would be a way to include those who don't come out for evening programs, although that sounds like it could include a whole lot of learning curve at both ends.

I do need to invest in a computer microphone for my library laptop and learn to use it (it's on my list along with learning to Skype).

Running on to Thing 7 as it will take lots of exploring and I'm running behind on my Things!

Thing 5 - Reflections

You can pretty much tell what I've been up to so far by visiting my blog. If you just read the post on Reader, you will miss out on a lot of it. I have Flickr pictures across the top, Twitter updates and a Goodreads favorites collage on the side. No Meebo yet, but that will show up eventually, as will my Google Calendar, I'm sure.

I'm not sure, however, what will become of this page once the learning things are over, and that bothers me. I'd like to find a way to incorporate it into the library because I think it looks like it would be fun but I don't like the idea of having to redo things. I do have most of them on the library's page, but not all of them and I'm not sure at what point it becomes so cluttered as to be unusable. That may be why this page looks nicer to me right now.

I do think you have to meet the patron wherever the patron is, but you don't necessarily have to stay there. It just wouldn't be feasible to be on all of the different social networks, but it is possible to make ways for our patrons to first find us and then bring us into their worlds, so the library presence becomes part of their personal pages, wherever they are.

Jennifer once said to me (not an exact quote, but the gist of it and now we'll see if she's paying attention)  "But, Karen, don't you want them to have to come through your website to get to wherever they're going?"  It has changed how I approach my website because yes, I do, and I want them to find the page sufficiently useful that they want to be able to access it quickly and see updates from their own pages - I want to be LIKED on Facebook and I want them to think our website is worthy of RSS Feeds. I want them checking out our pictures, looking at the CDLC Digital collection, using our page to get to the catalog and to do online research.  I want the library to be part of everyday life whether it's virtually or in person.

Thing 4: Online Communities

I am all over this one.  The library has a facebook page (Town of Ballston Community Library), we tweet (TOBLibrary), we have e-news (sign up on our website), you can Meebo me from our web page, and if you knit (or crochet), I'm on Ravelry, one of my very favorite places on the web.

Ravelry is really a wonderful example of what can be done with an online community. In addition to having subject specific groups (including one for librarians), it offers everything from a place to record and search within your own books and magazines to a link to WorldCat to search for books in nearby libraries. You can also search for a specific pattern, post your pictures of the finished product, and look at what other people made. You can search for specific yarns, stores that sell them, and people who rated them. You can email friends or look at what they've made or at which books and magazines they own.  I'm sure there are lessons libraries could learn from the multitude of options and information available on Ravelry. It's worth checking out even if you don't knit or crochet. If you break down and go there, my name on there is gnaed (and I'm going to explain right up front that it's part of my last name, backwards).

Thing 3: Photo Sharing

I first learned to use Flickr so I could upload the photos of all the things I've knit. Ravelry (a wonderful knitting and crocheting site) allows you to share your photo of a project, attaches it to the pattern you used, and lets you look at all the creations others have made with the same pattern).

We didn't have one for the library, though, so now we do.

We use the photo frames here at our library as well, thanks to Rebecca, our youth services librarian.  We create slides in Power Point, save them first as .pdf's and then as .jpg's and put them on the memory card.  This way, not only can we share photos, but we can also put up information about upcoming programs, our hours, new books and movies, anything we want people to see. There's one at the front desk and one on Rebecca's desk. Because there's movement involved in the slide show, they really catch people's attention.

Art Reception April 9 2011

Art Reception April 9 2011 Family, a photo by Ballston Community Library on Flickr.

Over 300 art enthusiasts attended the 2011 Burnt Hills Ballston Lake School Art Show.

Thing 2: RSS

I've used iGoogle before so that part was straightforward, along with adding Google Reader to it. I would really like to be able to cut and paste the whole list of blogs and add them all at once, but I don't see a way to do that. Hold everything - I just found someone who said she found a way to make it easier for us. Now to see if I can make it work... It was easy!
I still don't know what it was exactly that I used, but I'm okay with that.
Thank you, Thank you, mysterious benefactress.
There is, indeed, an app for the Droid so I will have to try that next.
Now if there were just an app to make time to read all those wonderful blog posts.
It would be very useful to have specific rss feeds available to patrons through the library's website so they can read local news and updates to the New York Times Bestsellers through the library's website. Anything that gets people dependent on visiting the library's website is a good thing.

Something About Me

I've been working at the Town of Ballston Community Library in Burnt Hills for 8 years.
I'm participating in this program for a bunch of reasons:
- I'm always up for learning new things.
- I always have fun when Polly is teaching something.
- I think it's important to support CDLC learning opportunities.
- I welcome opportunities to get to know other librarians in the area.
- There's always that Ipad...

Thing 1: Blogging

It's very nice to have this start with something I'm comfortable with already. Setting up a blog with blogger is very intuitive and simple.  I like things that are straightforward. Fill this out, choose one of these, click here, and voila!
An auspicious beginning.