*retired* thing 19 - bad case of the drupals

no, Drupal is not bad, but it does sound like a sinus condition.

Before I forget (what is it they say about young people's attention spans?), Drupal should really have a chat function. Did I hear that, in fact, it does, and we just have it turned off? The value of Gmail and facebook increased with the addition of their chat functions. Having to leave my workspace to use a phone to call a coworker when I always have a computer in front of me is not efficient. If it's busy (are we busy these days?) no one may even pick up the phone. Alas...

It is now treamendously easier for the group work we do to be collected and organized. Because this is predominately what the nature of my interactions with LInt, it was the first thing I noticed and found to be much improved! Submitting meeting notes is easier, and it's great to be able to go to a committee's page and see the most recent meeting notes at the top.

Old LInt seemed to have gotten bogged down, with many years worth of content presented in a way that made it difficult to determine what was old and new, or more frustratingly, what was right and wrong. Drupal certainly has continuity and chronological presentation on it's side...but as any bloggy thing, important things can be pushed down by notes about pie. Pros and cons!

The pros of CMS align with our needs on a couple of crucial points: permitting multiple authors with a fully accessible, type-and-post process has created an online space that is a true representation of our collaborative workplace.

note: since we have all become Drupal/NewLInt Superstars, this Thing has been replaced with something more educational.

thing 23: the end is only the beginning

BY experimenting with the various things, the scope of Library 2.0 became much clearer. It helped to see and experience firsthand the way in which these types of sites and tools could be used by libraries.

THE difficulties in applying any of these things might be less about learning and using them and more about the process of adapting to the changes they would bring. Further, it seems that some changes would be difficult to anticipate. What we can do is implement selective tools that would truly and clearly benefit our efficiency and increase patrons' ability to access the library.

AS I went through, the ideas of access and efficiency always seemed to always come to mind. As someone working in a large department, many of the communication tools are very enticing - I would LOVE to be able to IM coworkers working in certain service points to request their help completing a task. I think IT's help form on lint is the closest we have and it is SO HELPFUL to not have to leave my workstation (and patrons) to call when something needs some help from a trained professional fixer.

I feel like the next step for this process is to try a tool or two in our internal processes. I know the big picture is bringing patrons and library together using Things, but it won't hurt us to be guinea pigs. squeeeek.

thing 22...I'm gonna keep on, keep on, keep on learn-in' it rii-iight...

As my 23 things experience has been edited to 9, the first place I will go to continue learning is the other 23-9=14 things! There is plenty there for me to try and become educated about.

Alas, I will no longer have blocks of time set aside for the purpose of thing-completion, but I imagine I can scape together enough time to do a thing or two every month, I hope.

Other MCPL 23 Things blogs are also a good source that I will continue to use to broaden my horizons. Reading blogs entries for Things I haven't done yet can be a fun and quick introduction to those tools. It's also interesting to read the blogs of people outside of Circulation; varying perspectives certainly lead to different conclusions about many of these tools.

Hopefully the introduction of a few of these tools into daily life here will be the best way for all of us to be comfortable with both current tools and the constant newness of what is developing.

thing 18 - surveymonkey

I have used SurveyMonkey for committee work here at the library, out of absolute necessity - there is no way in Circ to find everyone in Circ, much less find them and have time to ask them a number of questions. There were a few obstacles, such as:

- a limit on the number of questions (no one told me the lib has a Pro account!),
- a default setting that disallows the survey to be answered twice at the same computer (not helpful for a department of nomads), and
- difficultly in extracting results with a basic account (too bad I'm smarter than you SurveyMonkey!).

These problems were not too extremely difficult to overcome and overall the survey proved to be a very valuable for getting opinions and ideas from my coworkers. It did leave me feeling like the free Basic Accounts are designed in part to make users feel like the paid accounts surely must be better.

The other online survey options appear to target many different types of organizations. PollDaddy and SurveyMonkey are the hip, lite versions, QuestionPro seems pretty Pro and Zoomerang is juuuusttt right...or just somewhere in the middle. I was interested to read that QuestionPro offers its Professional version free to non-profits willing to post a link to the QuestionPro website from the website of their organization. Pretty nice of them.

The things I would do differently if I needed to use SurkeyMonkey again are using the library's account (granted it's available to us) and supplying better feedback after the results are collected and utilized, something mentioned in the "8 tips" article.

thinglibrarything

So Facebook has a Bookshelf function and LibraryThing has a friending function...it can all get exhausting.

I appreciate how straight-forward LibThing is; signing up was easy and adding books is easy. The search function could be a bit more refined and the default for the layout of my homepage was way cluttered. So I customized it and now it looks like this!

My books were not too popular...I mostly added children's titles, including the first book I remember reading:

Aw. I read a little about what LibraryThing hopes to be able to do for libraries and vice versa. I like LibraryThing for the same reason I like people's lists on Amazon: there are people out there that have my interests and tastes and seeing what they have and like is valuable to me. I think even patrons using the same library could benefit from reviews and ratings by their fellow readers. To me it's just more information, which I generally don't see as dangerous. Although I'm not sure how tags would fit in, since we already have keywords, and I'm sure we'd have to moniter content somehow if LT users reviews were going to show up in our OPAC.

I like the idea that there is a community feeling to seeing what other people have or have read...I think the best thing a library could do with LT is use it to reinforce that sense of community among people who use our library.

Thing 10 ~ wikis business

I think the first time I heard of wikipedia was from a professor telling my class not to use it as a source. I heeded his warning then and continue to be wary of wikis as a definitive source. While they are often not as chaotic as Janis Joplin's during that episode of "30 Rock," there are problems.

I updated the wiki page for Unionville, Indiana. I added the info about the post office and the school and eventually figured out how to add an external link to the school's webpage. woohoo.

The best part of the wiki concept is that it is democratic and lets people get together and make what they what. Except what you want may not be reflected in the changes other people make (vice versa) and what you need may not be there at all.

Out of all the Things I've completed so far, wikis are the least interesting to me. Democracy can just be so darn messy! I am very interested, however, in the Albany County's "staff" wiki. They use it just as we use lint, listing desk schedules, circulation procedures (not just policies!), training plans, internal meeting agendas...everything. It's bold of them to have everything be so public!

Thing 9 ~ Collaboration Tools

Google docs + Zoho are ways of sharing documents. As many people have pointed out in their Thing 9 blog entries, this is perfect for group projects. Attatchments always run the risk of being incompatible, which is possibly one of the most annoying things ever.

Because I'm a Googler and the Gmailer, the aesthetic of Google Docs looks "right" to me...and because I often fall for aesthetics vs. funtionality, my brain tells me Google docs is better. Going a little deeper, the Microsoft-y-ness of the drop-down menu in Google docs appeals to me, especially compared to the cluttered tool bars of Zoho. I do appreciate that I can log in with my Google account at Zoho, but I'm still more likely to use Google docs.

Historically speaking, our founding fathers NEEDED Google Docs because it was way harder for them to get together than it is for four college kids. That being said, our MCPL Declaration of Independence is evidence of the downside of total access to a document...that thing has quite an array of content!

In the MCPL committee world, either of these tools would be great for data compiling and idea sharing between meetings, way more functional than long strings of emails!