Libraryman

I usually spend a good 30-60 minutes making an intro slide for each presentation I do. I figure that the intro slide will be up there on the screen for 15 minutes or so before the session starts and people seeing it can start to get a sense of the session and the presenter and how they fit in as an attendee. And frankly, it’s just fun to try and take something that is not intrinsically beautiful (PowerPoint) and make something pretty or interesting to look that is appropriately evocative. Sometimes it works better than others, and themes tend to run in stretches, but the effort is always made. Most times, I’ll post a screen shot of the slide to flickr and often use it here on the blog as well. Well imagine my happy surprise a couple of weeks back when I saw the web site the folks from Inland Northwest Council of Libraries (INCOL) that had done the work for me. Check this out!:

It’s a little silly and a little funny and says what we’ll cover and shows them who’s gonna be yapping at them for two hours. Fun! Thanks to who(m)ever whipped this little number up at INCOL. Nice work.

Oh, and btw, if you are in Coeur D’Alene this Friday, I still think you can get a ticket. If you’ll be there, pop in and say howdy!

A blog post, an event page and a press release. Thanks Palo Alto! Or more accurately: Excellent advocacy work, Palo Alto! Sure, it’s my ugly mug up there, but the fact of the matter is they are bringing someone from outside into their community to help. Carefully selected bits of specialized knowledge and experience can be used to help inform decisions, facilitate brainstorming and can lend a hand to libraries trying to be transparent to the community they serve. Working hard to decide how to best implement what users/patrons really want is more important now than ever before and bringing in appropriate amounts and types of outside thought can significantly assists libraries in making important decisions about the technological directions they take.

So this is exceptionally commendable of Palo Alto (and really has almost nothing to do with me individually). Having said that, perhaps I should have highlighted someone else’s public library tech presentation to make this point? While not entirely common, there are other examples, and each make me equally happy and hopeful for that community and their library.

As far as Palo Alto goes, I really do hope lots of folks show up. It’ll be a great chance to cover some important issues, issue a challenge or two and get some back-and-forth going on things that are driving libraries (and society at large).

As further example, here is the text from the press release for the event:

10/25/2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRESS RELEASE #10/25/07
Subject :
Library Technology Expert Michael Porter to Speak at Palo Alto City Hall
Contact :
Mary Minto, Division Manager, Library (650) 329-2517

Palo Alto, CA – Library technologist, Michael Porter, trainer and author, will share his expertise November 8 from 7–9 p.m. on how public libraries use new digital tools to build communities. His presentation, “Your Library’s Future Has Changed: Technology, Content and Community,” will include a look at the web sites of innovative libraries that are using social networking tools and creative implementation to provide access to information and create connections in their communities.

Michael Porter is Community Associate for WebJunction, an organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to assist libraries and cultural organizations in meeting their objectives through the effective use of web-based technologies. His professional focus is on technology, community, and training. He co-authors the “Internet Spotlight” column in Public Libraries magazine and is writing a book about effective electronic communities.

The talk will be hosted by the Palo Alto City Library, which is gearing up to develop a library technology plan by early 2008. This free program is sponsored by the Friends of the Palo Alto Library.

· Date and Time: Thursday, November 8, 2007, 7–9 p.m.
· Place: Council Chambers, City Hall, 250 Hamilton Ave., Palo Alto

Visit the Library web site at www.cityofpaloalto.org/library for more information.”

Very nice! I look forward to seeing everyone in Palo Alto (and Sunnyvale and Santa Clara Co. too) later this week!

-Michael

PART I:

Woo Hoo!!! This weekend, the 365 Library Days Project (tag: 365libs) turned two months old! Amazingly (library folks are truly amazing), there are 297 participating libraries and already a library was written up in it’s local paper! All the person running their 365 Library Days Project did was call the paper and tell them they were working on it and they wrote it up! Wow! It works!

PART II
This an uplifting story for sure, but in ten months (or any time we like, really), the goal is to be able to start using the 365 Library Days Project as a more formal advocacy tool. Along those lines, an initiative has just begun to develop a Press Kit that we can give to media outlets and also a set of instructions/hints we can use to get the most value out of the historical document you are making as you participate in the 365 Library Days Project. Here is a link to the page where you can contribute to this phase of the project. Text of the original post is included too, so you can see what’s up:

Time To Write Our Press Kit and Instructions *this is a link*
“This weekend I started to write the press kit that libraries could just print out and give to their local newspapers, tv and radio stations to get attention to their 365 Library Days Projects. THen I thought, hey, there are almost 300 member libraries participating here, why don’t we make this a community project.

So, let’s do it! It seems that we will need to write:
1. A document we can give to media outlets.

2. A document we could give to library boards/governing bodies explaining the project and it’s value.

3. An brief, concise instruction sheet for librarians/staffer that explains how to use the two docs above most effectively.

So how should we write these? Perhaps we should start a wiki and do it there? Anyone have ideas or want to set that up for the group?

Also, if you need more proof of concept for the 365 Library Days Projects, as of this weekend we are just two months into the launch and there has already been one participating library that has received a write up in a local paper!

Please chime in here. You are the experts! :)”

PART III
Finally, for the past two months, every time the 365 Library Days Projects got a legitimate plug from a participating library or a blogger, I’ve saved it in my del.icio.us feed. It’s grown to be an impressive collection of 38 links from folks on at least four continents with posts in five languages (if my count is correct). AMAZING! Here is a screenshot and a link to those posts:

Thanks everybody! Please contact me if you have any questions or if I can help you move your project along! Keep snapping these valuable photos in your libraries, keep having fun with this, good luck and see you around the 365 Library Days Project page!

Some really fun things have been happening behind the scenes lately with the whole idea of “Libraryman” having a logo. Actually, its a bit of a beta test for some ideas I’m working on for library advocacy and marketing. Working with the Libraryman persona and going along with the theory that play and “me” (and that is me in a good, not selfish way) is often the best way to approach learning something new, today you get a happy little picture that traces the evolution of the Libraryman logo. Fun! Well, for me anyway.

There will be a post/story about how the latest Libraryman logos just happened to show up in my email one day last month. Sam Morrison is the person I have to thank for that, and he’ll get another plug in a longer upcoming post about branding, marketing and electronic community turned into something substantive.

btw, if anybody gets an itch to draw another logo, well, it would make my day. In fact, along those lines, just yesterday, my coworker Laura sent me this picture of her son Carter in his Libraryboy costume. What?! A sidekick! Oh, man! Just think of the books we’ll read and the Summer Reading Program outreach we could accomplish! Thank you Carter, you rock!

Or other electronic listening device of your preference:
Open Source - Passion: Libraries. It will mostly make you feel quite happy.

Go, go Amanda!!!

This image in this post is just slightly freaky when you read what it includes and how the image came to be posted to the blog tonight. It’s deep, shallow and goes ’round and ’round.
So yesterday I blogged about Pandora and libraries (again, sorry), tonight I was working a bit at home and listening away to my good friend Pandora when a “frame ad” came up around the player. The ad? It was from the folks at Palm, for the Treo. In this series of ads, they mention the different ways you can integrate a Treo into your life. Interestingly, the ad I saw highlighted flickr. So, I whip out my Treo, while listening to Pandora, take a picture of the flickr/Treo/Palm/Pandora screen and upload it to flickr. Then I go into my blog editing software and write this post. Which will now include some code that will make a picture showing you an amazingly deep example of convergence show up for you. Enjoy!

We sure had fun talking, but will it be fun to listen to? Thanks to Allison and Steve at the Kankakee Public Library for working up this (not so) little ?BiblioTech? podcast. This is a very relaxed and hopefully somewhat inspiring library technology conversation. Even if the podcast thing isn?t your style, be sure to check out the KPL web site. It rocks the bells and they are the bees knees, baby. It truly was an honor to talk with them about LibraryMan, ?2.0″, ?getting things done?, and library tech stuff in general.

The KPL Podcast Page Is Here?

Podcasting has officially become ubiquitous. It was a tad surprising to see this banner add on technorati.com but hey, if it works for marketing movies perhaps even more libraries should consider using the tool? Greg has some great librarycentric info on the subject at Open Stacks if you’re so inclined

The movie is predicted to be a real stinker btw. Look for it on Netflix soon.