Annual purge and Tickler file tip

I saw on my calendar that it is time for an annual purge. If you can't throw it away, then move all the folders of stuff that I don't need ready access to, down to the basement file cabinet (or your equivalent).

Another tip is setting up a single file folder drawer to act as your your tickler file. In the drawer, place 43 folders. label each folder for a month and then add folders numbered 1-31 for the days. organize them in order.

Use the tickler files to keep track of what you have to do by what date it is due. for example, If I have make a call on tuesday the 2nd, I put the note in the folder labeled "2". If it is not due until next month, I put it in the February folder and file all the stuff in the February folder in the correct daily folder on Feb 1.

This way, I don't have to keep a pile of "to do" type stuff on my desk where I can easily loose it or get distracted.

Learn more of these tips by downloading a free set of "getting things done" articles. I got hooked on using the GTD method as I try to keep up with all the work that is assigned by and to me. More good stuff can be found at www.davidco.com.

Or you could read his book availble from the library or listen to it. or buy it from a local bookstore.

Top 10 Time of Year

This is one of the best times of the year if you hate to miss anything good (like me). Whether it is top 10 gifts or top 10 of the year, it seems everyone has a top 10 list of most things. If you are interested in technology/gadgets or music you can start to find some top 10 lists by searching the search box that looks in the blogs that I regularly read. If you are searching for top 10 lists on other stuff, try technorati to look for blog posts and their follow up comments or google for other stuff as well.

For me, this is a prime time to update the lists of things I want to see, hear, read, explore and experience. I bet there are numerous top 10 lists that could fill some gaps in our collections.

Take a Seat Library Service

I am not sure how this would play with our patrons. What do you think?

Podcasting in Libraries

Tame the Web reports on a Podcasting in Libraries Blog.

http://librarypodcast.blogspot.com/

http://podcastpractice.blogspot.com/

Setting up your RSS feed in the Ebsco database

Tomahto or tomato?

To us WMPL is many things and we have called it many things. They are trying to standardize their image with a new logo and branding. In the near future they will continue to provide the same great services, but they will be doing it as Western Maryland Regional Library - WMRL.
So I am starting to call it WMRL and I hope I don't trip anyone up.

Update on old posts

Good news. The online version of Valueline is coming to us all. WMPL/WMRL has moved forward and as soon as it is ready, we will send out the info and links. The benefit for us is that every branch will now have access to this great resource.

next update: We are also moving ahead (thanks to wmpl/wmrl) with offering a service that enables patrons to watch and download movies directly on their computers. The service is called mylibrarydv and is a product of RecordedBooks. It is currently be ing offered in Anne Arundel, Harfoird, Caroline, Frederick, and other MD counties. We hope to have that one up and running for the 2008 National Library Week Celebration.

Setting up your RSS feed in the ACLS Catalog

Trial of posting a video on Youtube

I uploaded a video that has been sitting around for a while. Click to watch.

ACLS Search plugin now available

Search plug-ins allow you to add collections to the search box in the upper right of many web browsers. If you have Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla Firefox 2.0, click on the down arrow in the upper right corner of your browser to see the link to install the ACLS Catalog in your quick search box. After selecting the ACLS Catalog, you can search for ACLS materials from any web page.

Thanks to Tracy of WMPL for making another idea an improved service for our patrons.

Social networking Site for Generation Z

OK, Yikes! Now that that is out of the way.

According to the November trendwatching report posted by www.trendwatching.com there is a new social networking site out there.

Generation Z = those people born after April 1, 2006

Foops
"Belgian Foops!, the first social networking site for GENERATION Z. It has already signed up more than 12,000 members (both born and unborn), even though it’s still in private beta mode. On Foops! parents can place pictures or sonograms on behalf of their offspring, and assist tiny members in filling out their profiles (including favored brands for diapers, toys and apparel), after which they gain access to virtual playpens where members communicate, poke and twitter via visuals and symbols. Each playpen is extensively sponsored by multinationals, some of which have plunked down more than EUR 1 million (approximately USD 1.45 million) for the privilege to interact with infants 24/7.

Foops! is in the process of hiring up to 40 bilingual marketing specialists, who will closely monitor the symbiosis of these 'conversations' and the site's abundant sponsored content and ads. With Facebook recently valued at a cool USD 15 billion, experts expect Foops! to be worth at least EUR 365 million (approximately USD 530 million) before Q1 2008, if growth continues to soar in the next six months."

According to the monthly report "a Swiss study has found that when sufficiently exposed to child-friendly brand jingles, tunes and spoken messages during pregnancy, up to 77% of all newborns not only recognize these brand markers, but develop a brand preference that could last until puberty, and probably into adulthood"

Dealing with Information Overload - from Tame the Web

a link from the Tame the Web blog, A Librarian's guide to dealing with information overload.

Weblog award nominees

Go to the Weblog Awards Nominees page to pick your favorite blogs and find some new favorites.
Nominations are due 11/8.

Can we do this?

You've been warned / James Patterson and Howard Roughan.

Test blog on new books

Title	KidChat : 222 creative questions to spark conversations / Bret Nicholaus and Paul Lowrie.
Author	Nicholaus, Bret.

Information R/evolution video

This video takes on the and displays how we have gone from "everything in its place" to everything is miscellaneous" Pretty neat. > Link

FY09 budget and Special Session

The Governor has released a budget that states if the special session of the General Assembly does not approve the revenue enhancements he proposes, the state allocation to public libraries will be cut by 10%. In Allegany's case that is a $82,000 cut. I would hypothesize that the cuts to county government from the state would also lead to additional reductions in aid from the county as well.

The irony is that the State deficit was caused by the State itself (passing thornton funding without having a source ofrevenue to pay for it and the 10% income tax cut under the Glendenning Administration) but they wish to pass the pain of fixing it back to the Counties. Allegany County is proposed to get a cut of $12,000,000 in state aid under the proposed FY09 budget.

B&T Duplicate checking

It sounds like a real struggle to get B&T to understand that their duplicate checking system is not working. We are still in the trial period before we make major changes in direction (like a new vendor). I can't understand that no other library is having this trouble. My thinking going in was that B&T was large enough that we didn't have to be the leader in pushing them to improve. That we coudl be a small fish in the big pond of book vendors. Perhaps we are hitting trouble because we are not big enough to have a department that operates like the big system ones they are used to. Its like the commercial where the 2 business men (ie big firms) laugh at the mini-business man (ie small business or us) and then put an ashtray on top of the mini-dude.

Busy Week -lots of Westernport Furniture work

Busy week, could be a hangover from the last 2 weeks of days out of office presenting at meetings. Anyway lots of progress on the Westernport Renovation. I received the interior designers work and have been making it fit in the scheme that works to get it ordered,etc etc. Take a look at the drawing for the Children's Enchanted forest story hour area.

Note Pad for the Creative Set

One of the coolest things we got at last years Learning 2006 Event was the notepad. This year they have made it available as a pdf. Hope you get a chance to try it out.

Follow the link below:

Notepad Design: Sure, you can take notes on a yellow pad. Instead, we have designed a multi-color, multi-format visual note taking pad for our participants, that is mapped to learning styles and explicit about types of notes that lead to TRANSFER. Check out this pad and sample of the Social Buttons at:

http://www.learning2007.com/buttons

Employee Relations

Neat Quotes/ideas from Sue Noke, Customer Service Chief at T-Mobile.

Her ideas on getting your workers to care about customers.
Listen: The folks at the front lines are the only ones to hear the customer firsthand. Listen to what they say and make changes based on their input.
Develop: Lay out clear career paths so that they can achieve their personal goals.
Educate: Give them the coaching and training they need to do their jobs
Celebrate: Define success in terms of the customer. The reward and recognize it.

Taken from Forbes, 10/1/2007 p 58

23 things wrap up

What a great time we had on Friday! Good food and People.
And the entertainment was outstanding!

Invisible hand vs Wisdom of Crowds

I was flipping through some book and a question hit me. Is the book Wisdom of Crowds a restatement of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand" that guides economics and capitalism? Think about it, if the market knows best, and the market is driven by masses of people buying or not buying something, isn't that the same as Surowiecki's point that if we all vote, then the outcome is best?

Obvious to Some

Did you know that when you create a powerpoint slide and insert a movie in/on it, that it creates a space on the page and links back to the original file?

So what? well I found this out when I tried to burn a copy of the powerpoint show to a CD to present it at a meeting. When I ran the show from the CD, no movies were present, only the black void of emptyness where the movie was supposed to be. No big, since I will bring the whole laptop to the meeting.

This difference is notable since it varies with how powerpoint handles pictures that are inserted
in/on slides. If you copy the ppt to a cd, the pictures go with it in that case.

The handling of movies in ppt seems to be designed the way web sites are designed with many threads connecting all the pieces that come together only when you display the page on the screen.

Tune in to Reading Presentations

We will be taking our Tune In To Reading grant on the Road in the month of October. On the 4th we present to the County Commissioners, on the 9th we present to the Cumberland Rotary, on the 12th we present to the Maryland Public Library Directors, and finally on the 18th we present at the Maryland Association of School Librarians conference. Thanks for all your efforts on making videos and podcasts. It is really beginning to pay off. Robert is working with Tracy at WMPL to set up a space where all our instructional videos can be stored and linked to from our web page.

So don't stop thinking of new "how to videos" that would help you or the public make better use of our services.

Valueline online coming our way

There is a good chance that WMPL will be able to provide online access to the Valueline Investment survey soon. This subscription will include the 1700 standard stocks in the survey, another 1800 small to mid-cap stocks, and the Valueline Mutual Fund Survey. It will only be available from library computers but we can offer the service at all our branches. More to follow.

Collection Development Policy Wiki

The Collections Team gave us a great start on revising and updating our Collection Development Policy. They ran out of time.

Anyway I have taken their work and added to it and modified it. But now is the time for you to review it and make any comments or suggestions that you think would improve it.

I want to get the policy to the Board at the October 10 meeting, so please make your comments by October 3.

I made a wiki out of the policy so you could change it right on the screen and then everyone could see your improvements. (Just click the “edit’ button to open the window to edit the document.)

To read the policy go to

http://acls-collection.pbwiki.com/

To read and edit the policy go to

http://acls-collection.pbwiki.com/?full_access=YY5qsq1SKF&l=S

Thank you.

Newspapers revert to free access

According to Techcrunch, News Corp head Rupert Murdoch has said that he was “leaning toward” making the online Wall Street Journal free, but had not yet made a formal decision.

This comes on the heels of the New York Times dropped their pay per view system, called Times-Select.

23 things -report

Jennifer did a great job last night boasting that Allegany County had the highest percentage of completion in the 23 things initiative. She was presenting your work to the library board. The Board members were very impressed with your learning journal blogs and wanted to congratulate you all on how much you learned and your transferring that to better serve the public.
Can't wait for the 5th!

New report confirms: computers make us busier

A new report, Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study sponsored by ALA and the Gates Foundation looked at the impact of technology on public libraries. They begin, Libraries have always been about the business of connecting communities of people with the information they want and need in order to learn, explore, create and build success. Computers and the Internet have been a growing part of fulfilling this mission over the past dozen years."

They report 3 themes:

• Technology is bringing more – not less – public library use
• Library infrastructure (space, bandwidth and staffing) is being pushed to capacity
• Libraries need more technology planning and dedicated technology support

Exceptional Libraries

If you ever wonder what high esteem libraries have held in the recent and long past past, take a look at the photos of these beautiful libraries. The details, craftsmanship, and use of space professes the value of libraries, information and the inspirational role we play in peoples lives. link
pat yourself on the back for continuing this grand tradition!

CD Search tool

see Janice's Thistlefeather blog for a link to Janice's Google search tool to find CDs by accession number.

Ebsco adds RSS feeds

Thanks to Lisa's email, we know that Ebsco now offers RSS feeds for their searches. This is just like the RSS feeds in our catalog. Where you do a search and then ask the database to alert you when any article or book is added to the database that fits your search criteria.

Back in library school they talked about making libraries and librarians more relevant to the research by re-doing the same search for a patron on a monthly basis and forwarding them any new results.

This is a great step to making our many resources personal to the patron. For example, a student wishes to do a paper on "Global Warming". They do the search (preferably at the beginning of the semester) for "global warming" in ebsco and set up a RSS alert. Now any article that is added to the database is automatically fed to their aggregator or news/rss reader (like bloglines).

another example, if a patron invests in the Exxon corporation and wants to track their activities, they can search ebsco for "exxon", set up a rss alert and have all the articles shipped to them.

All you have to do is to select "Advanced Search", do the search, see the results, then click Create Alert for this search"


But a super step toward making the library personal for each individual user!

Pics on a Map

Below are 2 google maps. It took 2 because Google only allows 100 or less placemarks on a single map.

The Colorado side of our trip (roughly)


View Larger Map

The Utah Side of our trip (roughly).


View Larger Map

Library Misconceptions - good video

See one of the entries to Eden Prairie's Library Contest

23 things a raging success!!

I had a great time learning new things and playing with new toys and finding out how they may or may not fit into what we do as a library. I can't wait for the afterparty. It doesn't matter what the tools are, people will come (or not come) to the library depending on the service they get when visit. Like they say in the military, "Librarian: its not just a job, its an adventure!!"

e-books

When I last looked at it, Overdrive had a smaller collection to loan and had lots of holds. Netlibrary had a larger collection but less usable interface to get to the actual ebooks. Neither played directly on an iPod. Since we may only get one chance at ebooks, I lean toward holding out a little longer until we get the best of both worlds.

Best of the Web awardees

So I tried out www.healia.com and liked that you coudl search for health info and then filter it by specific categories (male vs female, kids vs adults vs seniors). I think the public will want these shortcuts but am not sure the frame on th eleft is the way to go. Its too hard for the average perosn to see it if they were not told about it before hand.

I then looked at Attensa for Outlook. in theory it integrates RSS feeds directly into your outlook account. I will let you know if and how it works.

I looked at yourminis.com for widgets we could use and most of then show videos, and calendars, and clocks. So far they are not in a place where we can just grab them and make good use of them. I would like a widget for our catalog?

For travel, I tried Kayak.com and farecast.com, both good to sift thru all the various travel info and rates vs offers.

ACLS- mapped on Google

Take a look at the ACLS-Branches map I created on Google. I tried to keep in generic and specific.

Telluride to Moab Photos loaded on to Flickr

I have loaded the a set of photos on to Flickr of my recent trip out west. Click the link.

Next I will play with google "my maps" and see if I can place the photos on the map in the right place.

But what are they doing?

According to the National School Boards Association study released recently, here is what teens are doing on the when they use social networking sites such as facebook or myspace. "The study also shows that students are engaging in creative activities on social networking internet sites; including writing, art, and contributing to collaborative online projects "whether or not these activities are related to schoolwork".

Everything bad is good for you?

see the article available at: Read/Write Web.
"96 percent of students with online access use social networking technologies - defined as as chatting, text messaging, blogging, and visiting online communities such as Facebook, MySpace, and Webkinz."

putting 23 things to the test

I will be creating a flickr show of my pictures from the trip out west. I will post the url as soon as I get to it. anyway, here is a photo from the first cabin we stayed in. we left telluride (at 8700 feet) and climbed to this hut at 10,800 feet. The last 300 feet were the worst. I want to add tags to my pictures on flickr so I can tell what day they were taken and at what hut.

Interesting ideas on the freakonomics blog. see

If Public Libraries Didn’t Exist, Could You Start One Today?

Tune in to Reading -almost ready

The Backpacks with iPods loaded with the audio books and student created author studies, illustrated story summaries, and book reviews are almost ready. We hope to have them out by the end of July. This project is an outgrowth of our circulating kits of paperbacks and the cd as well as a version of the strolling story hour backpacks for elementary school kids. To start we will circulate them from Washington Street. We have had a great partnership with Northeast Elementary and Mike Fiscus. Lisa and the staff are working out the circ rules and check in procedures. More details to follow.

Thanks for the help with the Avatar

Thanks to the helpful suggestion of my fellow 23 thingers, I devised an avatar that really is a fine likeness of me.

Where the new FY08 funds go

Of the $113,044 in new funds we are receiving this fiscal year, 35% goes toward covering electricity, 27% goes to wage increases, and 13% goes to health insurance increases. Unfortunately, this year follows the recent trend that the largest portion of our budget increases goes to just keeping the door open the same number of hours.

Where is that book I ordered? Place that Hold!

If you checked the status of a book for a patron, why not go ahead and put it on hold for them?

If our catalog says it is on order, you can place a hold for that patron. If TS3 says the item is back-ordered, you should still be able to put a hold on it in our catalog for the patron.

At this time, Carol is creating "On Order" records for new adult fiction, new automatically yours titles and soon for DVDs.

If there is another type (say Harry Potter) that might generate lots of holds, I am sure Carol would create an "on order" record for that too!! just send her an email.

Where is that book I ordered?

Using B&T Title Source 3, you can see what is the status of an item is at any time. Go into TS3, and search for your title, go ahead and add 1 copy to your cart. When you click on update, the automatic duplicate check will tell you what the status is. (Shipped, back-ordered, canceled) Then just click in the cancel button to end your query.

Of course, the first step would be to search our own catalog first.

Grafitti to wish for

don't you wish we got comments like this?

created at www.letterjames.com

Technorati- thoughts on week 4

Technorati, the blog search engine seems a bit overwhelming. Then I discovered the tabs that separate what you find into blog posts, blogs, videos, pictures, etc. Do you have to register your blog on technorati, before a technorati search will find it? I can see it as useful if you got a question about a town or travel destination and the patron wanted to see what was being said or what to do in the town with technorati search of the town name. It would also be useful for reviews to pull real actual comments by people about a product such as Chevy Silverado or GE dishwasher. On to week 5.

Sneaks at the Beach

Sneaks enjoyed the sea and the late night tribal cermonies.

Kaplan Introduces SAT Prep for iPod,

From Gizmodo, That's right, kids! Now your iPod (5th Gen) can do more than just play the videos and music you probably stole off of the internet, you no-contributin'-to-society bum. Now Kaplan is selling SAT test prep programs on iTunes, so you can sit in the corner with your fancy iPod—and learn some vocab, Mister!

It's not just text or audio: the $4.99 modules you download on iTunes are interactive, and focus on Critical Reading (sentence completion, reading comprehension), Mathematics (algebra, geometry, arithmetic, etc.) and Writing (how to improve sentences and paragraph, sentence error identification).

The programs give you quizzes, which you can take timed or untimed, with or without music. Supporting features include explanation of the tests, Kaplan test-taking strategies, and analysis and feedback of the quiz you just took, whether you like it or not. – Wilson Rothman

Press Release:

Kaplan Introduces Test Prep on iTunes Store‎

Students Can Download Hundreds of SAT* Questions to Prep Via the Fifth Generation iPod®**

NEW YORK, June 21, 2007 -- Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions today announced the availability of three interactive SAT* prep programs that students can purchase and download from iTunes®, enabling them to practice for the college entrance exam on a fifth generation iPod**. Among the key features of the programs: students receive detailed analyses of each completed quiz they take, as well as feedback and an option for tracking quiz score progress. The $4.99 programs focus on the exam's three graded sections: Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing.

"Students don't go anywhere without their iPods and Kaplan has always sought to make test prep as convenient as possible for our students so it's a natural fit to offer test prep on iTunes. As students have embraced new trends over the years, from new learning and entertainment channels to new technology, we've adapted our materials in ways that are relevant to their lifestyles," said Mark Ward, president, Pre-College Programs, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

Kaplan's SAT test prep being offered reflects the three graded sections of the SAT (Critical Reading, Mathematics, Writing):

Kaplan SAT Prep Reading: Students consistently cite the critical reading section as the section they find the most challenging. Using this download, students can take quizzes in the following categories: sentence completion, short reading comprehension and long reading comprehension.

Kaplan SAT Prep Mathematics: On this download, students are quizzed on algebra, geometry, arithmetic, word problems and other types of math questions.

Kaplan SAT Prep Writing: First administered in March 2005, this is the newest section of the SAT; perhaps unsurprisingly, students scored lowest on this section in 2006. To help students build up their writing skills for the exam and beyond, this download features activities in improving paragraphs, improving sentences and identifying sentence errors.

Each download includes explanations on the exam structure, expert Kaplan strategies for the SAT, plus tips and information about the increasingly competitive college admissions process. Students also have the option to take the quizzes timed or untimed, with or without music, and can see their quiz score progress through graphically dynamic charts and graphs which identify their key areas of success and weakness.

The Kaplan SAT prep downloads are available on iTunes® beginning June 21.

Over 2 million students take the SAT every year; Kaplan prepares tens of thousands of students annually for the test. These latest supplemental SAT prep offerings come on the heels of Kaplan's recent debut of SAT/ACT Vocabulary-Building Manga, a series of graphic novels with hundreds of frequently tested words on the exams, as well as its launch on MySpace.com/kaplan.

*SAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board, which neither sponsors nor endorses this product

** iPod® is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All rights reserved

About Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (www.kaptest.com), a division of Kaplan, Inc., is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan is the world leader in the test prep industry. With 4,000 classroom locations worldwide, a comprehensive menu of online offerings and a complete array of books and software, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 80 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan also provides private tutoring and college and graduate admissions consulting services.

Flickr Magazine Mashup!

Just think of the possibilities.

July All Staff Meeting

At the July 9 all staff meeting we can review the status of the teams and their goals and expectations. There will also be time to discuss the budget if there is interest.
Again, we are re-working the teams so that most of the work can be done at your desk ands the need to meet is less pressing. The training team has also worked to make as much training as possible available from your branch and desk so you spend less time on the road.

Busting through to the new year

It seems like June has been very busy . All those ideas we have been talking about and discussing come into being on July 1 so June was full of actually putting the things in place that will make them happen. We are closing out a very successful year, don't forget that the Survey released in October revealed that 92% of Allegany County would give us a grade of "A" or "B." I look forward to another exciting year.

Flickr-ings

When I run out of silly/longshot ideas on how to make Libraries more relevant and useful to the public I go to Flickrleech for a screen full of nudges to new ideas and avenues.

Flickr also would be useful to preview a city or town or country you were going to visit and check out the sights prior to landing.

I guess you can't post someone else's photo on your blog? They end up as spaceball.gif and are empty boxes.

Today is Recess at Work Day

link

Unfortunate rumor

The Scales and Tales program at Washington Street yesterday lead to a unsubstantiated rumor that I was unable to tell the difference between an owl and a turtle. Here is an Owl :


Below it is a turtle:

I hope this puts an end to this silliness, as I have cake to eat!

Green and Local @ your library

When you think about the burgeoning growth of going "green" and the next step of going "local" the library works wonderfully in both cases. How much more green can you be than buying one item and loaning it out and having it used by 5-10 end users? In the field of books, movies, and information, we are a shining example of recycling.

In the arena of going local, we also shine in 2 manners. First, as local production holds the promise of less pollution due to less transport, we shine since because of our recycling model mentioned above (get one, 10 end users). Second, we back our local communities by providing access to services, products, education that allow us to reach to the outside world while still retaining our sense of place.

See the Briefing (Still) Made Here from trendwatching.com

Can People Leave a Class Early?

Here is an interesting question posed by Elliot Masie of the Masie Center. (they are a training and learning consulting firm).

Can People Leave a Class Early? While I was in Israel, a colleague posed a challenging question for me and several other learning
professionals:

"If you are teaching a class and some of the people in the course "get it"
after a few hours, can they leave? In other words, if they are quick and contextual learners and master the content rapidly, can they leave or do they need to stay until the end of the course?"

This got a heated conversation going at our table in Tel Aviv. It challenged the idea that we all stay until the last lesson. This person related it to training in the Army, where people move on as soon as they can show mastery. In that model, the class gets smaller and smaller, until a few people are left with personalized instruction from the instructor to help they achieve the objective.

It is a different metaphor .. but interesting if you consider the use of technology to allow a learner to "test out" in mid-stream. Does it more effectively focus the energy of the instructor on those needing coaching?


Think about it in terms of how we offer lots of software and technology to the public so they can learn it on their own and then move on. We don't even have to limit it to software or tech, think about how we offer books and knowledge and the public picks it up and then moves on to their next challenge. Think about it in terms of how we offer training to library staff? I would be interested in your thoughts.

Transpose is the word of the day.

I have been bugged for along time about how to change the orientation of my data in Excel. Today, I fell across the word "Transpose." I use this when I want to take a table such as average user time on public computers and make it fit on one sheet of paper without making the font so small that only ants can read it. The branch names are the rows and the months are the columns. What happens is that for the 20 or so months we have been running sam, the data runs onto a several page wide print out. Transpose allows me to create a tall table rather than a wide table without having to re-type all those numbers.

Howto: Select the text to transpose, select copy, go to the destination cell, right click and check the transpose box at the bottom. Voila! Freedom Fries for everyone!

Fish Philosophy on Ice

While in Seattle, I attended PLA in Seattle in January Murphy came along as an early Birthday present We were up early Saturday morning and headed down to Pikes Place Fish Market to soak up some Fish Philosophy by icing down the dungenous crabs. Here is Murphy in action.

LaVale Friends

Had a great meeting this morning with the steering committee of the Friends of the LaVale Library. Lots of ideas and enthusiasm.

George's Creek Improvement #2

The town of Lonaconing used their open space money to create a new handicap accessible parking lot for George's Creek Library. The spaces are restricted to those vehicles with handicap stickers and will make the library much easier to enter than the one spot down the hill in the main parking lot.

George's Creek Improvement #1

Take a look at the new playground behind the George's Creek Library. It still needs some mulch and then you can fall down without hurting yourself.

23 things up and running

I can't wait to see all the cool post that you all make.

Green Picks for Library Furniture

Want to reduce your library's carbon footprint? Join the Cradle-to-Cradle revolution, where there is no “away,” just a next life designed into smart stuff. Here Helen Milling shares the green products and materials her firm is using. From the Spring 2007 Library by Design supplement to Library Journal.

Small Step to "where can I go from here?'

One of the things we will do in FY08 is begin using a new wage scale. We have stretched out the grades on the wage scale to create an incentive for staff to achieve and maintain the status of “Library Associate” Library Associate is a state wide and certified training program for library staff without the terminal Library degree.

So for example, a circulation assistant was a grade 2, in the new scale a circulation assistant is still a grade 2, but if that circ assistant completes their LATI training, they automatically jump to a grade 3.

The higher grade has a higher median wage, so your earnings potential has increased.
We keep pushing more education for our staff so we can be more helpful, but we wanted a way to recognize and reward staff who take the initiative to get that training.

The new scale will be sent to everyone after the Board has approved it on June 13.

Are we Ready? Are we paying attention?

Are we ready? are we paying attention? is a great video that talks about reaching our patrons where they are.

talk about another great inspiring video on what we can do as educators and the public university.
see link.

the next computer??

Take a look at the new product Microsoft Surface and another demo . As John Blyberg says on his blog "Can you imagine plopping a CD or DVD down on this thing and getting an instant preview, then checking it out by simply placing your library card anywhere on the table?"

Westernport Renovation

The Westernport renovation is still in the design phase. Light fixtures have not been selected or laid out yet. The floor plan is set but the furniture and fabrics and floor covering have not been determined yet. Spectrum Design is working on some ideas to make the story hour area even more special. We expect that work to start in November or December.

Last Stages of the budgeting process for next year

this morning the county commissioner's passed the county operating and capital budget which allocates the funds to operate for the year starting July 1 and also their match for funds to complete the Westernport Renovation project. The Library board will vote on our operating budget on June 13.

LaVale renovation info

The application package for the FY09 state capital grant came today. It is due July 2, 2007, yikes short turn around. The County's commitment for matching funds will be due before the county's application for FY09 CIP funding is due. This will call for some working the levers of power to pull this one off. Anyway is we fill in the space in the "L" we will add about 4000 new square feet of space. and current estimates of $200 per square foot, we need $800,000. State grants require matching funds so they could put up as much as half but that still leaves the county with a $400,000 bill. Looks like much time in June will be spent of this application. It has to be done by June 22, because I am going to the beach.

Pandora radio

pandora radio is a really cool internet radio station. You start by naming a band or artist that you like as a "station" and pandora starts to play music from that band and others that have musical characteristics simlar to the one you picked. Its a great way to discover other music and artists that you wouldn't hear on radio stations around town. You can also sign on to "shared" stations and see what others have picked. Pandora is also moving toward a product that alows you to listen in the home or moible phone without a computer. For me this stopped me from signing on to XM or Sirius. now if they can get it to work in the car... if you like pandora, you should also check out slacker radio as well. Both require free registration.

Technorati universal search

Technorati has also expanded and/or modified their home page so that search results are returned and grouped by format. I always knew technorati as the bestplace to find blogs. Now a single search term like "Moab", returns links to blogs, links to posts within blogs, pictures, videos, music and events. But not web sites. pretty neat.

Searchmash as precursor to Universal Search

Thinking back to lisa's post about www.searchmash.com The same without the google branding?

Google's Universal Search

Like our own webfeat search, Google has expanded their search capabilities. You can now search text, videos, blogs, images with one search term. So a search for martin luther king would yield text, a sound file, images, etc. I say it is similar to our webfeat search because we combined our book and magazine and internet search in to one search box. The next for us would be to integrate our own blog posting and comments from our users into our catalog search. See the NYT article.

Transparency Tyranny

A web site I check for new trends called trendwatching .com has an interesting article this month called Transparency Tyranny. They point to the fact that over a billion consumers are now online and they have opinions and reviews that they freely share on the web. They posit that new reviews will be posted about everything on a hour by hour basis. In short, these reviews can either make or break your brand or company based on the reviews one gets and the fact that the 1 billion other savvy online customers read the reviews before they buy.

An extension is that as more cell phone get/give web access, these reviews can be read and posted whiel the customer is in the store while th egood or bad experience is still fresh. In addition, with the ease it is to post reviews about something, many reviews can come from "staff on the inside" who can say good or bad things as well as serve in the whistle blower capacity.

One positive note to this is that if your issues get exposed, you may get advice from other companies or entities on how to handle the problem.

In short, they say,

" "Old economy fog is clearing: no longer can incompetence, below-par performance, ignored global standards, anti-social & anti-eco behavior, or opaque pricing be obscured. In its place has come a transparent, fully informed marketplace, where producers have no excuse left to underperform. TRANSPARENCY TYRANNY for some, TRANSPARENCY TRIUMPH for others."

HIghlight of MLA Conference

One of the highlights of the MLA conference last week was getting 50 free bookends from our new best friend Eric Titter of Storage Logic. These bookends have been on George's Creek's Wish list for 4 years or so and I am sure they will put them to good use.

Unique searches in Google

Chris Anderson, author of the Long Tail stated that 97% of all searches on Google were unique. He said this in support that the kids today (digital natives) are much much better at searching than us older digital immigants.

PodCast on PodCasting for Learning

From our Friends Elliot Masie and the Learning Consortium.

1. PodCast on PodCasting for Learning: Here is a free PodCast that we did last week for our Learning CONSORTIUM on how to "Podcast for Learning".
This is a 55 minute dialogue with Russ White from Apple and a dozen learning executives from our CONSORTIUM. I share a few different models for PodCast design and we explore the challenges and approaches to creating. Normally, these monthly calls are for the exclusive use of our CONSORTIUM, but we wanted to share this very timely content with TRENDS readers this month. Go to this URL to stream, download or read this
segment:

http://www.masieweb.com/pod4learning

23 things or 2 or 3 things

Jennifer will be guiding us in what has been termed a 23 things program of learning about web 2.0. It is a voluntary 12 week program with 9 weekly activities that you can do on your own. Each week the activity consists of 2 or 3 things that take 15 - 20 minutes to complete. You will post the things you learn on your very own blog. That way we all learn from each other.
For those who participate in the project you will be much more web 2.0 savvy. For those who complete the program, you will receive a iPod shuffle.

She will be sending us more info but look to start around mid May or early June.

Neat low pressure way to learn new things.

Team Reorganization

I sent out a draft of a reorganization plan for teams to reach their FY08 goals. I have not heard any feedback yet.

Wmpl rotating meeting

After our wmpl rotating meeting today and learning how the select and distribute rotating materials, 2 improvements will occur. The DVDs will be shipped on a 2 branches at a time instead of 6 branches at a time. Each month 2 branches will get their collections. So the rotation period for each collection will be 3 months. We hope Carol will no longer be walled in during the arrival of rotating DVDs.

Thing 2. due to low circulation, we will no longer receive books on cd that are composed of 20 or more cds.

1036 Lbs

I received a phone call from the Director of the Western Maryland Food Bank and we collected 1036 lbs of food for the food bank during food for fines day. Congratulations and Thanks

Avoid overdue fines with a library basket

From Parenthacks.comn

Avoid overdue fines with a library basket

Megin of GNMParents on keeping track of library books:

We go to the library almost weekly. Between the 3 kids and myself our library bag is overflowing when we leave. For a long time it was common to lose track of the books- they would get mixed in with the books we owned (all 9 gazillion of them!) and left in every room in the house. This made returning books a bear and we almost always had late fines.

Enter the library book basket: I bought a special basket that stays in the living room. This is now the home for all things library. The kids learned very quickly to return books to the basket- even the 2 year-old. Now when it's time to return items, we just dump them back into the library bag and we know we are returning everything we borrowed.

The same idea would work for movie and game rentals, although we avoid the late fee problem altogether with Netflix.

Carson Scholar's advice

Yesterday I heard a past Carson Scholar and freshman at Harvard talk about being a Carson Scholar. She said that was very nervous about applying to college and her nerves caused her to be hesitant about acting. So she put up little notes that reminded her of what she really wanted . And that she wanted to go to college more than she was afraid of it.

I think her advice holds true in lots of situations, to overcome "the resistance" you have to want it more than you are afraid of it.

A-ADD

A link in www.43folders.com mentioned that the recent Blackberry failure brought to light the condition of "acquired attention deficit disorder” A condition of people who are accustomed to a constant stream of digital stimulation and feel bored in the absence of it. Regardless of whether the stimulation is from the Internet, TV or a cellphone, the brain, he said, is hijacked.

It goes on to say "

An article in yesterday’s New York Times suggests that the upshot of last week’s BlackBerry outage may be about more than just an annoying communication outage — for some, it was a flop-sweat-inducing night of cold turkey.

“It’s random reinforcement,” Mr. Katz said. The fact that you don’t know when important news will come, he said, “means you will quickly engage in obsessive compulsive behavior.”

These social needs and yearnings may drive the use. But at some point, that use becomes an end unto itself — a physical ritual that can take on some of the qualities of actual addiction, said Dr. John Ratey, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, where he specializes in neuropsychiatry.

Several years ago, Mr. Ratey began using the term “acquired attention deficit disorder” to describe the condition of people who are accustomed to a constant stream of digital stimulation and feel bored in the absence of it. Regardless of whether the stimulation is from the Internet, TV or a cellphone, the brain, he said, is hijacked.

Sure, I kid the BlackBerry addicts, but I do sympathize. Left to my own devices, I’d check email a hundred times a day and can still half-ruin a vacation with the constant need to “just check in.” Electronic fiddling is a lot like tobacco addiction and a lot easier to get away with nowadays.

Darth Vader Balloon

see http://starwars.com/community/event/celebration/news20070417b.html

Credit Cards ?

Do we need to start accepting credit cards for payment at the circ desk? or for stuff on our web site/

Waiting

We hope to hear from the County about our budget request by the end of April. Then we can start looking at things all over again, based on updated info and assumptions.

MLA conference

Regina, Lisa and I will be going to Ocean City on Tuesday May 2 for the Maryland library Association conference. The theme is web 2.0 and John V put a lot of the program together. There is a neat pre-conference on Wednesday entitled "Can the KKK meet in your library?' I will attend the legal ramifications and policy side of the discussion, while Lisa will attend the discussion of how you as direct line staff can and should react when this type of thing comes to your door.
See the conference proceedings at http://www.mdlib.org/conference/index.htm.
Place your taffy orders now.

WMPL rotating meeting

We have a meeting on thursdya with wmpl to observe how their rotating collection department works. So far, we have not been able to come to a mutually agreeable understanding of how it shoudl work, so we are going down to watch and maybe get a better understanding of how they do it. Topics should range from what is included in collections, to when it is shipped, ho wit can be processed, can a predictable pattern and quantity of material be devined so we can adjust work flow and volumenb fo work, and why does wcfl get a copy of everything that ACLS and Garrett has to share. Any helpful comments would be appreciated.

West Renovation update

Met with Nancy and Andrea (interior designer) at West this morning to review ideas and the floor layout. We talked about how to brighten the place up and our ideas for the new children's room. Andrea mentioned some irridescent tiles she had used at the new office of McCagh Roberts and thought they might be used on the circ desk as a front panel. If you have seen these or are going to see them, take a picture for us. Renovation to take place in November or December and plans should be ready by mid summer

Perf evaluation time again

It is time to start to schedule the annual performance evaluations. While there is no way to avoid the anxiety associated with them, try to think of them as an open and honest dialogue with your supervisor about what is working and what is not and what you need from the organization and what the organization needs from you.

Comments please

I think i set this thing up so that you all could comment on any one of my posts. let me know if you have any trouble.
thanks

Kudos to LaVale meeting room

A non-biased person (Suzanne) mentioned what a nice facility LaVale was to hold her meeting last night. She iked the way the kids could come in and go out. I was pleased because she bought me an ice cream when she was finished.

B&T Adult Non Fiction processing ok

I met with Carol on Tuesday and we reviewed a sample adult nonfictionorder. The items we received were processed as she wished them to be. The next step is to make sure we get the communications links workgin so that we don't pay for stuff before we receive it. I will work on that on Monday after the branch manager meeting.

Computers in Libraries 2007 conference

Rats. I went down to the CiL conference on monday to see the vendors and they did not open until 5 PM. From what I have heard, the vendors and programs did not change despite a fancy new conference title.

Future of the library Catalog

My interest lies in the belief that our catalogs will have to get loaded with all kinds of content including links to audio, video, archived discussion groups, and the archives of blogs if we are to continue to attract the public to our sites. On top of that all this will have to be searchable from a simple interface, as opposed to traditional trend of one search method for each database or format.

So my notion of a knowledge base was not so much a formal knowledge base but a searchable archive of questions that could be integrated into our webfeat catalog that already includes our books, music, movies, 6 of our subscription databases and Google.

To me this extends the library as community meeting place metaphor by allowing others (the public) to be the expert on a topic by contributing comments and answers to a blog that is searched as part of our catalog by another patron seeking info.

google homepage

so I started playing with google and personalizing the homepage. I have tabs for gmail, and the reader. oddly the gmail launches into a new firefox tab but the reader opens in the firefox tab?
what gives? I am also looking for a gadget that will allow me to post to my blog from my personalized homepage.

test photo

Test entry

this is a test of adding a blog entry