Clear Blue Dei

This is a video that the Allen County Public Library Youth Services made to explain tag clouds. What is also interesting is that it uses Vimeo instead of YouTube which allows you to produce a much higher definition video. Also, you can click on the full screen icon in the bottom right of the video to view it full screen.

This came from the ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology Blog.

ACPL Youth Services Tag Cloud from Kaygraphic on Vimeo.

Check it out!

~Susan Mellott

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What exciting news! Michael Stephens, noted Library 2.0 speaker, author and creator of the well-known blog, Tame The Web (and who is from Indiana!) will be giving a public speech at the Allen County Public Library Main Library Auditorium on December 14, 2007 from 10:30 - 11:30 on Top Tech Trends. Here is an overview of his speech:

What technology trends are changing the way we work and play? What trends have you tapped into? Join Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science, for an overview of trends and how libraries are responding. Michael Stephens has spoken to audiences in over 25 states and in three countries. He also writes a monthly column, “The Transparent Library,” in Library Journal with Michael Casey. His blog, Tame the Web, is read avidly by many librarians.

If this piques your interest in what Michael has to say, here is a fascinating video that Sean posted on his blog, ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology, by Erik Boekesteijn and Jaap van de Geer, DOK Delft Public Library, who interview Michael Stephens in Chicago about libraries and innovation.

And here is a brief bio of Michael Stephens:

Michael Stephens, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

After receiving an MLIS from Indiana University, he spent over fifteen years working in public libraries, where he developed a passion for the practical application of technology.

He published The Library Internet Trainer’s Toolkit in 2001, and two years later, he launched his popular weblog, Tame the Web. Since then, Michael’s writing has appeared in Public Libraries, Library Journal, Computers in Libraries, and a host of other publications.

In 2004, Michael was awarded an IMLS doctoral fellowship at University of North Texas, where he conducted research on social software and blogging. Named a “Mover and Shaker” by Library Journal in 2005, Michael joined Dominican’s faculty in 2006 and completed his Ph.D. in 2007. Recently, he has produced two ALA Library Technology Reports on Web 2.0.

Michael has spoken to audiences in over 25 states and in three countries. When not traveling or teaching, he resides in Mishawaka, Indiana, and enjoys escaping to Traverse City, Michigan.

Here is the PSA (Public Service Announcement) for Michael’s speech by Sean Robinson, head of IT at the Allen County Public Library:

And here is a link to the ACPL web page announcing Michael’s speech. I am very excited to meet Michael and to hear his speech. And stay tuned for Sean and Kay’s “Conversation” youtube video with Michael. After the speech, Sean and Kay will be interviewing Michael and then will produce a video of that interview as part of their “Conversation” series.

In the “Conversation” series so far is a 2-part interview with Jeff Krull, Director of the Allen County Public Library, and one with Stephen Abrams, Head of Innovation for Sirsi-Dynix. These areshort, professionally and beautifully produced videos, reminiscent of the style of the famous documentary director Ken Burns.

I am really looking forward to this Friday and then later, to watching Sean and Kay’s new video with Michael Stephens. I hope you all can come see his speech if you are in the area, or at least, stay tuned for my post announcing his “Conversation” video.

~Susan Mellott

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My husband Sean Robinson and Kay Gregg from the Allen County Public Library presented at IOLUG 2007 (Indiana Online Users Group) down at Indianapolis last Friday. Kay did a poster session on YouTube and Sean did a really fun talk on Learning 2.0 - Transforming Your Organization Through Learning. He is a really exciting and fun speaker (if I do say so myself) and everyone really enjoyed his presentation. He has a great way of challenging and exciting people and doing it in a fun way.

The first thing he did was to pass out a License to Play card to everyone (he and Kay created it and were inspired by the 2007 License to Play poster from Lee County Public Library) that they signed and put in their wallet. He said if anyone questioned why they were having fun or if they felt guilty about having fun, they could say “We have a License to Play!”

The theme of his talk was about the three legs of Learning 2.0 - Work, Play and Risk. He said that Learning 2.0 was about exploration and discovery. And it was not just learning, but transforming your organization.

He demonstrated these by some really fun activities. First he asked who was a real risk-taker. No one held up their hand. So he asked again and one person held up their hand. Then he gave that person a Library Genius 2.0 t-shirt (that he and Kay designed). Everyone oohed and wanted one too. The lesson? “With risk comes reward”.

They also played Romance Roulette. He asked for an audience member who would take a risk. He got a volunteer and then they had to open a romance novel and read a passage out loud, not knowing what it would say. But before the volunteer read, Sean said he would read first. The lesson here was “Don’t ask people to do things you are not prepared to do”.

Also, before the talk, Kay taped a starbucks coffee card under one of the seats. Sean said everyone should look under their seats to see if they had it. So everyone got up and looked under their chairs to see if they had the card. The lesson here? “The right incentive will get a whole group off their butts :)”.

Of course, he had many great things to say, but I loved these activities and I think they illustrated his points and made his talk fun. He talked about Learning 2.0 and how it is not just learning, but transforming your organization. He ended with “we are nothing special and if we can do it, so can you”.

Here is a picture of Sean from his presentation - “it’s not a surge, but an avalanche”

And here is Kay at her IOLUG 2007 poster session:

Here are more pictures that Kay took.

Take a risk! Work! Play! Explore and discover and get excited.

~Susan Mellott

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I attended a speech at the Allen County Public Library yesterday by Stephen Abram, noted Library 2.0 speaker and Vice President of Innovation and Chief Strategist for SirsiDynix. It was about Library 2.0 and the role of libraries in the future. And it got me thinking about things I’d like to see in the future at libraries. I started jotting down ideas on the edges of the magazine I was reading and realized that I had quite a few ideas.

And a lot of these are ideas that libraries could implement now.

1. I had a library fine that I needed to pay while I was at the library, but I couldn’t find my library card since I don’t use it everyday. So my first idea was for libraries to give patrons not only a card, but one of those little tags you can put on your keyring. I have several of these already, from Blockbuster, my Kroger card, my CVS card and others. I don’t use these everyday, but when I need them, they are right there on my keys.

2. Along these same lines, I would especially like to be able to pay my library fine online so I didn’t have to go to the library just to pay a fine. Being able to pay by credit card would be good and for me especially, I’d like to also be able to pay via paypal. Since the libraries are now online, it seems a logical next step.

3. When I was young, our library had bookmobiles that drove around and had stops where we could go and checkout and return books to the bookmobile. I remember walking to the end of our street each week and visiting the bookmobile. It allowed many kids from my neighborhood to check out books that would not have otherwise been able to. We could reserve books and the bookmobile would bring them for us and they also had several of the more popular books in the bookmobile.

I would really like to see libraries bring back this practice. There are so many people who don’t have a car or kids whose parents don’t take them to the library and this is a great asset for them. Alternatively if this isn’t feasible, perhaps libraries could open sub-branches in several locations like stores that mostly just allow people to pickup books that they reserved and return books. They could only be open say once or twice a week for a couple of hours. I think the value of being able to walk to a library outlet is immense.

4. Stephen mentioned in his speech that even though many libraries have web access, students are frequently not near a computer but they always have a cell phone and are used to text messaging. Libraries should have a mechanism to allow people to text message them. And I think having live chat access is also something libraries should look at. A good example is the web hosting service BlueHost. On their home page they have a large button that says “Live Chat” and when clicked, takes you right to their chat window where you enter the department you want to contact, your name and your question.

Libraries could have a “need help?” button (or something like that) on their website that would allow people to access their FAQ, blogs, knowledgebase, write an email, IM the library, call the library, instant chat, text messaging information and all the different ways that people now use. And they should be able to receive the information back in a format of their choice.

5. Libraries could set up a video room for patrons where they could go in an create a video and put it on YouTube or other video sites if they want. This would promote creativity and allow people without access to the equipment to take and create videos. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, you can create a video with a QuickCam camera that hooks on a computer and a microphone and optionally, various types of software for creating, editing, manipulating and enhancing the videos. And this would also allow people without access to a camcorder to take videos of themselves or their kids. And there could be classes in how to use the equipment and a place where people could show off the videos they created. And the libraries could have themes for people to create a video for, like “This is my Family” or “What I like about my Library” (it’s been done, but is a great idea) or any number of things.

Even better, provide a whole television studio where patrons can produce and televise their own shows on cable television like the ACPL Access Fort Wayne.

6. Libraries could also have a large, nice community center area with senior activities like bridge or Wii bowling (my mom loves this), singles activities like euchre tournaments and speed dating, family activities like Wii/video games or karaoke, teen activities like gaming tournaments, children’s activities like storytime, etc.

7. Libraries could run volunteer outreach programs at places like nursing homes or hospitals where books could be checked out and returned and where people could go and read stories to the people there. The ACPL has outreach services.

8. Libraries could introduce tools and programs for people with disabilities. The ACPL has an extremely good program called NEIRRS (Northeast Indiana Radio Reading Service). Northeast Indiana Radio Reading Service (NEIRRS) is a FREE radio reading service for people who are blind or have a visual or reading/print impairment (What does print impaired mean? A print-impaired individual is any person who is unable to read conventional printed material. It may be a person who is blind or has low-vision, they may have a literacy issue, or a physical impairment which makes it difficult to hold a book or turn pages (stroke, Parkinson’s, arthritis). NEIRRS is staffed by volunteers and provides loans for receivers to pick up their broadcasts. NEIRRS volunteers read local news and features from a dozen area newspapers, plus magazines, books, grocery ads, obituaries and more.

Or if a library is small and doesn’t have the resources for this, they can provide podcasts online. NEIRRS also has started doing podcasts of things of interest in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette each day, such as obituaries and selected readings. This really is pretty easy and cheap to implement.

And there are many other things that libraries can look at. I know that my mom can’t read the print on the computers and I find that I am having a harder time with that myself. Providing some computers with extra-large text, screen readers, text enlargers and other features would help a lot of people, as would easy wheelchair access, etc.

9. Libraries could provide email newsletters about events and topics of interest, like a children’s, teens, families, etc events newsletter, reading programs, educational programs, new books or selected books, music/art/special events, branch information, etc.

10. There are many interesting ideas for new programs that libraries could introduce. Here are some things that the Allen County Public Library are doing and I’m sure libraries could come up with much more: Antiques Evaluation Day, Teen Sumo Robots tournaments, Llamas @ the Library, Paws to Read (one of my favorites), Miniature Mayhem, Teen Events grades 6-12, musical performances, Movie Night @ the Library (scroll down), art exhibits, genealogy and flickr pictures of other ACPL programs.

Well, these are a few of my ideas. What do you think?

~Susan Mellott

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All you librarians out there, look at the cool Web 2.0 learning program the Allen County Public Library is doing for its staff!

The ACPL in Fort Wayne, Indiana has been running an amazing Web 2.0 program called “Geek Out, Don’t Freak Out” since March 29, 2006 for the staff.

Here is the information and the very first classes that were run at the ACPL last year:

Geek Out, Don’t Freak Out!
Last Wednesday of each month
8:00-9:00 am

What’s this all about? The Digital Collaborative has been talking about ways to help interested staff feel more comfortable with new technology, and we’d like to try a new idea. It’s part training session, part question and answer period, and part test drive: we plan to give a short presentation on the topic of the month and then allow time for questions, discussion, and experimentation. The goal is for you to see if technology will help make your job easier, and let you off the hook if it doesn’t. No registration is necessary; just show up if you can make it and join the (geeky) fun!

Episode 1: The Joy of Firefox
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
8:00-9:00 am
Genealogy Reading Room
Main Library, 3rd Floor

You have this new browser icon on your desktop — so what? Why use it instead of what you already know? We’ll talk about some of the features in Firefox that you might find beneficial, and give you a chance to see what the big deal is.

Episode 2: What’s So Simple About RSS (really simple syndication)?
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
8:00-9:00 am
location TBA

RSS is a way to keep track of updates to a website without having to go and check the site. This isn’t such a big problem with just a couple of favorites, but if you’re regularly reading a dozen blogs, and you want to keep track of headlines, and you want to see when new stuff is added to the Librarian’s Internet Index, RSS can make your life easier.

Episode 3: Blog Boot Camp
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
8:00-9:00 am
location TBA

ACPL has a blog. ACPL has bloggers.
Get practical information on how and why to blog for the library.

And the sessions have been ongoing since then! Here is a link to the latest set of classes (taken from the ACPL IT Blog - Innovation Through Technology). And here is the schedule. Doesn’t the ACPL sound like a fun and innovative place to work?!

Episode 13: More Tasty Del.icio.us
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
8:00-9:00 am
Main Library, Meeting Room B

Access your bookmarks from any computer, tag them, and share them with the world. Good for home (bookmark that page you want to get back to when you have more time), and good for work (share your favorite sites with other staff).

Upcoming sessions will be on the last Wednesday of each month. Here’s what’s on the schedule:

Rerun! Episode 5: My Friend Flickr
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
8:00-9:00 am

Digital photography makes it so easy to document your life, and Flickr makes it just as easy to organize and share your images with the world. We show you what Flickr is, how it works, and how you can use it at home and at the library.

Episode 14: YouTubeTorial
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
8:00-9:00 am

Find cool stuff on YouTube. Put cool stuff on YouTube. It’s even easier than you think!

Episode 15: Let’s Play
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
8:00-9:00 am

Why should our patrons (or your kids) have all the fun? Come check out the world of gaming at the library, and try your hand at Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero, and Wii Bowling, among others.

~Susan Mellott

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Stephen Abram, noted Library 2.0 speaker and Vice President of Innovation for SirsiDynix and Chief Strategist for the SirsiDynix Institute will be at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana to speak to the ACPL staff on the Top 10 Strategies for Library Success and a public speech on Library 2.0 in the Real World on September 19, 2007 at the ACPL Downtown Main Library Auditorium. Follow the link above for more information about Stephen Abram. Here is an overview of each session.

The Top 10 Strategies for Library Success

Session 1: 8 am – 9 am Auditorium Main Library (ACPL staff only)

“Now that we are well into the new Millennium, what are the top ten issues facing libraries and the library profession? What are the top strategies we need to employ to ensure our success in our communities and learning institutions? Will advertising driven search engines really win the hearts and minds of our customers? Are our collections right for today or will use of Google’s vault of digitized books grow wildly? Are we ready for the next round of technology and social change? Will our local and national cultures be overwhelmed by generic world services?”

A Tech Forecast: Library 2.0 in the Real World

Session 2: 11 am – noon (Open to general public and ACPL staff)

“RSS, YouTube, Blogs, Wikis, Facebook, MySpace, and more! There is a global conversation going on right now about what will the next generation of the web be like? It’s happening largely under the meme of Web 2.0. It’s the McLuhanesque hot web where true human interaction takes precedence over merely ‘cool’ information delivery and e-mail. It’s about putting information into the real context of our users’ lives, learning, research and play. Concurrently, a group of information professionals are having a conversation about the vision for what Library 2.0 will look like in this Web 2.0 ecosystem. Some are even going so far as to talk about Web 3.0! Web 2.0 is coming fast and it’s BIG! What are the skills and competencies that Librarian 2.0 will need? MySpace and Facebook are just the tip of the iceberg! Come and hear an overview of Web 2.0 and a draft vision for Library 2.0 and an opinion about what adaptations we’ll need to make to thrive in this future scenario.”

(Note: you can substitute “concept” for “meme” and “media-rich” for “McLuhanesque” if you are like me and don’t really understand those terms)

Here is the Public Service Announcement (on YouTube, of course!) about Stephen Abram’s upcoming visit by Sean Robinson, Head of Information Technology at the Allen County Public Library.

I am really looking forward to it and I will definitely be there!

~Susan Mellott

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In my post of August 8, I wrote about the very cool Library Genius 2.0 t-shirts that Kay Gregg and Sean Robinson of the Allen County Public Library created for the Learning 2.0 program for the library staff that the ACPL is going to kick off on Sept 19 when Stephen Abrams, VP of Innovation at SirsiDynix comes to speak on Library 2.0 at the ACPL. By the way, this talk will be open to the public. Here is a picture of Kay modeling the t-shirt.

Well, everyone really liked the t-shirts and the icons and had been asking them where they could get one for themselves or for their own library’s learning programs. So Sean and Kay set up a store under Printfection/library2_0 where you can buy these shirts and some other styles like long-sleeve t-shirts and baseball shirts and others and also tote bags and aprons and mouse pads. They come in a ton of colors and there is a good discount for bulk purchases. They are cheapest in white, a little more in light colors and a little more than that in dark colors. You can see all the wholesale pricing options by picking style and color and then clicking on the pricing tab.

Helene Blowers, Public Services Technology Director for the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) and creator of the Learning 2.0 concept, wrote about these shirts on her blog, librarybytes.com. ACPL sent her a shirt in appreciation of her work on Learning 2.0. Here is a picture she took of the shirt and buttons.

Sean and Kay are working on creating buttons for this also and they will put them in their store on cafepress (along with some other things like messenger bags and coffee mugs) since Printfection does not have buttons as an option. They already have the bags and coffee mugs there, but need to upload the individual icons to create the buttons. If you are interested in the buttons, check back on the cafepress store because they are working on getting them created right now.

Cafepress has a lot of options of different types of items, but Printfection is less expensive and offers wholesale prices also. I’d go to Printfection unless there was a particular thing you wanted, like the messenger bag (which I really want!). Or the buttons, since that is the only place to get them. It does appear they have a way to offer the buttons in batches, like of 10, or 100.

Also, other libraries, such as the Harris County Public Library are using the icons that Kay created for their own Learning 2.0 programs which is what Sean had hoped people would do. He wanted to be able to contribute to the Learning 2.0 program. You can read about this and their other ideas, initiatives and Learning 2.0 projects in the ACPL Innovation Through Technology blog. Many people in many libraries have worked on Learning 2.0 and Library 2.0 and have shared with each other to create great things.

Cooperation, collaboration and sharing. That’s what its all about!

~Susan Mellott

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Check out these Library Genius 2.0 T-shirts for the Allen County Public Library Learning 2.0 program, found on this post from the ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology Blog. Kay Gregg designed these shirts and all the icons associated with each Learning 2.0 course completed! They will be used to kick-off the ACPL Digital Collaborative’s Learning 2.0 presentation. Here is Kay modeling one of the new t-shirts:

Look at this post from ACPL’s IT blog on Library 2.0 Bling for a closeup of each icon. and here is a picture of the Learning Video 2.0 button.

For more information on the ACPL’s Learning 2.0, check out these posts from the ACPL Innovation Through Technology blog. And for what ACPL’s Digital Collaborative is creating for Learning 2.0, check out the ACPL DC Wiki’s “21 Things“. Click on the links to see what each person has created. This wiki is a working wiki for the Digital Collaborative and is constantly being updated.

I want to be a Library Genius 2.0!

~Susan Mellott

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Just for fun, I created an old-fashioned card catalog card for the book I had downloaded from baen.com/library using John Blyberg’s card catalog generator. You have to enter the data by hand (I copied the information from Amazon.com) but it makes a really fun graphic. With some programming, you can make a mashup that uses this. A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.

Sean Robinson (my husband and head of IT Technology at the ACPL) created this book wall called Books we added to the catalog yesterday combining the new material checked in each day at the ACPL (Allen County Public Library) with data from Amazon. It shows pictures of the actual book covers for each book and if you click on a book cover, it will show you an old-fashioned card catalog for that book and information on it from Amazon (if the book is brand new, it doesn’t necessarily have review info yet).

Then you can click on “Look this up in our catalog” to see the ACPL card catalog information on that book like how many copies there are and if they are available and where they are located and do all sorts of neat things like add it to your list or put it on hold. You can also find more books by that author, more books with those topics or browse nearby call numbers (books that would be on the library shelf with this book).

Go check it out and play around with it. It is a great example of how you can combine Web 2.0 tools to create something new and exciting and useful.

For this and more innovative ways the Allen County Public Library uses Web 2.0, visit their Library 2.0 site: ACPLib2.0. ACPL Rules!

~Susan Mellott

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Per the World Public Library website: “July 4th to August 4th Download Your Selections From 500,000+ eBooks for Free.”

According to their site: “Hosted in World Public Library’s multi-terabyte server network is the world’s largest digital archive of PDF ebooks and edocuments.  Our collection hosts more than 500,000+ PDF ebooks and edocuments.  As a member you will have complete access to the entire collection.  Our collection is constantly growing and our projection is to reach 600,000 by fall of 2008″

Here is a link to their Facts, Questions and Answers page. According to their price sheet, it is $8.95 per year to become a member, or $2/year per FTE institutional rate (for public librarie, priced per number of cardholders - which could possibly be adjusted).

I downloaded the Northwind Trilogy by David Drake and Bedlam Boyz by Ellen Guon to check it out.  It downloaded quickly and I was able to save it to my hard-drive to read.  I did go to the public access page to do a search and got an error message, but I could browse collections and download from home page without any problems.  And I just did a search using the member search on the home page and it worked for me (but I couldn’t download), although I couldn’t really find anything I was looking for .

Another thing of note is that on the Baen Books site, they have a free library also of a selection of their books you can download in several different formats for free.  Both Ellen Guon and David Drake have free downloads of several of their books as well as many other authors.  I downloaded Sunrise Alley by Catherine Asaro in a very nice html format.

And of course, a search for free ebooks through Google turns up several more sites that I didn’t check out.  You can though!

So go “check it out”!

~Susan Mellott

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