mommy librarian

McDreamy Time

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Yes, the new season of Grey's is about to start... so in honor, I'll be doing a full day workshop at OhioNet today on The McDreamy OPAC. This is a revised edition of the program that I put on in February.

The McDreamy OPAC, take 2.0

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: libraries search)

PS. Yes, I'm back! I'll try to start keeping up with posts again. It has been a crazy half a year.

Our Baby is Here!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 18:25:00 +0000

Mack Joseph was born a healthy 8 pounds, 4 ounces on March 26 at 9am. Levi has welcomed his baby brother with lots of kisses. He is a bit possessive of his book collection, but we are still finding time to sneak in some reading time with Mack, of course.

I'll be back to work in July, until then I'm enjoying some time with my boys. Right now, they are both napping... ahhh!

Check back this summer, and I'll start blogging again.

A New Mobile Reference Contender...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 01:22:00 +0000

For those of you looking for a mobile reference solution, the new Sony Vaio UX Micro PC is worth a look. We ordered one that just arrived this afternoon, and it does indeed fit in the hand very nicely. The initial drawback is that the price is a little steep, around $2500.

We have only just unboxed ours, so I'll report back with more details later. For now, if you are interested in picking one up... Sony indicates that they are back ordered for several weeks, however, we put in our order to CDWG on Thursday and it arrived today (even with all that snow!).

Check it...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:47:00 +0000

The photobook "When I Grow Up" featuring my little guy is the feature on the Shutterfly Gallery!

Have I mentioned that I love shutterfly? Yes, it is a great site for the photo-obsessed mommy. We take so many pictures at our house... I'm starting to consider branching out and doing some photos of friend's children. If interested, let me know. Once things settle down mid to late summer with our new little guy that will be arriving in the next few weeks, I'm going to schedule a few sessions to see how it goes.

In the meantime, my blog postings will likely slow (I think they have already) with the pre-baby craziness, and then will likely halt for a bit with his arrival.

Sparta Library circulates the Kindle

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:47:00 +0000

Sparta Library, NJ is circulating two kindles according to a recent blog posting at their library site, and the February 2008 Smart Libraries. The two devices have a healthy request list of around twenty patrons waiting, a one-week loan period, and operate on an honor system that allows each patron/customer to download a single title to the device. Over time this builds a patron-driven collection as each circulation adds one title to the device.

Interesting... I remain anxious to see how Amazon chooses to evolve the product line.

Graphing Social Patterns

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Okay, so I never seem to find these conferences early enough (they won't let me on an airplane 8 months pregnant anyways, eh?), but wanted to share for those of you that can arrange last minute travel.

O'Reilly is sponsoring a conference on developing social network platforms, Graphing Social Patterns. The conference is only two short weeks away on March 3-4 in San Diego. The sessions are very appealing from Widget Strategies to Driving Fanatic User Engagement/Retention with speakers from MySpace, Facebook and Google.

This looks to be another one of those solid conferences outside the library world that I hope library representatives are able to attend. Slides from the first offering of this conference are posted online at: gsp2007.com/slides.

New Shutterfly Online Community

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 01:19:00 +0000

I've had a passion for photography since my high school days as yearbook editor, but the passion was mostly untapped aside from a short run of film photography courses that I took as an undergrad... that is until motherhood hit. Today, I take hundreds of pictures (mostly thanks to the ease of digital) without even thinking about, and when asked about my favorite web site my answer is usually Shutterfly.

I love the site because there seems to be no limit to the number of photos that I can share (great for the oober-photo fanatic), and there are so many creative options on how to compile and present photos. Oh, and if you buy enough they give you lots of offers for freebies along the way.

A couple of weeks ago, Shutterfly introduced a new component to their site. Taking lessons from the general web 2.0 movement, they now have a Community Gallery for sharing photobooks. There are many examples of traditional scrapbook-type books, but there are a handful of books posted already in storybook formats, including parents that have used photos and the photobook format to create original stories for their kids. These little original books are sure to be treasured for generations to come.

Circulation Workflow Best Practices

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:52:00 +0000

A special thanks to my former colleagues, Nick Tepe and Michelle Jackson, over at Columbus Metro Library for hosting us for a visit today. They walked us through their materials handling related to circulation workflow. The changes that have been implemented in the last year to eighteen months are quite amazing.

I can remember walking the staff hallways of CML's Main Library a few years ago being surrounded in blue transportation boxes filled with items requiring check-in. Today ... through performance standards, careful metric-based analysis and some big workflow changes, they are getting materials back on the shelf within 24 hours of return to the library. In fact the numbers are closer to 3-8 hours depending on the branch. This, of course, means that the materials are more available to customer and not hiding in back rooms or transportation boxes out of circulation for days and days.

The biggest changes are related to 1) floating collections between the branches (in other words the item stays where it was returned and is not returned to a "home" location), 2) sorting items directly onto carts after check-in eliminating the extra touches to an item, and 2) stand-up check-in stations that provide all the tools needed in item handling. (Should have brought my camera along to snap a few pictures of these.)

Kudos to Nick and the entire team at CML for implementing big changes for big results.

IDEO rounds out top 5

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:11:00 +0000

Just last week as part of the McDreamy workshops, I dusted off my copy of Night Line's 1999 DeepDive featuring the redesign process for the traditional shopping cart from the Palo Alto-based IDEO. It is one of my all time favorites for introducing innovative work process concepts.

I finally got around to opening the new issue of Fast Company, and learned that IDEO rounds out the top 5 on the list of the World's Most Innovative Companies. They are right up there with Google, Apple and GE. Pretty cool... and my favorite Amazon landed at 9, and Target is right up there at 17.

Check out the complete list, it is fun. More importantly, it begs the question... how can libraries break down our traditional committee/operating structures and behave more like the companies on this list. It's time for us to start McDreaming... eh?

The McDreamy OPAC: Creating a Vision for Next Generation Search Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 16:24:00 +0000

When I was asked by Evan Struble of OhioNet to put together a workshop on OPACs, I was a bit intimidated by the thought of putting together 3 hours of content. But I forged ahead came up with the McDreamy title, and started compiling thoughts based on my 15 years of experience with OPACs and the ILS software.

Three months later, and after presenting variations of the presentation twice in the last week (last week to Dayton Metro Library staff and just yesterday teamed with Nieca Nowels to a group of weather braving Ohio public, academic and special libraries), I can say that this was so much fun to compile and present. Oh, and 3 hours isn't really enough time to do the topic justice.

Here's the power point that provides a snippet of what we discussed.

| View | Upload your own

For those interested, we are planning a repeat session this fall for OhioNet that will be an extended 5 hours. Watch the Ohio Net web site for details. Yes, you'll have to wait for Fall. I vowed no more presentations until after maternity leave. Two boys under two is about the only thing more intimidating than pulling together a 3-hour workshop!

FRBR! Finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:47:00 +0000

Okay, so I've been talking about FRBR for a very long time. FRBR, or Functional Requirements of Bibliographic Records, sounds scary and over-whelming. In a nutshell, it provides the logic to connect multiple editions of a work making for easier customer access to materials. In other words, search a library catalog for the classic "Scarlet Letter." You'll receive dozens and dozens of results, and if looking for an available copy will have to check each item.

Now search Amazon for "Scarlet Letter." Select one of the book entries, and there is a nifty box under the basic title info that links you to other editions of the same title.

Library vendors have struggled with the concept for a long time, and haven't found a good way to implement the logic to make this happen. The wait is over for libraries! Library Thing for Libraries offers an catalog add-on option that will do exactly what Amazon has been doing for a very long time. Check out the Salt Lake County Library catalog for one example.

Now that the logic is in place, the next step would be to add availability notations for other editions, making it easy to know which one to click on... much the same way that Amazon lists the price info. Oh, and integration is good for classic webpacs, but lacking with the newer discovery platforms (Encore, Aquabrowser, etc.)... I'm sure that will unfold as well.

Thanks to Tim Spalding and his team over at Library Thing for this little breakthrough.

Wii coming soon to a library near you!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 02:22:00 +0000

We have an amazing room at Westerville Public Library for gamers. The room opened one year ago today, and features to large screen televisions mounted to the wall and attached to gaming systems (today a GameCube and Playstation). Simple furniture and a beautiful once-exterior brick wall give the room a hip-loft like appearance.

We loan controllers and games to be used with the systems. They are hugely popular with our teens, but yes we have found adults using the room, too. Usage continues to grow, and we have seen our circulation for teen cardholders increase alongside the popularity of the room.

In the next few weeks, we will be looking at phasing out the GameCube in favor of the oober-popular Wii. It'll be fun to watch our customers dive into the new system.

Two lessons that we have learned are... 1) Sound proofing the room is a good thing if feasible and 2) Plan on investing in controllers. They do not have a long life cycle with this type of revolving use.

If you are looking at such a space at your library, go for it!

Seven Years Later...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 12:33:00 +0000

Exactly seven years ago today, we launched Columbus Metro Library's (CML's) first database driven website. I did most of the coding for the site, as well as the database logic. I was the sole web staff for the large metro system. A lot has changed in seven years.

1. On Staffing... Libraries have (finally!!!) recognized the importance of staffing for the web, and are hiring not only webmasters, but web content librarians, and even digital strategists (congrats to Helene Blowers on her new post at CML). CML has a team of programmers, designers, content librarians to support the site. Across town at the much smaller Westerville Library, we just hired our first Web Content Librarian and are in the process of outlining big changes to our web sites. Yeah!

2. On Community... Customers are providing content! In those early days, library staff not only produced all of the content, they were afraid to open the doors to customer-generated content. It's all about building online community today, and the doors are wide open as customers provide interactive content on many library web sites across the country. This is such an important shift in library web sites, and builds on what the very first public library reading rooms established way back in the late 1800's ... COMMUNITY!

3. On Technology... Solid content management systems (CMS) exist today reducing programming time and increasing the possibilities ten-fold. That first database-driven web site was produced in Cold Fusion and required tedious work in building content management forms for staff content. Today, libraries are using Drupal and other tools to expedite development and stay current with new trends. Cleveland Public Library just launched their new site built with Drupal. I wouldn't dream of approaching a web development project today without at least strongly looking at the CMS market.

4. On a Personal note... I couldn't code a web site if I tried. A shift to management does that to a person. We lose those technical skills. ;-)

Wonder what the next seven years will have in store for us? I'm betting on the biggest changes to unfold in the areas of digital rights management paving the way to full digital delivery of materials.

Geek Wear!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:27:00 +0000

The antennas on this t-shirt actually light up around Wi-Fi signals. The logo lights up more brightly the stronger the signal.

Pick up some of these from thinkgeek.com for your librarians to help market wireless in your building. Yea, at $29.99 a pop they are not cheap, but how fun is this?!?

Books, Books, Books!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 02:28:00 +0000

A core collection of every public library is the children's book collection. In many libraries, youth materials out circ adult materials. I'm a big believer that these collections differ from adult collections in many ways. We are starting an initiative at our library to freshen the youth collections. This initiative will include weeding, changing purchasing patterns and finally merchandising!

The strategy involves rethinking non-fiction collections, building depth in popular titles both fiction and non-fiction, judging books by their covers (kids do!) and showing off the collection in kid-friendly ways.

Over the next several posts, I plan to veer away from technology and talk more about this print-based strategy. After all, libraries will always have print books, right? Even if the kindle catches on and ever adult in America walks around with one, the picture book format will thrive.

Is the iTouch too small?

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:24:00 +0000

So I bought an iTouch for the library a couple of months ago, and have been playing with it since. I came to the conclusion that it was too small for practical reference work, but before writing it off I shared it with a group of our librarians. I got mixed results from the group. Two staffers in particular fell in love at first touch, and so they are playing with it in a practical reference environment right now.

Initial reports back are that it works well for them. So I might order a couple more, and see if it catches on. I'm more and more convinced that we will not find a one-size fits all mobile reference device, so we might end up with 2-3 solutions in our environment. The trend is towards smaller, and smaller is not always better for this type of work.

We are also looking at loading the gadgets with soft phone software. In a nutshell, soft phone solutions will turn any device into a phone. Mixed with blue tooth headsets, you get one device instead of two, without the hefty phone service plan. Works well with Tablet PCs, not sure about the iTouch compatibility yet. Will learn more later this week. Hmmm... something to ponder.

An Experiment with Flickr APIs

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:32:00 +0000

For Westerville's 150 year celebration, we were charged with pulling together a quick web site featuring a small number of photos (less than 100). The intent of the site is to highlight the history of Westerville, but also to market the library's local history collections during the celebration year.

We thought about building an elaborate site, but opted to experiment with Flickr API options instead. The result is that all of the photos have been added to the broader Flickr collection, but are nicely highlighted on a dedicated site for the Celebrate Westerville initiative.

Using Flickr as a tool to digitize small photo collections is integruing. Digitalization software often comes with hefty price tags, and Flickr offers a low-cost solution for those defined small projects.

As for larger digitalization efforts, the specialized software becomes more cost effective and practical (being able to control your back-up procedures and data is important for large data sets), however, utilizing Flickr as a way to merchandize the online digital collections is a possibility. I'd suggest pulling a small number of the photos posting them on Flickr as a way to peak interest, and hopefully point traffic back to the larger collection.

The web community knows about Flickr, but they might not know about your online collections. These are two practical ways to put Flickr to work for you.

Rock On, Baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:24:00 +0000

I found these little gems while surfing Amazon earlier in the week, the Rockabye Baby series -- a whole series of CDs featuring lullaby renditions from popular rock bands. Who? Green Day, the Beattles, U2, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Cold Play, No Doubt, Metallica, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails, etc.

They are all on iTunes, too. So, you can preview them.

If they are not in your library collections, they would make a great addition. Much more hip, and probably tolerable, than the traditional baby music.

Consumer Electronic Tradeshow Underway

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 15:36:00 +0000

This is the week of the big tradeshow in Vegas. Watch for press releases and other information on new gadgets to leak throughout the week. The Today Show is doing feature stories covering the show, and Amazon has several features highlighting the newest in gadgetry including the Electronics Blog.

Lots of new digital cameras for all the shutterflys out there, and some fun iphone accessories seem to be the hot items.

I'm anxious to see the first reports from the SandBox portion of the conference on youth use of technologies.

Ever Evolving

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:31:00 +0000

Amazon has just introduced video reviews to their ever evolving collection of features. Now customers can review items in their own spoken word. Not sure how practical this really is, but it sure is fun to watch Amazon continue to grow the functionality and community of readers/consumers. Go Amazon!

Now if only they would create a model for the library web catalog. That's the day I'm waiting for. It would blow the ILS vendors out of the water, and Amazon would be shocked at all the money they could make on the library business model.

Personalized Homework Help

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:25:00 +0000

Okay so I've tossed around this idea for the last several years in verbal conversations, conference talks, etc. I'd love to see someone jump on it and give it a try.

Target audience is middle and high school teachers and students. The concept is to build an online web site for the teachers and students that highlights resources (electronic, print, web sites, etc.) based on topics the teacher submits electronically. Give the teacher their own library url (http://..... /mrsgreen). The teachers point the kids to the site as a place to gather resources for project work. Be sure to include links to online chat options to provide personalized services for the kids that do visit. The library gains a reputation as a place to go for answers.

Yea, this could be a lot of work from a content perspective, but with a good content management system and content staff, content could be re-used for multiple requests ... plus this is a true online service that matches the needs of the students and builds stronger relationships with our educators. The investment in content is sure to have payoff on the side.

We've been pulling teacher collections for educators for years... let's go virtual with it.

Kids in this age group are not huge library users, but they do rely on the library for homework. Let's find ways to build the library's reputation in the online community as a reliable source for homework.

Goldilocks and the Kindle!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 18:04:00 +0000

I just tore open my highly anticipated back ordered Kindles. Yes, we ordered 2 here at the library to play with. My instant thought is that the Kindle to the mobile librarian is like Goldilocks to Baby Bear... a perfect, comfortable, long awaited fit.

Libraries have been trying to figure out the perfect device for a long while. The first batches of PDA's were too small, laptops too large, tablets still too clunky... even the new iTouches from Apple are a bit too small especially when it comes to trying to type URLs, search terms, etc.
But the Kindle is just right... the text on the electronic paper is crisp, there is a small but easy to use "keyboard," and the device is oober-light weight.

Now, we just need to convince Amazon to open this puppy up for full wireless capabilities and the potential is huge. Currently, the device is really only for reading ebooks with limited online access.

Mine is only 10 minutes fresh out of the box, so back to playing. I just had to share my initial feedback.

Finally...

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:58:00 +0000

... an industry conference with a focus on kids and technology. The Parents' Choice Foundation has paired with the Consumer's Electronic Association (CEA) to put together the Sandbox Summit. The conference will be part of the International Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, January 7-10. The conference sets out "to examine the ways kids play in today's digital world..."

Wish I could be there, I'm hoping that the library community will be represented at the conference.

Be Festive, become a SantaThing

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 01:05:00 +0000

LibraryThing is running a special seasonal promo called SantaThing.

For $25 you can become a secret santa to a library thing member. Thursday, 12/13 noon is the last day to join. Once you join, you get a member, and pick a book for them -- someone will get your name and pick a book for you too. LibraryThing takes care of the shipping.

A fun twist on the virtual social community meeting physical, tangible services. I imagine libraries could implement this too, only we could allow customers to reserve a book for other customers based on profiles for free! It could be a fun virtual meets physical program idea. Hmmm....

Aquabrowser ...Improved!

noreply@blogger.com (Jessi) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:56:00 +0000

My former colleagues over at Columbus Metro Library have just launched a new catalog powered by Aquabrowser. Yes, there are lots of libraries across the country running Aquabrowser and other search discovery platforms... so what makes this newsworthy?

The implementation unlike others provides seamless integration into the "book bag"/place a request functionality and advanced search options. Other implementations simply shoot the customer back to a classic webpac -- resulting in a somewhat jarring effect. CML staff did work directly with MediaLab Solutions that powers the platform to solve this customer experience issue. The staff at CML should be very proud of the groundbreaking work that they achieved in closing the bridge between discovery platforms and the core functionality of the webpac -- reserving items.

My other personal favorite discovery platform implementation is the Queens Library's Aquabrowser. I love that Queens allows customers to first select a format type utilizing the tabs at the top of the page. I'm of the school that believes strongly that most customers know the format they want. If you want a book, you want a book, not a movie... but if you want a movie, you want a movie.

Kudos to Queens and CML for not settling for "out-of-the-box" implementations and pushing the search envelope. Improving search options is so important to providing smooth access to our collections.