Yesterday, Lindsay Peifer and I presented our poster session at Macalester College’s Library Technology Conference. Here is the link to our slides (which we modified slightly for the poster version). The slides are a modified version of our Ning.com project from Michael Stephens’ Library 2.0 course. Feel free to contact either of us if you have further questions!
Here are my group’s slides on our Ning project. I really enjoyed working with Lindsay, Erin, and Rebecca!
I have really enjoyed many aspects of LIS768 with Michael Stephens. I’ve felt very lucky to have him as an instructor; since this is the last semester Dominican University is offering courses at the College of St. Catherine, it was my last chance to get it in. I’ll graduate in one more semester, and this was a good way to gather what I’ve learned in library school since the intro course and reflect on my goals as a (future) librarian.
I have enjoyed playing with Twitter and using Delicious. I really liked the context book assignment, and was interested to read my classmates’ book reports. I also loved working with my group—it was so nice to work with such dedicated classmates.
Being given the time in class to explore some new things was also appreciated, and our class discussions were very enlightening. I liked hearing from people like Trisha and Rebecca, who didn’t initially fully embrace the technology, and from Christie, who’s a regular blogger like me. I liked being able to help some folks set up their RSS readers and get their Twitter feeds onto their blogs. I appreciated the encouragement from my classmates on Twitter and via blog comments. I hope to keep up with their blogs (keeping them in my Bloglines!) and hope to add to mine. I also look forward to reading their research papers! I will post mine once it’s been edited.
Next semester, this blog is going to be converted: I’m going to have an independent study with Professor Debra Mitts-Smith on the history of young adult literature, and I’m going to keep my reflections here. I’m also going to begin a practicum at St. Cloud State University’s James W. Miller Learning Resource Center (a.k.a. SCSU’s Library), and will reflect upon that experience as well in order to keep track of my progress toward my learning goals. Stay tuned…
From the mind and mouth of Marilyn Cathcart, librarian (formerly director of the Minnesota Legislative Library) and professor:
“Beauracracy is not a little horse turning swiftly.”
“Widgetry.” (Making up something that someone is an expert in.)
“Glom.” (Directing us to form groups.)
“Change comes from annoying individuals.” (quoting Herbert White, Library Guru.)
“Don’t make it ‘plain vanilla.’” (On crafting a vision/mission statement.)
“People have a voice, and they have a right to use that voice. That’s my democracy lecture.”
“I guess I am a bit of a goo-goo, because I thought it was nice that she called a meeting… and then she closed the doors and said nobody was leaving until they told her who had been complaining about her.”
“We are in a profession where no decision cannot be reversed. We are not sewing up aortas!”
“In the case of Northwest and bonuses for executives, well, I’d rather they bought a plane!”
“The spiral of death.” (In relation to the death of businesses/orgs.)
“We’re all kind of introverted… and we’re in Minnesota.” (On librarians not being visible leaders.)
“It’s not always going to be beer and skittles.”
“Trust yourself.”
I would say that the use of social software definitely contributed to a successful group project. Since I am an hour away from my group members, it was especially nice not to have to meet ‘in person’ other than in class time in order to gather our ideas. My group members were great about this! Since our project was on Ning.com and its potential for use by libraries, we were able to set up a Ning (well, actually two Nings, but we’ll talk about that during our presentation!) and ‘work’ on it from wherever we had access.
After we decided on our groups, Lindsay set up an excellent wiki where we could easily collaborate, adding ideas and sharing information. We used this instead of e-mail, because we could all see every reply and every change made to our project outline. I set up our PowerPoint presentation using Google Documents, and made a basic outline on slides for our presentation, based on what we’d put on the wiki, and then shared that with everyone in the group. Everyone was then able to add/delete things from the slides simply, with no confusing duplications. Even though Erin was not able to access Google Documents from work, we were able to communicate via e-mail, and get her a copy of the presentation, and then Lindsay got that revised copy back onto Google Documents quickly. This workaround turned out very well (yay for Google Docs!). Also, we were able to work on these things in our own time, which was appreciated, since we all have radically different schedules. I got an e-mail anytime someone updated our wiki, and got an RSS feed when our Ning was used/updated, sometimes early in the morning, sometimes late at night.
Work I did toward the project:
I am doing “Option #2″ for my research paper:
For this assignment, you will prepare a paper. . .that centers on the main concepts or ideas of your chosen context book. You will demonstrate how those concepts or ideas apply to the value set, philosophies, theories, or issues of Library 2.0 and/or Web 2.0.
My research paper is a cumulation of research done on video games, and how video games relate to learning and belong in libraries. I begin with my context book, “Everything bad is good for you” by Steven Johnson, and then move onto gaming scholar James Paul Gee. Johnson’s arguments that gaming is good for you, based on the complexity of this medium, are similar to Gee’s assertions that gaming has much to teach us about learning and literacy (his book: “What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy” goes in-depth on this). Their anecdotal and ‘hard’ evidence back up their claims. I also reference Beth Gallaway, librarian and gaming proponent, and Jenny Levine, who wrote an excellent issue of “Library Technology Reports” which I draw from. Both of their arguments use features of Johnson’s and Gee’s, but they place them within the context of libraries. They both make excellent cases for why video games fit in libraries. I then conclude with my own experiences with gaming, how they have affected my learning and literacy, and my thoughts on what gaming means to librarians/libraries.
I got to thinking after re-watching Michael Wesch’s video on Web 2.0 (below, for your convenience) and after a couple of interactions at the library where I work.
Yesterday, I was talking with one of my co-workers about Second Life, and how it’s different from playing the SIMS, and she looked at me like I had three heads. Later, I was talking to another co-worker about how helpful Twitter was when I was trying to remember something that a presenter at PLA mentioned. She was like, “What’s Twitter?” and I found myself explaining micro-interactions to someone twice my age.
I find a lot of usefulness in technology, and enjoy looking at the world in new ways, like Wesch’s presentation illustrates. I get really excited when I see the possibilities in things (hence the title of this blog) and I don’t know if it’s that I’m young and grew up with this stuff, or if it’s my general curiosity about things and love of reading and learning. However, I get kind of depressed thinking about the possibilities and not being able to implement change. I will graduate with my MLIS in about six months, and with any luck, my 10+ years of public library work experience and my willingness to learn will result in the kind of job where I can affect change and use my creativity and technological interests.
I wish I could embed this into my resume:
One of my favorite books to explain good website design is by Steve Krug, “Don’t make me think.” I currently serve on the Virtual Services Team at the library where I work, and we have used this as a sort of bible for redesigning our webpage (with Drupal!) so I have read it a few times. I bought my own copy so that I can refer to the book at any time, and attempted to use its principles for designing my site for my Internet Fundamentals course, which you can peek at here (please disregard the silly stat counter; my husband wanted me to add it 
.
I basically think that everyone who uses the web—and especially those who teach people how to use the web {librarians}—should at least skim through this book for a basic understanding of how users come to the internet: with a high amount of patience for figuring things out, or with a very low amount of patience. I think I fall somewhere in the middle, with bit of faith that the designers of any given page have tried to make things as obvious as possible, but I grow annoyed and weary with the thought of having to spend extra time in finding things due to poor design. I think the amount of patience people have with a web page can also be transferred to how much patience someone may have with any given customer service situation, including the library.
Now, this may seem like a stretch, but Chapter 2 of Krug’s book explains how we really use the web: through scanning, “satisficing,” and muddling through. Krug says we don’t really read web pages, we “scan” them, hunting for words or phrases that catch our interest. We do this for a number of reasons: we are in a rush, we don’t really need to read everything, and we are good at it (it being scanning). Next, to “satisfice” means that we choose the first reasonable option, not the best option, when searching a page. The term is a cross between “satisfying” and “sufficing,” and it fits well, I think. We do this because, again, we are short on time, and “there’s not much of a penalty for guessing wrong,” plus, guessing is more fun! Lastly, Krug says that we “muddle through,” rather than really figuring out how things work. I would also call this “exploring,” or as we do in Library 2.0 class, we “play.” We get things done in the way that we know how, whether or not it is the “right” way to use the web, and we sort of learn through trying.
I think this is also how people approach and use an unfamiliar space, such as a library. I think most users and potential users would rather search for something themselves and ask for help later, when they are so frustrated and their patience has run out. Users would probably rather “satisfice” with some lesser type of information than really find the perfect thing to serve their need (opportunity #1 for librarians!) and of course, there is the all-important thing that people are trying to save: time. Even though it may seem more fun to explore, and often is, a lot of people just don’t feel they have the time for this; this is where we can be ambassadors of information and provided excellent customer service. If we, as librarians and customer service folks, understand how our users are coming to us (with a lot of patience/time or very little) we can better serve their needs.
I’ve been reading Steven Johnson’s “Everything bad is good for you,” and I am loving what I’m learning about how participatory our newer media is—from gaming to television to the internet. I’m going to apologize in advance for this being a bit long for a blog post, more than this assignment calls for, but I am thinking about writing my research paper based on some of the ideas in Johnson’s book, so this is going to contain my immediate thoughts and reactions. I am going to post a simplified version of this post next as my context book report.
First, Johnson talks about gaming. Initially, he writes, it seems to non-gamers that the only benefit of playing video and computer games is better hand-eye coordination. Not so, he argues. Gamers have to understand complex ‘worlds’ and learn how to navigate them to reach the goals of the game, which usually are not simply spelled out for the gamer at the beginning of the game—the gamer must deduce the goals as he or she plays.
Also inherent in playing games is the necessity of problem-solving skills, and of decision-making. To me, it seems that gaming reflects the real world and the complexities of life much better than a medium like television. This is why gaming does belong in libraries; it’s a new kind of literacy which we are only beginning to fully comprehend as we learn more about how the brain works to solve problems.
Next, Johnson moves onto the medium of television. He compares episodes of television shows from 20 or so years ago to shows of today. He shows the number of storylines that a viewer had to follow in an episode of “Hill Street Blues” and “the Sopranos,” which is surprising; television really is forcing us to think more than ever before. Newer shows give less context for understanding what is going on in an individual episode, and Johnson illustrates this with the emotional interrelations in episodes of “Dallas” and “24.” This is astonishing, in a way, because we are no longer allowed to sit back and ‘vegetate’ to television—we are practically forced to participate in order to comprehend and enjoy the show, as is the case with what seems to be a throwaway type of show like Donald Trump’s “Apprentice.”
Then, Johnson tackles the internet. He writes that the internet is not ’sit back’ medium like television, but rather ’sit forward’ medium, something that makes us get involved. This is true in so many ways, I’m not even going to go there, and this book was written a few years ago, so it’s even more true today than even three short years ago.
Next, Johnson talks about film; some films have grown more complex, but Johnson concedes that the medium of film is limited in its complexity by something that games and television are not: time. The second half of the book goes into more depth on all of these subjects, and about IQ and something Johnson calls the Sleeper Curve.
I think my openness to ‘just try’ something has served me [mostly] very well, and I think this kind of openness will be useful in my career. I think I may experience frustrations with a lack of openness in my future job, but armed with the information in Johnson’s excellent book, I can thoughtfully put forth why these things matter. Reading Johnson’s book had the curious affect of making me feel smarter. All of that time spent watching “The Simpsons” and actually understanding many of the references was time well-spent, it seems, along with many of my favorite movies being listed as a micro-genre, the mindbender.
I think every professional could benefit in reading Johnson’s book, because it gives readers the understanding needed to think about new developments in our world. This is especially true for professionals like librarians who are thrown into proximity of these new media via patron needs and desires. I don’t personally watch television or play games very often, but I do see how my enjoyment of the show “Seinfeld” and the social web and games like “The Sims” have influenced me to more and more complexity in thought as I’ve grown up with them. By now, I expect media to be somewhat challenging, or else it is boring. This is probably why I love mystery stories; it’s something to make me think while being entertaining.
I heard this piece on MPR on my drive the other day on cell phone use in high schools. I loved the lead in to the story a few minutes before it played. It was cute; they played a clip and said, “Have you ever gotten a message like this?” and it was a young girl saying, “Hi, daddy! I’m in class right now but…”
It seems to me that the more permissive high schools (who allow cell phones during passing time) are encouraging appropriate use. Kids have the potential to abuse this, but if they know they are allowed to use their cell phones during lunch or on a class break, then that would seem to decrease having to break the rules and use the phone whenever it seems ’safe,’ thus potentially interrupting class/learning.
Also interesting is who are proponents of cell phones in high schools: parents. In the piece, the reporter said that schools who took away phones as punishment just saw them back again—parents would replace their kids’ phones.
I think this more permissive attitude is how many libraries should treat cell phones. One photo I’ve seen is a sign which directs users of cell phones to stay in certain areas of the library (a cell phone lounge, for instance) or to merely suggest a culture of ‘respect’ and request that phones be put on silent and conversations be kept short and quiet. Additionally, I like the creation of quiet zones for those who demand silence. I like this so much more than a total ban.
And besides, what is a cell phone today? How can you tell if someone’s using their iPod touch or their iPhone? Their Blackberry or their Palm? I think becoming the library police is not on anyone’s short list of favorite job descriptions.
