Sarah’s LIS 753 and 768 Class Blog

I was telling my best friend about our last weekend of class, how we were all sad to leave, how much we really enjoyed Michael’s teaching and working with one another both on our group projects specifically and the class work in general, and she said, ‘Sounds like the last day of high school. Did you make sure everyone signed your yearbook?’ I gave her the stink eye, but I also had to chuckle. Then I got a little sad because my time at Dominican is coming to a close. Full disclosure: until recently I felt this was a very good thing, but this class changed my mind a bit.

The dialogue with classmates online and in person instilled in me the sense that I was actually part of a certain community, something that I had not felt in any other LIS class. It actually reminded me of my undergrad years in the English department where we’d launch into heated debates as to who was better, Faulkner or Hemingway, with someone inevitably throwing down the opinion that they both sucked, F-bombs flying through the air until class was over and then we’d take the brawl outside for a few more hours. Maybe not your cup of tea, but I had a blast. That atmosphere was shockingly absent from all my courses in the GSLIS at Dominican. The language was tame, the topics never caused anyone to slam their notebooks shut and storm out of the classroom, and after class nobody went out for beers (at least not that I know of). Until this class, I didn’t think it was really possible to be passionate about libraries, information centers and the technology associated with the two. I think that Michael’s passion for the Web 2.0 tools and user-services was both inspiring and highly contagious, and although I can speak only for myself, I know that more than a few minds were changed over the course of this semester. I learned so much, not just about the Twitter and the Facebook, but about possibility.

I’m going to miss this class and everyone in it. Have a great summer and K.I.T.

The Whole Foods on Canal and Roosevelt in Chicago’s South Loop is the closest it gets to nirvana for me. The food, the people watching, the free wi-fi, the food…I can (and have) spent hours there. Stealing the sunshine from blood oranges and Texas grapefruits during the cold, gray winter months, sitting with a bowl (ok, a waxed paper cup) of cioppino in the food court for hours – in flagrant violation of the 90 minute parking limit – while soaking up the free wi-fi and people watching when I get tired of staring at the screen, I relish the opportunity to spend even 15 minutes in there. But today, while working on some writing with a friend at a table, a group of five college-aged hipsters sat next to us and starting boozing. I was shocked, and then I wondered, wait, is that even legal?

I tried looking the info up, but had limited luck. Ok, I admit that I wasn’t even really trying that hard. But I had a reason for not really trying, it being that I wanted to see if ChaCha could find it for me. So I texted “Is it legal to consume alcoholic beverages in whole foods’ food court?” to 242-242 and commenced waiting. After 12 minutes, I got my (non)answer: “Since Whole Foods doesn’t serve alcohol, it’s not likely. Call to inquire: Whole Headquarters, Whole Foods Market, Inc. 550 Bowie Street, Austin TX 78703-4644, Phone: 512-477-4455 – Thanks for texting ChaCha!” Well, they do sell alcohol, so I don’t know about the not serving part, and although I love a nice letter (who doesn’t love getting things in the mail – other than bills), my question hardly warranted breaking out the old quill and inkwell. So thanks, but no thanks, ChaCha.

A librarian would not have given me such a nebulous, open-ended answer. A librarian would have gone the whole way: which in this instance would have probably necessitated a long distance call to Whole Foods HQ, and this is yet another reason why I’m taking my serious questions to the people who really know just what it means to exhaust all your resources. As for the daytime drinkers next to me, they finished their six pack of beer, and I went down the street to the Skylark for a pint of my own. Even if it is ok to drink in Whole Foods, I don’t think I’m ok drinking in a food court next to my tote of coconut water & dried figs. Call me old-fashioned.

I love to start my mornings with black coffee and cold cereal. I do not love to start my mornings with more news about outdated “anti-piracy” technology that supposedly protects the publishing industry (at the expense of the user). The following excerpt comes from the NPR article, “Will E-Book Anti-Piracy Technology Hurt Readers?”

“But Evan Schnittman of Oxford University Press says that DRM is meant to protect authors and publishers. He thinks that the music business erred in not putting DRM on CDs. Because of that choice, music fans have been easily sharing MP3s for free on the Internet, and he doesn’t want the book industry to go down the same path.” Uh huh, ok, well, the problem here Mr. Schnittman is that the music industry did try this a few years ago. Song BMG thought it would be a good idea to sell CDs that had DRM software embedded in them. Among the many problems with this software was that it exposed the individual computers’ operating systems to greater threats from outside sources and raised the frequency of system crashes, and the best part was that it could not be uninstalled. To read more on this technology and the resulting lawsuit against Sony BMG, click here.

It seems as if the impending death of the old, industry-centered model of the music business were not enough to signify to eBook publishers that users do not want restricted access to something for which they have paid money. The whole instant-gratification element to online downloads is that if I’m up at 2am (a real rarity, yes, but this is a hypothetical situation) and decide that I just have to have the complete Columbia Recordings of John Coltrane and Miles Davis (which is actually something I decided lately, though not at 2am), I can get it. What if I downloaded all 58 tracks only to find that I could not play them as I wanted? Well, I’d want my $45 back, sure, but I would also probably feel like, you know what, screw this, why pay for something when I can’t even decide how I’m going to enjoy it? So that “same path” that Mr. Schnittman is talking about, well it is a dark one, but not for the reasons that he is giving.

Content, not containers – if all the Michael Stephens’ lectures I’ve attended have taught me one thing (they’ve taught me many, but if I had to pick just one), that is it. Get it together. If we pay for it, it should be ours however we want it.

When you tell people that you are working on a group project the response is usually a groan followed by something to the effect of: “oh no, really? ugh, I hate group projects.” And really, who hasn’t had a few bad experiences: one tries to run the show despite the fact that he/she has no idea what the show is even about, one goes MIA the moment you leave the classroom & because he/she gave you a fake number you cannot get a hold of them, and then one ends up doing all the grunt work while silently resenting the others. Over the course of my formal education of nearly 20 years (if we include kindergarten) and counting, I’ve surely been each one of those atrocious archetypes and doubtlessly more. My experience for this course, however, was a wonderful departure from all of that. In fact it is one that I would classify as downright pleasant.

I was a part of the Social Catalog group, comprised of Joanna, Leslie, Kristy and myself. Together we created the Teen Tribes blog, and I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we enjoyed the process and are pretty pleased with the (un)finished product. Inspired by some of the great examples we saw that first week of class of libraries that had hacked their own catalogs so that users could leave comments, recommendations and suggestions within them, we thought it’d be great to have something that allowed social interaction between both user and catalog, as well as user to user. Sounds great, right? Great, yes, easy, no. Of course, nothing worth doing ever is, even so, we realized that the scope of our initial ideas was perhaps a bit too great given our limited time and resources. So we got to talking. We tweeted, we blogged, we emailed, we shared a Google Doc, and we ended up with something that was still social, still looking at library collections (we used SWAN’s online catalog as our resource), but a bit more focused.

I enjoyed consulting with YA and teen friendly resources for this project, and I think the end result is still very true to our original aim of creating an online space for users to congregate and share. The whole project, from beginning to now has been a great learning experience, and I feel confident that if I were asked to do something similar in my professional life that I could and would do so gladly. As for the group element of the project, no one defected, all emails were responded to in a timely fashion, and we all had a hand in the glorious outcome.

I do not work at the Downers Grove Public Library, nor have I ever. My best friend whom I met in college is from DG and she worked there in high school, and some people think she and I resemble each other, but that is the closest I’ve ever been to being an employee of what I consider to be one of the most fun, user-friendly, 2.0 libraries in the area. As soon as Michael gave us this assignment I knew what library I wanted to monitor. If life were high school (which, thankfully, is isn’t), DGPL would be the popular girl and I would be the lackey holding her Diet Coke and doing her chemistry homework for her in hopes that she would accept me as a friend. If anyone at DGPL is reading this, I love your library, and I want in! I’ll carry your books (and your Wii games, CDs, serials & anything else you throw at me)!

I’m so excited I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just dive in. I started at the library’s home page, and I knew I had picked the right library when I saw that the left sidebar contained links to “Connect with Us.” A director’s blog, a Facebook page, a Flickr account & TWO Twitter accounts – one for the Junior Room and one for DGPL – all signaled to me that this library has a significant presence on the web, and it is doing it with the user in mind! The first few lines of the director’s blog’s introductory post speak of the DGPL’s web presence as a way to better serve the user and to offer a 24/7 connection: “While we cannot afford to be open 24 hours per day, seven days per week, we can provide patrons with access to many of our personalized services 24/7 through our website.” This is great!

In terms of “branding,” the DGPL motto: “The Place You Go When You Need to Know” appears on all the aforementioned sites, very much like an ad slogan. It is catchy, accurate and it works. All sites had been updated within the past month, both Twitter accounts are active (tweeting, followed and following) and, get this, one of the tweets referencing DGPL led me to this! That hyperlinked “this” you just clicked on took you away from my blog (boo! hiss!) and to the Downers Grove Public Library’s Web 2.0 Wiki (applause!), something that I’ve never seen another library do before. It provides the users with instructions as to how to interact with 2.0 technology such as social bookmarking sites and blogs, and encourages them to start up their own, essentially learning by doing. I’m into it. So into it that I may post more later.

For brevity’s sake, I will just say this: Downers Grove Public Library is not just “The Place You Go When You Need to Know,” it is also the place those in the know need to go (and just off the top of my head, look at that, I think I have a career in marketing if this library thing doesn’t pan out…). They’ve established a web presence and they’re taking their users and staff with them. I can hardly wait to see where they take it, and I can only hope that I can jump on board.

I was celebrating the nicest Sunday we’ve had in Chicago in ages by drinking and eating a little too much at a friend’s bbq where one of the topics was Cha Cha. For those who aren’t familiar with Cha Cha, it is essentially a text message service (similar to Google) that allows you to text any question you may have to the number 242-242 (spells “cha cha” – get it?). Standard texting fees apply, which means that those who are lucky enough to have unlimited texting can basically go at it all day long: “Cha cha, what should I eat for breakfast?” “Cha cha, I’m in Downers Grove, where is the closest Citgo gas station?” “Cha cha, where are all the girls?” It is not an automated service, but real people looking up the answer and responding, and lest you think that they don’t have a sense of humor, the response one of my friends got to that last question, which he sent at 5:30 am on a Friday, was, “Probably at home, sleeping.”

This kind of user-centered service technology is exactly what we’re been talking about in class, and this is certainly something libraries and librarians could get in on, especially as texting becomes an increasingly accepted form of communication.

PEW Internet Report on Adults and Video Games
PEW Internet Report on Twitter
Watching TV Makes You Smarter (NYTimes article by Johnson)
PEW Internet on Teens, Video Games and Social Engagement
Civic Engagement and Teens (Gaming)
Discover Magazine Article on Sharpened Thinking Skills in Today’s Youth, Thanks to Gaming

So it turns out that self-confessed gamer and intellectual Steven Johnson is not the only one writing about how gaming can sharpen mental acuity in both children and adults, as these articles indicate. Gaming helps make kids smarter and kids like gaming, so kids game and then become smarter. Sounds like a winning equation to me, and since libraries are getting in on the action that means that they will be filled with smart kids enjoying their time at the library. In fact there is a lot of evidence out there that supports what Everything Bad Is Good for You espouses, namely that gaming can nourish the brain, and so therefore is neither a colossal waste of time, nor resources.Take that, Mike Foley.

Without going into excessive detail, as my blog is turning into some sort of tame Taxicab Confessions-style tell-all, I have another sort of confession to offer up. When I was in high school I was part of a punk band. We would get together and play in my friend Jason’s attic bedroom for a few hours, mostly Black Flag and Ramones covers, and then usually walk a few blocks to Roseangela’s for pizza. We never really went anywhere (except out for pizza), but I can’t help to wonder how things might have been had online social networks such as Facebook and MySpace been around back then.

Sites like Myspace Music make it completely painless for a band to get a profile up and start building a following. So much of the beauty of these social networking sites is the sort of constructed serendipity that can occur when clicking from a friend’s profile to a friend of that friend and on and on until you land at that one of a band or person in whom you might actually be interested. And then, like the Common Craft video we all watched for this lesson, we stumble upon love or money or both (or, let’s face it, neither, but hey, at least you’re out there trying). Even better, these sites allow users to decide what they want to listen to, rather than to have their choices dictated to them by the (dying) music industry. Social networking sites are part of that wave of technology that really allows for the long tail of consumerism to thrive. Although counter-cultural movements have been around just as long as, er, cultural movements have, they can reach even larger, interested audiences thanks to these networks, and I think we can agree that matching user with material is something we as librarians can get behind (hello, Ranganathan, glad I payed attention in LIS 701).

Ultimately it is probably for the best that Myspace was not around when we were sweating it out in the attic, playing “I’m Against It” on a loop. I don’t need a public record of my questionable taste in, among other things, clothing and hair, and I don’t know how many people could really get down with what was essentially a Black Flag and Ramones cover band with a female singer. Who knows though? Maybe a few misguided youths in Iceland with a T-1 line and too much time on their hands…That is just one of the beauties of the beast, I suppose.

Yesterday in class I mentioned that the library at which I work carries Grand Theft Auto. This was a mistake. We do not. The game I mistook for it was Need for Speed. A game that though it involves cars, as I’ve been informed by a friend, does not contain hookers, guns or felony acts.

In fact, a quick search in the SWAN database for GTA indicates that the only copy in the Metropolitan Library System is missing.

This really just speaks for itself, doesn’t it?