Now what?

Now that I have finished my 23 things -- now what? I have been thinking about this and realized that it was a quick pass -- there is more to learn and do. So I am going to go back and review some of the things I really don't quite get and also move on to some of the extra assignments. Like Second Life. Hmm -- I always wished I had red hair...



In the meanwhile I have been playing with books and reading again -- here I am in my favorite reading chair courtesy of the Coral Springs Art Museum:


The book on the ottoman is River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Appropriate reading for south Florida only a mile or two from the Everglades!

Facebook Angel

Library Angel

Oh no, I have a Facebook account -- let me check -- is my nephew on this? He is the right age to be using it for social networking -- 17. He will think me way cool when I tell him I have an account.


And what is this poking -- I actually found someone I know so he has been poked and invited to be a friend -- he is a former professor of mine so this should be interesting.


As for my Facebook identity -- I do like my privacy -- but here is the picture I put up! Right now I will be silly or is it giddy from finishing my 23 things?

I think Facebook's rep has spoiled it for some people -- I find it a little uncomfortable to be on it but also realize that if it were taken more seriously it would serve as a great networking tool. Should ALA set up an account and urge members to join -- might even help recruitment to the profession!

Finishing 23 Things

Well in truth I haven't finished it all -- still waiting on my Facebook account to be generated but I will go ahead and write about finishing my 23 things. I wasn't able to finish on schedule but that is OK. The point is that I got through all the exercises and played with all the tools being offered. I see a great deal of potential and realized that I both personally and professionally could be doing a lot more. For example I like blogging -- I don't think of myself as a writer but I am doing a lot of it in my blogs and will probably continue it personally. I find I like using anything that has a graphical interface and that comes from my interest in art and book design. I do think visually and love using pictures to illustrate or make my point. In fact I feel my blogs are not complete without a picture! I had played with Flickr in the past but now am getting more serious about it. I have even invested in a digital camera to make it easier for me to use.

How will this impact me at work -- well the ease of setting up and using many of these tools makes me think we can easily incorporate them into our work. I have tried to look at them with library or reading or book implications. I see the communication aspects as well as the promotional aspects. One thing that I had not realized the importance of was tagging -- and you can see that in my blogs -- it wasn't til I got to Del.icio.us and Technorati that I realized oops -- should have tagged those blogs!

Finally I don't think this is the end -- my other realization this is only going to continue and Web 2.0 is going to grow -- and we need to say abreast of it. Despite all of the commercialization and Yahoo or Google generated products Web 2.0 is being driven by a hugh force -- people who have easier and easier access online as the cost of doing so comes down and the user interfaces become less geek or tech-head operated.

So my thanks to the Libraries for supporting this and allowing me to use work time to play!

Shuffling

A few years ago one of my sisters showed me her new Apple Shuffle -- and I immediately lusted after one. I saved my pennies and bought one and have been playing with it ever since. It meant that I needed to install iTunes so I now have it set up on all the computers I use. At first I did think I could only load music on it but one day while checking out the NPR site I realized I could save programs! I love Fresh Air but because of the poor scheduling of it on the local NPR stations I never got to hear it. Now I listen to it when I want to.

Want to listen too? Go to Fresh Air and subscribe.

What I didn't know for a long time was that Podcasts were not just audio -- there is video too -- but with my little Shuffle I will have to watch elsewhere!

On Viewing YouTube and Fontaneda

YouTube is a massive phenomenon getting lots of press --- you can't not know about it -- and its sensationalism. But as I played with it I realized that there are many other worlds on it.

I did a search on "book collecting" and found a universe inhabited by bibliomanics infected by a disease known as the "gentle madness." Book collectors -- and I don't mean accumulators like me -- are a special people. They love their books and they love the topics they collect whether it be fine bindings or jazz discographies. They can entertain me for hours with the stories about their books. Locally there is a at least one collectors' group known as the Fontaneda Society. They meet monthly at the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book at Broward County Main Library. Members of the Fontaneda Society share stories about their collecting, hear guest lectures and visit collections. It is a interesting group to hang out with and there are some very important local collectors who participate. One always learn something at a meeting.

Here is a lovely YouTube presentation by a collector in Syracuse, NY -- a treat to see her collection:

Winners -- and Losers on Seomoz.org

I poked around this list of resources and there were some real winners and some real losers. I could live a long time without Fuzzmail -- maybe because I already struggle with spelling! Why preserve it! I did try the one line story -- I realized I had that story waiting to get out for a long time -- and now it is written. I popped a widget onto my blog -- see quote of the day. Mostly because I like the word widget! And someone needs to tell Marsha about Yahoo's Upcoming where events can be posted! Some of these items have been around for awhile or variants of them have existed in the past. But they do get better and better.

How useful is all this to know about-- well it opens up my eyes and my mind to the fact that there is a lot going on out there and some very talented and creative people are developing and playing with new ideas and new toys. Keeping up with it all is tough but we need to pay attention and perhaps even make our own.

Using Zoho Writer Recipe Template!

Well this is not really library related but I do make it sometimes and bring to work! Creating Recipe

Name of the Dish: Christmas Fudge
Type: Dessert
Serves: 12

Ingredients

2 cups Ghiradelli Dark Chocolate chips (the best brand!) 1 can sweetened condensed milk (I used Magnolia) 1 teaspoon mint flavoring You can add miniature marshmallows and/or nuts too if you want. Prepare a 9/12 inch pan and cover bottom and sides with wax paper.

Directions

Mix together chips and sweethened condensed milk in a glass or ceramic bowl. Do not use metal. If using marshmallows add now too. Melt together in microwave on high for one and a half minutes. Remove and stir. If too stiff, melt for another 30 seconds to 1 minute. Remove and add peppermint. Add nuts now too. Stir. Quickly put melted chocolate into the waxpaper covered pan. Cool, cut and serve.

Wiki Whacky!

I have already had experience using a Wiki - developed by one of the Ref staff, Robin Kear, a year ago to help the Libraries SACS Review Committee compile it's reports. It served its purpose and it did cut down on the amount of paper being generated and the number of drafts floating around -- I would like to see it implemented for other projects but we would need it on a library server -which will happen.

The idea of sharing and group work done online without having to know how to design a webpage is the saving grace of this product. Collaboration is important -- no man or a woman is an island!

Why Library 2.0? Or Jane Eyre and the OPAC

One of my vivid memories from library school was going with one of my classes on a field trip across Morningside Heights to see a computer -- a room size mainframe. What did it mean for me as a future librarian? I knew it meant change. I had already seen the introduction of OCLC terminals at the Paul Klapper Library at Queens College the last year I worked there as a student assistant and remembered the buzz. But that was it for computers in library school. One visit.

My next experience with computers in libraries was my first month on the job at KU -- where I walked into a library where everyone was being told that they would be getting training on how to use the brand new OCLC system. Along with seasoned catalogers I too learned the ins and outs of searching on OCLC and entering records. But we only saw our results on printed cards that we received in a big box from OCLC periodically. We filed the cards into our card catalog. So much for computers.

In my first month at CU I learned that the library was being wired for OPACs but that Special Collections was not included. I can still recall going down to the Director's office and asking for a terminal -- and the answer was why would we want one in Special Collections! Well - uh -- because we had cataloged material too, I said and we could help people look it up. I had staff who were very upset about having to have an OPAC in the beautiful Rare Books Room but we made it discreet and put the terminal next to the card catalog. For a long time we had students coming in to see the first edition of Jane Eyre -- and telling us it was the only copy in the library. They were using the OPAC and the rare book copy was the only edition in the OPAC! The students were NOT using the paper card catalog!

Segue to sunny south Florida and my first few weeks on the job at Nova. A small room of computers with a network of CD-Roms -- I had seen a CD-Rom but had never handled one. Suddenly I was trying to figure out this whole new world of information retrieval. And they a year or two later I am telneting into FirstSearch. And suddenly the World Wide Web --- remember when we used to say all that! I even put up a website! Exciting.

And then a stall. Yes the webpages got prettier and prettier and I no longer could create a website on my own.

And now Web 2.0 or in the case Library 2.0 -- another step along the way as far as I can determine. Love it or hate it we are going to use it -- because it does makes things easier and -- for me -- most fascinating -- more interactive. My instinctive reaction is how can we use this and also that we better use it -- because the next generation of users will be using it to find their Jane Eyre. Tagging here I come.

Check out my Slide Show from the Miami Book Fair International!

Books Everywhere -- and Authors Too!

This past weekend my husband and I spent two days totally immersed in the Miami Book Fair International experience -- we looked at books, we bought books, we listened to authors, we talked about books -- all with like minded people! Imagine hundreds of people in a 4 block area on the Miami Dade College Wolfson campus all interested in books and excited about them! What a trip. On one block was the BookTV van, on another Antiquarian Row. Over there was Target's Children's Alley.

We started each day with our free Starbuck's and then we hit the ground running -- from building to building, sitting in on competing presentation by panels of authors. Saturday I checked out Amira Baraka after getting shut out of Wesley Clark and Walter Isaacson. I got to hear Andrea Barrett and Ha Jin. Sunday was even better with a panel on medical history -- loved it-- and then Edwidge Danticut and Francisco Goldman, Donald Antrim, and Diana Ackerman, and ending with a panel on What Orwell didn't Know -- Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics with Frances FitzGerald, Victo Navasky, David Rieff, George Soros and Drew Weston. Wow!

And of course -- I did buy books -- not too many -- see my Library Thing list over there to the side.

Mendelssohn

I was listening to the new classical station in South Florida (89.7 FM) this morning while driving to work and as they played a Mendelssohn piece it struck me how surreal it was that this composer could not have possibly conceived that someday someone would be listening to his music while driving in a car in south Florida. Yet, despite the distance of time and place, his work still resonates. I wonder how we will resonate with our blogs?

As I play with Technorati I search for things that I have an interest in -- rare books -- William Charles Wells -- Spanish Flu. As usual I am not getting too many results back-- not many people interested in what I like. Maybe I should try Brittany!

But yet there were some. I love this one: http://boston1775.blogspot.com/.

Or how about this one -- a book hunter's holiday http://bookhuntersholiday.wordpress.com/
She is having fun!

I see the possibilities of Technoroti and tagging -- googling (note the lc) is not the best way to find good blogs!

Del.icio.us and the Spanish Flu

As some of you know I have a forthcoming articles in American Libraries about the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak and its effect on libraries. I first became interested in the 1918 pandemic in early 1985 after suffering through a bad bout of the flu. Until then I equated the flu with a cold and was shocked at how sick I had become. I wanted to learn more about the flu and after some poking around at the CU-Boulder library I came across Alfred W. Crosby’s Epidemic and peace, 1918. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. I read about the horrible deaths people suffered and the extensive loss of life in the 1918 pandemic. Why had I not heard about this before? After that I began to read all I could find – but there was very little published at that time – and talk to people who had either lived through the pandemic or had family stories about it. I realized that my grandparent’s generation had lived through this disaster and that it was something they did not want to recall.

In the late 1990’s there were a spate of books on the pandemic. Gina Bari Kolata’s Flu : the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it, which was based on her article in the New York Times Magazine, renewed popular awareness on the 1918 pandemic. The SARS outbreak in 2003 brought more awareness and the World Health Organization and United States government began to develop informative websites.

In 2004-2005 there was a flu vaccine shortage. Because I was not at risk I was not able to get the vaccine in 2005 and in January of 2006 I again became very sick with the flu. As I recovered I started to think about what I would do at work if there were a pandemic. I had just lived though Hurricane Wilma which had come through south Florida in October of 2005. I had observed how library staff and users had reacted to a relatively minor local disaster. How would we respond to a bigger one? Could we learn from how libraries had dealt with a nationwide disaster in the past? The 1918 flu outbreak had been a nationwide disaster. I started to do some research.

The library had recently acquired New York Times in ProQuest’s Historical Newspapers Collection database so I thought to start there. In searching I found articles including one that mentioned that NYPL had stopped circulating books. This was a surprise. It takes a lot for a library to do that. In the Times I could read the day to day accounts that tracked the start of the pandemic and its spread. I then decided to read what the library literature said. I found The Library Journal and ALA’s Bulletin of the American Library Association on microfilm at the Broward County Main Library. While at the library for a SEFLIN workshop one day, I used my breaks to read film. I read every issue of the two publications for 1918-1919. While there were no articles or editorials about the pandemic – ALA did not even acknowledge it in its publication – I did notice that in a column called “The Library World” in The Library Journal, that there were reports from libraries, library schools and library associations, which mentioned the Spanish Flu. I realized that these grassroots accounts showed that libraries had been affected. I started looking at library histories and came across Place of learning, place of dreams: a history of the Seattle Public Library.There was a mention of the pandemic. Histories of other libraries such as Boston Public and the Detroit Public Library, also mentioned the pandemic. Going online I started to find library histories for such diverse locations as Brunswick, Maine, Michigan City, Indiana and Norfolk, Virginia– again all with a passing mention.

In April, 2006 I made a trip to New York City to see family and went to NYPL Research Library, a library I have relied on for many years. Remembering that NYT article I called for the annual report for NYPL for 1918 – and found a mention of the pandemic. I recalled that NYPL had had a library school in the early years of the 20th century and realized that there might be other library reports to read. I started to work the catalog and began finding many other annual reports. NYPL has a very thorough collection of reports from all over the country from all types of libraries, both large and small. A bibliographer in the past had done their job well! Over several months I made repeated trips to NY and systematically read my way “across” the country following the pandemic. I found annual reports covering 1918-1919 for Boston, Providence, Hartford, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Kansas City, Missouri, Omaha, Denver, Seattle, and San Francisco. Almost all mentioned and/or discussed the influenza pandemic. Each report also had statistics which verified the impact of the pandemic. Most importantly for me each report had a voice – a library director and his staff telling their story, talking about their work and leaving their account of what happened that awful year. Sometimes I felt I was reading contemporary reports – directors begging, bragging, complaining and flattering their boards detailing their needs and wants, expectations and dreams. These reports were very human to read and I wanted to preserve these librarians’ stories.

In the last ten years there has been a growing awareness of the 1918 pandemic and numerous articles have been written about the local impact on communities and groups including colleges and universities. Two that I found particularly interesting were Rex W. Adams “The 1918 Spanish Influenza, Berkeley’s “Quinta Columna.” Chronicle of the University of California, 1, Spring, 1998 pp. 51-52, and Laura Stephenson Carter’s “Cold Comfort.” Dartmouth Medicine, V. 31, n. 2, Winter 2006. pp. 36-57.

The article really wrote itself. I am actually sort of amazed about my obsession on this topic but I felt I needed to document this history and perhaps help people understand what might happen if we were to undergo such a disaster again. By last spring I had the article written and started to wonder what to do with it. Then one day I was reading American Libraries and saw they were marking their centennial. Perhaps they would be interested and so I sent the editor an email. They were and now the article will appear in the December American Libraries.

I still do research on the topic and right now I am developing a power point illustrating the story. I was getting pretty frustrated about keeping track of images I find online -- I could print them but then lose the paper or I could bookmark them but then have this long list of who knew what! Also I would be on different computers -- at home, at work, at other libraries, etc.

Playing with Del.icio.us was an eye opener -- I could use it to organize these sites! Way cool and it would make my life easier -- Now I can quickly find that video of Teddy Roosevelt again addressing a public crowd as part of a liberty bond drive in 1918 -- an incident that fueled the Spanish Flu outbreak in Baltimore! See: http://www.baltimoresun.com/video/?slug=bal-1918flu-rooseveltvideo

Gutenberg

Dialogues et Chants Royaux, UM's 3 millionth book

One of my fantasy exhibits is to show all the surviving copies of the Gutenberg Bible in one place. And someday I will do it. Not with the paper and vellum editions that survive but with digital and electronic versions -- thanks to technology many have been reproduced. The British Library, the University of Texas and the Library of Congress have made their copies accessible.

Last month I visited the University of Miami for the celebration of the acquisition of their 3 millionth book -- a beautiful manuscript (see above). It reminded me of a purchase I once made. My fascination with Gutenberg goes back to the mid 1980's when I had the unusual opportunity to purchase a leaf of a Gutenberg Bible. Not for me -- but for the University of Colorado as the official 2 millionth acquisitions. A real thrill! A beautiful leaf all the more special as it has a scribal error making it very unique. When I last visited CU Boulder it was the first thing I asked to see.

So what does this have to do with TLC? Well I tried using Rollo to make a finding aid for locating Gutenberg Bibles. It is set up but will need some work!

Shelves and Shelves of Books

I read. I always have at least two books going and a third about to start, not including trying to finish last Sunday's New York Times and the most recent New Yorker. What can I say? I read. I don't even have cable TV. On the bedstand is Nancy Pearl's two books -- Book Lust and More Book Lust. Just in case... I run out of things to read and have to quickly find something. Not that that will happen. The house is decorated with bookcases. I read.

LibraryThing would cost me money as I have many books I could easily add. I found it easy to use as it can search by ISBN -- but harder if your book doesn't have one.

About the random books shown to the left. Four have personal stories of where or why they were purchased that make them part of my library. You Are Here was acquired at an ALA conference. When I saw it it brought back memories of an exhibit I did at KU -- Delightful View: Pictures as Maps, Maps as Pictures. Northern Borders reminds me of a Vermont trip, where it was bought for $1.00 at the Norman Williams Library book sale. Cumberland Island purchased in St. Mary, Georgia after a day on that beautiful island which I had visited while in pursuit of William Charles Wells. The Fall of Rome bought after seeing the author win a prize for history writing while at a conference in Oxford. I got him to autograph it! And the fifth from the library in the neighborhood --Sharp's Rifles -- because I read.

Where have I been?

I looked at the date of my last post -- Oct. 19! Where has the time gone!! Well work for one thing -- it certainly does keep me busy! And we all were in Reference -- October was quite a month -- the highest stats in almost two years and more activities and events then we could fit on a calendar. That's over but wait til April! The other busy month!

My weekends, when I am not working, are spent doing fun things -- here is one recent activity -- a field trip north to look at quilt exhibits with members of my quilt guild. Here we are at FAU's library after viewing an exhibit of book quilts -- no, not books about quilts but books that are also quilts or is it the other way around? Whatever! The Arthur and Meta Jaffe Center for the Book had a recent competition for "artist" quilts that could be books as well. All of the entries were very clever!