Aaron the Librarian

Aaron Dobbs

Originally uploaded by cindiann

Just a little blurry & slightly out of focus — This is my favorite picture of me from ALA Annual.
Plus, that is the most appropriate t-shirt for me /evar/

Thanks @cindi!

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Finally deciphered my notes from the *one* “continuing education” session I was able to attend in my otherwise jam-packed ALA Committee(s) (over)work schedule at #ala2008.

The OCLC Symposium: “The Mashed Up Library” (teaser and write up at It’s All Good)

Great introduction with a mental-state-setting creative exercise:
1. What is your Greatest Resource?
2. What is your Greatest Challenge?
3. What if… (dangerous ideas)
*We stopped cataloging?
*We participated fully with the FBI? (Sienfeld’s Library Cop)
*We mashed up Connexion with WoW = WorldCat of Warcraft
—
Keynote:
Innovation =
conversion of novelty to value
(novelty to whom? & value for whom?)
means to an end
is not what innovators offer -> it’s what clients/customers/patrons adopt
(from creation of choice -becoming-> value from use)

Mashup =
Interoperability between datasets, between institutions, between library services

Ask users “What is the most innovative thing you think we do for you?”
(put on thick skin for the usual answer: “Library” does not equal innovative in users’ views)

What is (and/or what should be) the most important product of the library?
What institutional innovations and adaptations best get the library to the goal of the most important product of the library?

Competition, like innovation, is a means to an end
it’s about perceived value from choice

How do [users/user communities] brand the library as a competitor?
Who are the library’s competitors?

Learn from the “lead users”
Who are our lead users?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_user
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design

With whom do we want to collaborate to create value? & Why?
With whom *should* we collaborate? & Why?

We should market our “best” internal disagreements
Make the users part of the discussion, market and make all points of view available for further discussion

Establish a “librar-atory” that attracts talent and inspire hypotheses
Publicize our R&D efforts

Success will come from taking the path of maximum advantage.
—-

That’s the extent of my notes, I haven’t taken time to reflect on the main message, but I did find a streaming video of the session via David Lee King’s writeup (*sigh* have to use IE from this page to get the video) — which I’ll review when I can get out of my hamster wheel — to help me draw some conclusions.

Mostly it’s a set of questions we, library staff, faculty, and users, should answer or at least discuss. I think the discussion is the more important activity; answers would be nice, but “answers” implies a static state which I don’t expect to see in libraries for a long time

PS I wrote this up for a quick presentation at the staff meeting this morning & asked folks to do the creative exercise questions on paper — I’ll combine everyone’s responses (and share the aggregate after I ask the library faculty to do the same in our 1st faculty meeting of Fall Semester)

Hiya blog-reading peeps, so I’m headed out to drive to a conference in *three days* and I. want. a. new. phone. MPOW has an 18% discount with Verizon, so I’m a-lookin’ at Verizon compatible phones. My tweeps have suggested the crackberry, the enV, and reminded me to watch out for the Verizon features that only work when sending/receiving to/from other Verizon peeps.

What do I want in a phone? fully qwerty keyboard, good camera, bluetooth, that cool headset which uses your facial bones to filter out sounds, plays tunes with ~CD (or a little less) quality…

[edit] also, maybe a bluetooth (or other method) data xfer hookup for when the laptop isn’t in a wireless cloud? [/edit]

What other features do I need/ought I have? Do I want auto GPS/GeoTagging for pix?
What models have worked well for you?
I have no time to do srius research on this so looking for recco’s…

Thanks for the suggestions…

D’you live in Southern Cali or are you going to ALA this summer?  The city of Laguna Beach is hosting Art-A-Fair, the city’s only international art festival.  On the Saturday & Sunday during ALA Annual, Art A Fair will have live Jazz and eclectic violin performers.  I’m sure you’re already busy, but hey, it’s Annual - go ahead and over-schedule yourself, I am…

Hm… two posts in a row with embedded gCals; maybe I’ll share the link this time for variety?

Lots of people wonder what ALA-APA (the ALA Allied Professional Association) is. Long story short, this is the group charged by ALA Council to “manage certification of individuals in specializations beyond the initial professional degree” and advocate for the “mutual professional interests of librarians and other library workers.”

Anyway, ALA-APA is sponsoring a bunch of events at Annual; hopefully some of which will interest many of you. Catch you in Anaheim, if you’re going…

People on several lists have asked for a calendar of Council related events at Annual 08. Here’s all the Council related events I found. (If I missed a few, please let me know in the comments & I’ll add them!)

Where in the World is Aaron the Librarian?!

edit: btw the “**” means I **must** attend the meeting & “*” means I sorta oughta attend

ok, a beef with the “Agenda” view: Why does only one meeting with the same start time show up?! I know I’m double-booked for at least three “must attend” meetings, but only the alphabetically 1st one shows up

In case you didn’t know, I’m an ALA Council junkie. Back when I wasn’t a Councilor (all of 6 months ago as well as years prior) I would still attend the Council sessions and listen in, occasionally comment from the peanut gallery, and sometimes stroll through the Councilors’ seats talking to people I know or would like to know based on their comments on issues in which I was/am interested.

One of the things I noticed (aside from the coffee, which I don’t drink - blech) was there’s no way for a member (who wasn’t at the Council session) to know what kinds of discussion and other considerations
took place before any votes. Parliamentary procedure requires an opportunity for discussion before a formal vote is taken. The Council minutes and Councilor voting histories (not on the web) are all well and good, but which Councilors made cogent points or shared a good story supporting one action or another? What story might have been shared? All that community interaction is currently lost.

While wearing my (soon to be doffed) LITA Web Coordinator for Committees hat, I got involved in a process to draft up a resolution from the ALA Website Advisory Committee (WAC) requesting the already retained “rough draft” transcripts of ALA Council sessions be posted to a members-only web page. A no-brainer, for me.

Knowing the hive-mind will come up with more ideas and catch errors, etc., I wikified the the text of a resolution Billie Peterson-Lugo, George Porter, and I worked up at the end of the WAC meeting at midwinter. And, lo, there was much activity after it was announced on the WAC and Council email lists.

Finally getting to my point… Please take a look at the proposed resolutions (1 for Council Transcripts & 1 for Council Session Recordings/Streaming) and share any insights you have on them.

Heck, while you’re at it, leave a comment here telling me this is something you want or what you’d rather have instead.

The ALA Washington Office will host Virtual Library Day on the Hill at the ALA Annual Conference.

Virtual Library Day on the Hill will take place on Tuesday, July 1 from 8 a.m. to noon. Conference attendees will have the chance to both email and fax their Members of Congress on important library issues and learn how they can register to vote, using computer terminals located on the exhibit floor.

If you’re familiar with CapWiz, ALA WO’s Legislative web tracking service, please consider volunteering to help new CapWiz users — details about this on the District Dispatch post above.