Library Shrine

Short and sweet, my time is thus:

I was really bothered by this article concerning one of our Oklahoma Senators who openly bashed the Census Bureau for not making the 2010 census survey available online.

“I’m appalled that you are not at least trying to do this on the Internet,” he said. “We don’t have a vision to get this done. I will do everything I can to force the Internet down your throat with amendments. You are living in the past, not the future. I recommend you get on board for 2010.”

I would elaborate but Adri pretty much said most of what I was thinking.

Many of our elected officials are demanding agencies cut spending by moving information retrieval and dissemination online — yet they don’t understand (nor care to) what it entails or who it impacts. Many are focusing so hard on their political legacy they forget what the world is like for those not so privileged. Heck they are even willing to force not well thought out change down our throats — so open wide!

I’m not saying the Census Bureau shouldn’t work a little harder to create survey access online. I’m just saying, why the harsh langauage. I seriously doubt Coburn even knows anything about the digital divide (let alone the role libraries have in assisting citizens in becoming more “digitally savvy”). I think the Bureau has every reason to be cautious about this. Statistics is a very tricky business. A very large portion of our population, especially here in OKlahoma, have yet to reach the necessary comfort level with computer technology that would make an online census survey productive.

MySpace has removed 29,000 sex offenders from its site…interesting. But even more interesting is this blog post from Climb to the Stairs blog writer Stephanie Booth. She picks up an a lot of literature concerning the online activity of online predator’s and teens alike, a lot which shows that there are a lot of misconceptions out there.

So these are not mostly violence sex crimes, but they are criminal seductions that take advantage of teenage, common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure teens after weeks of conversations with them, they play on teens’ desires for romance, adventure, sexual information, understanding, and they lure them to encounters that the teams know are sexual in nature with people who are considerably older than themselves.

This quote especially caught my eye:

Our research, actually looking at what puts kids at risk for receiving the most serious kinds of sexual solicitation online, suggests that it’s not giving out personal information that puts kid at risk. It’s not having a blog or a personal website that does that either. What puts kids in danger is being willing to talk about sex online with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms, meeting lots of people there, kind of behaving in what we call like an internet daredevil.

We think that in order to address these crimes and prevent them, we’re gonna have to take on a lot more awkward and complicated topics that start with an acceptance of the fact that some teens are curious about sex and are looking for romance and adventure and take risks when they do that. We have to talk to them about their decision making if they are doing things like that.

How can libraries help here? How can we encourage parents to take on a more active role when it comes to communicating with their kids about sex and sexual interactions online? It’s an awkward topic, I know, but if we’re to ensure their safety then it has to be done. If parents aren’t willing to do it then educators need to step in.

If the internet has a way of making teens feel more “daring” then how can we re-direct that behavior towards something else that won’t jeapardize their personal safety? Ideas? I’m sure there are a number of different ways to do this. This probably requires its own seperate post. Yeah. I’ll get on that. Soon.

I’ve started receiving several IFLA Newsletter via email recently. Many of the articles are very inspiring. You read them and for a brief moment finally stop debating issues like “gaming in libraries” in your head just long enough to realize the essentials of librarianship.

Imagine a man and a mule struggling up a twisty mountain path. One of the mule’s saddle bags is packed with books while the other contains a portable computer. The only way of reaching the most isolated villages of the Andes is on foot or by horse or mule. The Bibliomulas are just one of the many adjustments to reality that are characteristic of the Banco Del Libro.

My brother knows a lot of things. He speaks several different languages, has several different degrees, is a whiz at computers and travels compulsively. Sometimes it’s hard not to be in awe of him but then I remember that I knew him when he was six and used to do nerdy things like practice The Karate Kid’s crane kick over and over again in our backyard (falling on his ass at least seventy percent of the time). Anyway, throughout his travels and in the process of attaining his various academic achievements, Mitch has become quite the expert in coffee shops and libraries. He spends an awful lot of time in both places. He’s currently spending his summer studying in Korea. In a recent email, he sent a website link for a coffee shop nearby where he lives. He posted about it and provided some pictures on his blog. I really dig this place. They’ve divided the space up into zones; community zone, book zone, service zone, food etc. Libraries could find so much inspiration in this kind of set-up. It would certainly make for an ideal teen space.

It’s been a long week, very busy at our library. We’re having our Harry Potter parties this weekend. We have kind of a carnival thing going on tomorrow and a trivia contest for teens on Saturday. My co-worker and I have been knitting like mad women all week, making Harry Potter scarves, hats and bookmarks. I’m supposed to dress up like Rita Skeeter tomorrow. I didn’t have time to locate a green satin one piece like she wears in the movie so I’m just going to have to make-do with a black sleek skirt and fluffy sleeved blouse. I’ll curl my hair and find a feathered quil. Hopefully people will figure it out. At any rate, I have all kinds of links to talk about.
This was fascinating article about the psychology of social networking sites from a British perspective. Not that it’s a heck of a lot different from ours but it was interesting to read about the comparison between Facebook and another UK equivalent called Friends Reunited. Facebook is gaining a lot of popularity overseas. I only just got a Facebook account last month and shortly after signing on I was contacted by a friend in Norway who I haven’t seen since High School. It was such a contrast to MySpace, where I was only ever contacted by people I didn’t know (didn’t want to know…) or people who I already communicate with regularly and live in the surrounding community. Facebook seems to be the preference between the two social networking sites for similar reasons that critics are prefering Facebook over MySpace. Appearance, flexibility (”it appeals to people who like to tinker and experiment, but don’t have the time, inclination, knowledge, attention span or geekiness to mess about with anything technical”), slowness. The author notes that Friends United is more “UK-oriented” similarily to the way MySpace seems to more “US-oriented”. It looks like Facebook really is starting to have more appeal to a global audience in comparison to the two. This Comic Book Cover Browser might be kind cool for comic collectors. While surfing through the covers from Wonder Woman, I was reminded of a really neat article by Phillip Crawford called the Legacy of Wonder Woman. I grew up watching the t.v. series, and even remember dressing up as her one year for Halloween. It wasn’t until reading this article that I realized the feminist undertones surrounding the creation of this particular comic. Crawford makes the point in his article that most comic historians seem to be more interested in the sadomasochist appeal.

In late 1941, Wonder Woman made her debut in the pages of All-Star Comics and became the lead feature in Sensation Comics #1 the following month, written under the pseudonym Charles Moulton and illustrated by H. G. Peters. From the beginning, Marston infused the series with a feminist ideology. Wonder Woman was an Amazon princess who had been sent by the goddess, Aphrodite, to aid America in the war effort and to spread the Amazons’ message of love, peace, and sexual equality. One of the central ideas of the strip was that through hard work and discipline women could become strong and independent and free themselves from their economic and psychological dependency on men. Wonder Woman’s approach to crime fighting was different than male counterparts as well. Where they used force to defeat the villain, she tried to reason with them and often convinced them to reform. Only when this failed did she use force, or her magic lasso, which, like Marston’s own lie detector, forced anyone bound by it to tell the truth.

However, like all superheroes Wonder Woman has her Achilles’ heel; if her bracelets are bound together by a man, she loses her powers. In countless stories, she is chained and bound by male villains, only to break free and triumph. The ropes and chains are symbols of patriarchy and the drama is her ability to break the shackles of male domination they symbolize. Unfortunately, most comic historians have ignored the feminist elements of the series, and focused on these elements of bondage, reducing the complexity of Marston’s Wonder Woman mythos to little more than a thinly disguised sadomasochistic sexual fantasy.

So, I’m still trying to figure out whether Twitter is any use to me, other than just a distraction. But I found a website called Post Like a Pirate which will apparently convert your Twitter message into pirate speak. Sounds kinda neat so I typed in “Knitting Harry Potter hat!” and expected something like “Yaaar bucko’s, I’s knitting mee Harry Potter hat!” or the like but alas, all did was abbreviate knitting to knittin’. Sounds more Texan then pirate but whatever, there ya go, have fun.

I know summer is almost over with but ReadWriteThink has a lot of neat ideas for summer activities that could be helpful in creating library programs for teens, including a Comic Book Show and Tell.

Lastly, thanks to my friend Cindy for alerting me to Adri’s post on the scanning of the Harry Potter book that made it’s way onto the Internet a few days ago. Adri, sleuth as well as librarian, observed quite astutely that the image of the book shows that it’s covered with mylar dust jacket….sooo, mmmm. Other HP spoilage news, Rowling is a little ticked with NYT and the Baltimore Sun for revealing a reveiw of the book today instead of after the book starts its sale. What is it with all these party poopers?

I finished the post about Needham’s ALA presentation for the Alt. Teen Services blog. Half of it was written at 4am in the morning so I hope it makes some sort of sense. I’ve only been out of school for six months yet I feel as though I’ve completely forgotten how to put thoughts together in an organized readable fashion. It’s always more nerve wrecking when you’re doing it for a collaborative blog and not your own.

I really like this post from Cool Librarian. I often find myself at odds with the whole 2.0 movement. The divide within our staff tends to mirror that of our community. In many cases this has nothing to do with age. We’ve had several patrons in their early twenties who don’t know how to attach a resume to their email, how to open attachments, how to print a website with frames (printable version), how to save to a disk, etc. Very basic stuff that you would think someone of that generation would know. However, this may be a rather unbalanced perception since the people who do have those skills are likely on their own laptops using the wireless or on their own computers at home. So it’s really difficult for me to ascertain sometimes whether we really should be using more 2.0 technologies at our library, or whether it really is necessary for all of our staff to know how to embed widgets into someones MySpace profile or know how to send sms text messages. Anything involving “how to’s” with public computers are pretty much always directed to the reference desk. Judging by the questions we do get, most of the competencies David Lee King suggest seem kind of unneccessary. Emily’s list seems a little more realistic for us, but even then, do part time circulation staff really need to know how to obtain an IP address?

I wonder how much of this has to do with staff just being aware of the technology, open to it, not necessarily good at it. Jessica really hits on something when she says that this is going to take a lot of patience on both sides. I work with a traditional librarian who’s been at this library for twice as long as I’ve been alive. She may not be completely tech savvy. I’m not entirely sure how much she knows about 2.0 tools, I’ve never really asked. But I do know that she’s a damn hard worker and that patrons often come in here asking for her specifically because of her dedication, because they know her and they trust her. Her tech skills don’t even come into play in these situations. She does usually call on me or the other reference clerk to come help patrons with a computer question, but she is always open to learning how to do it herself. Despite the fact that she may not be entirely comfortable doing it on her own, she knows that it’s a necessary part of her job. Trying to imagine the amount of change she has seen in her time while working in this profession boggles my mind, the past decade alone must of been so overwhelming when you consider all that has happened.

I really don’t know what tech skills should be specifically required of staff, either. Trying to keep perspective on things, I think, is important. I think it’s also important to know as much as you can about your community. I’d really like to hear more about public libraries doing deeper studies/survey’s into the needs of their own communities rather than just doing guess work (well, this article said this was good idea so I think we should do it). But it’s tricky because what they don’t know and what they are not asking for could actually help them just the same. Just because nobody asks about podcasting doesn’t necessarily mean that staff shouldn’t know how to do it, or at least know of its existence (very likely scenerio at my library).

We’ve done the odd gaming program at our library. It’s usually been a rather simple event on a Sunday’s when we’re technically closed so teens can have free access to all of our public computers. It lasts about three hours with a pizza and soda break in the middle. Although they’ve usually been pretty successful as is, we’ve always felt like there could be a little more to them. One suggestion was to include board games, card games, tabletop gaming, PS2 in addition to just the online gaming they can do on the computers, making it into a major gaming event. When I think of board games and card games I think of the basic Monoply, Life, Uno. A few weeks ago, some friends of ours introduced us to a new game called Killer Bunnies. I think this would be a great addition to a Teen gaming event at the library. It’s an easy game for players to pop in and out of so it would be great to use as an alternative while teens are waiting for computer stations to open up. Not only that, but it’s just something different and a great way to encourage interaction between teens. One thing it does not encourage,however, is teamwork. It has a very “every man/woman for themselves, do whatever you have to to screw everyone else over” type mentality which, quite frankly, is what makes it so much darn fun. The point of the game is to kill other people’s bunnies (obviously) so you can either force players to feed their bunnies, which means they have to dish out money and if they don’t have the money their bunnies starve and die. Otherwise, you can play offensive/weapon cards against them…which are really the funnest most devious part of the game (bunnies abducted by aliens, food processor, consumed by roaches…yeah, I know it’s gross but you can imagine how teens would love this. Of course, animal rights activists will likely have some issues…maybe it would be more appropriate for older teens though). There are several booster decks. My husband and I just acquired the red and purple booster deck which include more defensive cards like barriers. There’s a lot to the game so you definitely have to allow for some extra time to explain the instructions. But it’s worth it. I’ve even come up with my own “bunny dance”. Yikes. Maybe not such a good sign.

Xtimeline: Neat little tool that allows you to create timelines like this one for the Harry Potter series.

Susan Cooper’s book the Dark is Rising is being turned into a movie. It looks as though they’ve already deviated a lot from the story. I can’t believe they’re making him an American. It’s a little like making Harry Potter an American. Not only that, but they’ve apparently taken out all the parts of the story based on Arthurian Legend. If anyone knows anything about the writing of this series, they’d know that the Arthurian stuff was so important to Cooper. And what is this about him having a twin?

I wasn’t able to attend ALA this year. I went to PLA last year and was really hoping to make it to one or the other this year but the baby thing happened. Fortunately, a lot of people are blogging ALA sessions right now. LeapinLibrarian recenlty blogged about a session on the Queens library system in New York called Transforming Your Staff. This part really struck me:

Their Vision: “You need to have a leader that staff trust, and that people know care”. Gee - trust, empathy, maybe those aren’t “fluffy” things after all…

I’m intrigued by the use of “leader” as opposed to “manager” or “director”. A library can have “managers” aplenty but if it lacks trustworthy leadership, the staff are not the only ones who suffer. The whole community does.
And I really like this idea:

If they have problems with teens and/or gangs, guess what they do? They hire teen counselors to engage these teens, playing chess or other mind-expanding activities.

Lastly, I got myself in trouble the other day. Woeful librarian picked up on my link to the SuicideGirls article and posted his thoughts about it (and the ALA presentation it originated from). Woeful has a nice blog, witty, always providing great links to things and has a diverse readership which I think is really unique for most library blogs. Unfortunately, I take issue with his attitude towards teens and his comments on this post really fingered my trigger. As a result, the conversation got a bit nasty. It definitely wasn’t me at my best, but at any rate, he brought up some interesting points about using gaming technology in libraries, whether doing so “lowers the bar” and if it does is it an acceptable “consequence” when trying to teach teens how to locate information. I spoke to Stephanie about it and she’s going to see if one of her crew would be interested in doing a post on ATS (they’re read more than me so it’s probably better to post about it there). Perhaps it will make for some interesting discussion with teen librarians.

Conversing on the phone with patrons is one thing I’ve always had a hard time with. This past week has been particularly tricky at the library. With a large portion of the downtown area covered in flood water, many roads were blocked off and people were having a hard time getting around. As a result, there were a lot of phone calls. One conversation I had with a patron went particularly awry and I spent the whole day frustrated over the fact that I just couldn’t understand what it was he was looking for. He started the conversation with “Could you pull the books with the blueprints”. I thought he meant instructional books on how to create blueprints so I tried to clarify by asking him this. No it wasn’t, he said, already annoyed that I was having difficulties. At this point, I was pretty sure this was going to be a tough interaction. So I tried again, thinking maybe he needed a book with house plans in it. “Are you building a house, sir? Do you need something that will—.” He cuts me off and says “No, no, listen to what I’m saying.” He was renovating something in his house. He had been in the library a few weeks ago and the librarian had found him a book that showed him the measurements of the rooms in his house and which also allowed him to order blueprints for a couple of hundred dollars. At this point I’m thinking he needs the court house, that he’s looking for blueprints of his own house which will give him precise measurements of the rooms. So, I tried that route. “No, no, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you know your own library?”

I tried to stay calm, realizing this must be just as frustrating for him as it is for me. I thought for a minute and wondered if it was possible that he was talking about the historic land owner maps we have in our Local and Family History area, even though they don’t show anything as detailed as room measurements and as far as I know, you can’t order blueprints from LFH but I’m desperate so I try “Do you remember what area of the library you found it in? Was it in the Local and Family History—.” Not a helpful question. The books had been pulled for him and he picked them up at the Circulation desk. So, I tried to focus on the blueprint thing explaining that we don’t actually have any blueprints here, nor do we sell them. Was he sure that he found these books at the library? Of course, he was sure it was the library. I think I might have offended him at this point. He sounded elderly so perhaps I made him feel as though I thought he was senile or something. To tell you the truth, the thought did cross my mind but karma came back to bite me in the ass with his next statement. “What I need is to talk to someone older and more experienced”. I actually get this a lot. You would think I would be used to it by now but it still gets to me. “I’m sorry but I’m the only one working the desk at the moment.”

Things just went down hill from there. I apologized twice for not understanding him and told him that if I could get his number then I would ask some of the other librarians and hopefully reach the one who originally got the book for him in the first place. Then he asked me how long I had worked here. I suppose my self-esteem got to me at this point and rather than say four years I added up the few summers during college and the two years I worked Youth Services in my late teens, crunched them together and said sternly “Seven years”. He paused for a second and said “Well, I can’t believe you’ve worked there that long and you still don’t know your library.” He also called me rude for interrupting him so many times. You get so desperate to understand people that you just keep talking, making more suggestions hoping that something will eventually make sense. He eventually just said “we’ll go somewhere else” and hung up. At this point the other reference librarian returned so I asked her if she had any insight. She wasn’t sure but wondered if he might be talking about the books that have housing plans in them. I told her that I did try that but he had kept talking about blueprints. She said that the housing plan books did have information in the back that allowed you to order blueprints. I can only assume that this was what he was looking for. The conversation was such a mess. I swear, sometimes the hardest thing about reference is not finding the information people want, but trying to figure out what people want in the first place.