Category: Random Thoughts

Without a doubt, the best part of this last week has been meeting all those friends which up until now, I’ve called “eFriends.” I’ve known some of these people for 3 years, but never yet laid eyes on them. In many ways, this has been like what I always imagined a really good class reunion would be like. We already knew what everyone had been doing recently. We knew each other’s interests, fears, and aspirations. We’ve been there for highs and lows. And now, at long last, we know each other’s in-person mannerisms.

Now I wonder, will things go back to the way they were online or will they change? And if they change, what will that change look like? Will we be even more comfortable with each other, or will we become shy now that the subtle protection we’ve enjoyed so far, that cloak of safety in the knowledge that our companions know us but don’t know us? Of course, I hope things will be even more rich and wonderful, but I was surprised to look around one night and wonder if I was becoming shy now that people knew my mannerisms and expressions. “Will they still like me?” I couldn’t help wondering.

But all of this made me wonder again about these online personalities we have. We all bridled a bit when somebody expressed concern during the LSW presentation about the anonymity of screen names and wondered how true community could form in an environment that depends on screen names. And I firmly believe that communities do form in these environments. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. But I haven’t decided yet if that kind of community can be the same as a face-to-face community.

I can’t wait to see what does change, and what stays the same. But whatever happens, I’m confirmed in my opinion that these are amazing people. They make me proud to be a librarian and excited for the possibilities that can become reality with people like this put their minds to it. And I’m already pining just a little and wishing I could pop down to the lobby to hang out with the gang.

technorati tags: cil2008

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I’ve written before about our Research/IT desk, and how we sit elbow-to-elbow with student workers who don’t actually work for the library. These students work for the SCIC (Student Computing Information Center), but they’re in the library for almost all of its open hours to answer technological questions and keep the printers humming merrily along. (Have I mentioned how much I love this recently? It’s helped us concentrate on actually working with research related questions rather than spending most of our time filling printers with paper.) Well, I’ve never been good at learning names, and I’ve found it especially difficult to learn the names of the string of students who may sit beside me during any give week of reference shifts. So this fall I instituted the practice of getting their shift schedules from their supervisor and entering them into a calendar that I then shared with the rest of the reference staff. Now I can turn it on next to the reference librarian’s shift calendar, or my own calendar, and quickly “cheat” to find out who’s sitting next to me at any given time.

It always takes quite some time to build this calendar, since each shift requires between 14 and 18 clicks to enter… But it’s time well spent, in my opinion. It started as a way to cheat, but it’s actually helped me learn names over time. I feel like I’ve gotten to know students better this year and can carry on conversations with them much more easily, and I’ve drastically cut down on the mental shenanigans involved in trying to have conversations with people whose names you just cannot for the LIFE of you remember. You know the kind of conversations… “How can I talk about this without ever prompting the need to insert a name…” I hate those conversations, so I would often just sit there and not talk to the students, which contributed to the vicious cycle or awkwardness and lack of name recognition. Who would’a thought that a simple calendar would make such a difference in my ability not to look like a dork at the reference desk… oh, and have a great time with student workers?

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I’ve been thinking a lot recently about an odd shift I’m seeing. It seems like a couple of years ago, there was a big push in my corner of libraryland to “try new things,” which was mostly code for “try a blog, try a wiki, try IM, try social bookmarking, try Flickr, try ANYTHING.! Please!!” It was pretty exciting to blog and read blogs during that time. I learned a lot from people who pointed to new extensions they were using, new social tools, new uses for “older” tools.

But recently I’ve felt (and I know others have felt) like there’s nothing more we can contribute to this discussion that’s really and truly new. We can go to conference sessions geared to introducing the newest of the new tools and already know about every single tool discussed and know a handful or even a fistful of libraries that are using them. We might even be using them ourselves.

The same can be said for “new” service models or collection changes or any number of other topics. Maybe it’s a function of my having been slightly too overextended in the last few months to have the energy to get excited about or imagine new implementations of the ideas I’ve heard about, but I know I’ve had the feeling recently that maybe there isn’t much more that’s new to learn about in my previous areas of interest right now. What’s more, I’ve heard a few other librarians say similar things. “I just can’t come up with anything that other libraries haven’t already tried. There’s just nothing actually new going on here.”

It’s almost like my whole corner of the library world took a collective sigh and realized we’re tired.

And maybe there’s truth in this feeling, though I doubt it. Maybe we’ve settled far enough into the social web or the fill-in-the-blank-new-Library2.0-service world that it’s no longer confusing enough to wonder about or new enough to get excited over. Or maybe we’re all just getting over the Long Winter (it’s snowing here today… seriously… maybe 8 inches by tomorrow morning). Or maybe there’s enough communication now that where we would previously have had a hard time knowing about what other libraries are up to, now it’s quite easy to skim a feed reader and get a quick run-down every single day. (If this is the case, I think it’s a wonderful development.)

But my hunch is that while we’re pretty much trained from college on upward that “original” is a synonym for “good,” and “derivative” is a synonym for “lazy,” it actually doesn’t work that way in real life. It doesn’t matter if 3/4 of the libraries you know about are implementing a new service or tool. Even if other libraries have tried whatever you’re trying, there’s still usually no way to adopt implementations wholesale. Almost always, you have to evaluate and tweak and shift and re-mix ideas to fit your own context and your own community.

And this leads me to believe that maybe the problem isn’t that there isn’t anything new happening; that the problem is with me. I’m the one sighing and acknowledging that I’m tired. I’m the one who’s been overextended just enough to shut off that creative part of me that used to read what people are doing and start scheming about how it would look at MY library. If this is the case, I sincerely hope that my trip to Computers in Libraries will jump start that portion of my brain and help me not just know but actually believe that it doesn’t matter that other people are doing cool things already. They’d still be new and cool to think about trying here. And these reports I’m reading and the others that I’m generating, and the lessons I’m learning from planning a conference, and the other lessons I’m learning from helping out with Print Management implementation?… Maybe these are still interesting and not just “the same thing that everyone else is doing, so why would they care.”

We’ll see. Here’s hoping.

tags: cil2008

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