2008 I(o)LP – April 2008 Library Staff Training

Now that we are at the end of the traditional western calendar year, I am looking back at some posts that were not quite ready for prime time.  I hope they interest you and provide some enlightenment and entertainment these last days of 2008 and first of 2009.

From (April 2008) CIL My Unedited but newly half organized Live Blogging Notes of this workshop at Computers in Libraries 2008: Session D105 – Library Staff Training Donovan’s  PPT’s are here and Rebecca’s are here. Another good session I attened at CIL.  (I do so want to go back in 2009)

Library Staff Training with Donovan Deakin of Web Junction and Rebecca Ranalio Kahl, Internet and Media Services Manager Cuyahoga County Public Library. Donovan is on the left, went first and talked about electronic web based learning. Rebecca presented a case study of her system.

Donovan asks the audience a question: How do you like your coffee? There are many ways to order coffee in Seattle and there are that many ways libraries are implementing staff training.

Some trends in library training noticed by WebJunction include: Increased interest and adpotion of online learning and dissatisifaction of responding systems with their own existing online learning programs.

Commonly recognized barriers to learning (the you are not alone portion of the show):
Staff time or lack thereof, No expertise or access to content, lack of funding/travel for conference or training attendance ; and technology using it and access to it.

Online learning adpotion by libraries is pretty good. A majority offer surveyed offer online learing today or will in the next two years. WJ noticed a trend in how systems were using online training: Larger budget systems tended to go toward the Synchronous/Live Electronic class model and both large and smaller budget systems use asynchronous/self-directed learning.

Blended learning is being adopted and adapted by systems. Using different elements of traditional and newer learning models.

Tech content in staff traning: Information technology, networking, desktop management, computer applications and tools, Web 2.0 Technologies and reacihing out and engaging staff and service community.

Noticed Impact/ROI of training: Morale and job satisifcation, attendance and evaluation of training, job perfomrance ratings and improved library sevice.

Summary of findings: training content design needs to fit existing schedules; training budgets static and projected to increase, online learning adoption is slow but will grow and there is a growing awareness for web20 technologies.

(Ed note: this section contains pure live blogging notes from this session.)

Next to speak was Rebecca Ranallo Kahl, Internet & Media Services Manager, Cuyahoga County Public Library (68 million dollar budget, over 1000 staff with 663 in SEIU, 106 managers and confidental clerical staff.)  It is one of the 10 busiest libraries in country and is the county that surrounds Cleveland Ohio with 28 branches.  She gave a nutshell presentation about her system’s training now and where they are going in the future.

Training situation now: Launched new intranet with cms (content management system) running both public and staff sides; staff becoming more comfortable adding information to public side by adding content to intranet; blended learning workshops to teach new cms (Content Management System) content creation. House interanet was very static.  Systems used contracted training and workshops. have many resources out there. anbd are using nancy peral an dlookin g for mgmt training
Elearning tutorials online
increased blended learning options
increased 20 visibility
more hands on and some staff practice and play.
trying to get staff to see and use connections

work on interactive modules for working on strategic plan using 2.0 tools
another project
second like training project with stff to get used to developing content for staff in anticipation of getting computers that can handle second life.
another project
cuyahoga conversations interactive converastion space with subject specialsit community news and interests. We host and they manage the conversation. Her staff is excited about comments on this space and comments on catalog.
revamping orientation center.
online modules for intellectual freedom, corporate culture, customer service, marketing, diversity. putting together already created content with new content for a FULL Week.

Outcomes
6 mo 2 year
deliberate traning plans
compentecny based new management expections.
more working sessions
responsiblity for leraning
more ondemand opprotunities.
Would like to move intermediate traing to real works exercises in their training.

2008 I(o)LP– April 2008 Wikis: Managing, etc.

Now that we are at the end of the traditional western calendar year, I am looking back at some posts that were not quite ready for prime time.  I hope they interest you and provide some enlightenment and entertainment these last days of 2008 and first of 2009.  Looking back, this was a really good session, I should have posted back in April.  Now, I fell guilty.  Dang.  Well — here it is.

April 2008: CIL Session named Wikis: Managing, Marketing, & Making Them Work Some formalized notes some of the post contains just notes.

Chad Boeninger (His Blog) Reference and instructional librarian at Ohio University Libraries spoke about wikis and how to manage, market and using them. His BizWiki is here. This is a summary of his presentation. As soon as I find it, I will place a link to it here on this post.

He created this presentation because a number of librarians asked him how to make wikis work for them. He used wiki technology as a collaborative tool to communicate with users while putting together as subject guides across a network.

First, a caveat, remember to define a purpose or problem to figure out if you do need a wiki or are their other tools that may work better for you.

Why did Ohio use a wiki? The library had a network drive which developed different knowledge silos on their network drive. Staff wiki helps keep information in one place. If someone leaves, their knowledge is not kept in their silo

They use their bizinfo wiki as a public subject guide. This met their need to keep their information accessible and organized even though expert staff were not there or still at the library.

How do you choose which software to use for your wiki?

The site wikimatrix.org offers free assistance to compare wiki farms and software to see which one best meets your needs. Categories, better organization

Locally hosted Options

What is required?: Experience, Desire to experiment, Ready to get your hands dirty customizing the look and feel, Data lives on YOUR server.

Wiki Farms and Services

Why use a wiki farm?: for new users, they are nice, require little technical knowledge and when they upgrade, your wiki upgrade. Also a good place to start.

What did they use in Ohio?

They ended up hosting their wiki using mediawiki for all of their wikis. This allowed them to keep a consistent look throughout their wiki’s. They also went with mediawiki because if anyone knows how to use wikipedia, they would be able to navigate their wiki.

So, now that they choose a tool, how did they structure the wiki?

Well, this is the hard part. Provide struction and content so your users can find things quickly on the wiki.

After you structure your wiki , you will probably need to encourage folks to change it. You have to essentially say “Ok here is stuff, you go edit this now.”

No one will know what to do with your wiki if you don’t have a purpose or have some content. Feel free to steal your ideas from others. The wikiIndex is a great resource to find various wikis. He encourages you to check them out and steal the way they are organized.

What do I put on first?

Content:

Just start with the old content cut and pasted onto site;
Seek input from users for additional content and layout;
Provide Help Page on your Wiki…..a wiki text help page;
Provide more help via a screencast to help folks do basic things on your wiki;
Add content yourself: Try to think of what to add and when to add it to your wiki;
Use your wiki to communicate information and create a knowledge base.
Encourage others to add content;
Let others add content.
Don’t get feelings hurt and don’t demand perfection! Its ok if it does not look perfect.
Force staff to add content to wiki.
Have buy in from higher up bosses to direct staff to add to wiki.
Provide even more help. There is never too much help offer in person and to give immediate help.

How to promote your wiki?

Teach off of wiki. Use the collected knowledge during presentations.
Add desirable content — What resources do your users need?
List open desk hours on the wiki.

Your wiki MUST be flexible. MUST BE FLEXIBLE
you should be too
have realistic expectation for use
dont be surpised if users use the wiki otehr than intended
users may use it, but may not contributge.

How easy is it to add content? Add content on the fly to your wiki.

Kernels not corn…instant response to information requests.

On the FLY CONTENT from email to content on wiki in 30 minutes
CREATE ARTICLES TO ADD list to wiki.

Here a wiki, there a wiki. Should you system collect a wiki? or have individual Create google custom serach for diparate wikis.

WHEN IS A WIKI DONE….It is never done…always growing and changing. A static wiki defeats the purpose of the wiki. Maintian links create new pages, edit old ones to unsure viablity of wiki
How do you know it is still alive

Lesson learned Reasonable expectations of users, use. they may not think it is as cool as you do.

IS A WIKI FOR YOU
Flexible
can be adapted to meet your needs
Wikis save time
require contributions and edits.

aol yahoo im cfboeninger

for more informaton ohio libraries business blog.

2008 Island of Lost Posts I(o)LP – April 2008

Now that we are at the end of the traditional western calendar year, I am looking back at some posts that were not quite ready for prime time.  I hope they interest you and provide some enlightenment and entertainment these last days of 2008 and first of 2009.

From (April 2008) CIL My Unedited but newly sort of organized Live Blogging Notes of this workshop at Computers in Libraries 2008: Session C205 – 2.0 Pecha Kucha—Conversation Face-Off!

CIL2008 2.0 Pechua Kechua or some thing.

pecha 1

Amanda Etches Johnson blogger.
IM need to be there to support an dprovide ref serveices the promise of virtual reference.
software was not user centric.
Now you can use im aggretgaotrs mulitple services\.

Widget ot provide a right there access to staff a chat widget for your pages. Hummainzes the information.

Podcasting
PC 2
podcasting by Greg Schawartz

he got an Ipod and need to discover content for such…. looked on podcast aggregaorts found library
podcasts wanting. so…He created his own. Create content and teach partons via podcasts. shortish info blasts,
promoting literacy and the serviced commuities. Libraries sharing stories.

uncontrolledvocalubary.com
No library too large or too small to podcast.

So how do youknow people are listening?

Pecha 3
meredith farkas

Wikis are like a barn raising. Each person can add and edit. all of us have unique knowledge.
we can collect that knowledge to benefit all.

ie Rock Wiki Chicago library with moderaly priced resturants.

Pecha 4

Video casting David free
give cameras to teens to show off your library. (The Library Rap) pill of learning.

loud tasty teen tour cat learns make time be super
It iw worth the time Video: finding time in the penn state library.

Pecha 5

Aaron and facebook
to be online its to be social facebook shows us that your site should be social too.

(ed note: I can say that I was distracted by the twitter traffic and my neighbor Rachel V’s smoking laptop at this point during the session. Sorry Aaron. )

skeptic greag notess

Is it the final solution? what was the problem? does it solve life’s questions?

chat is small component of service delivery.

Are we experst in creating content or finding and collecting content.

Ditto…do you have a david free? or a greg?

How do people use videos. doing work, use comiuters, surfing anon.

wikis are not all wikipedia

how many sit untouched

cil wiki. 57 out of 2200 people on the wiki.

worldcat — where is your time and money going?

openurl resouver

Cost benefits analysis… consider cost in time and money. benefit who and how.

CIL2008 Presenation Slides Posted

If you are interested in the presentation Nette and I gave at CIL2008 last week this

will take you to my slidespace where you can access both flavors of our workshops. You have the choice of the director’s cut or the made for tv version.

CIL2008 Gaming: Gimme’ Shelter

My attempt to sing Gimme’ Shelter by the Rolling Stones from CIL Gaming night.

Thanks to the Travelin’ Librarian for the kewl black & white photo.

From his flickr stream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinlibrarian/2409595806/in/set-72157604426691661/

Retrieved April 14th, 2008.

CIL2008: Facebooked

In honor of CIL2008 (hereby known as the best damn conference I have ever attended) I have created a Facebook profile. I am not linking it (yet) to my blog or this post because I want to do some tweaking before unveiling it to the universe.

Still trying to figure out some annoying things about the setup and also figuring if it is a tool to keep in my geek bag o’ tricks.

CIL2008 Photo Evidence

Here is a picture of Nette and I doing our presentation at CIL2008

Today catching up and trying to process the days.  Tomorrow more blog posts about the conference and final thoughts.

If this Wed this must be Arlington

Well, seems that we did a good job with our presentation.

i am now writing this from outside the Regency Ballroom at the Hyatt in Arlington, VA.

I am both sad, happy and exhausted, which means it was a good conference.

After I catch up on my posts, I will do my own personal wrap up of CIL2008: The Conference that Ate Wireless.

CIL2008 Day Three In Review

Today’s CIL2008 Hits and Misses brought to you by Twitter –Once you start, you can’t get enough!

Hits of the day.

A great *triple play* of sessions attended by yours truly today. I will be posting more cohesive notes about each of the presentations shortly.

First, Chad B. from Ohio University talked about how to manage, market, make them work and pulling the plug if needed on wikis.

The next workshop featured two excellent presentations in one short time period.  Three UCF librarians discussed how they used del.icio.us to create on the fly pathfinders, catalouge in-house and we resources and other uses for del.icio.us.  UCF’s bookmarks live here.

Michael Sauers and Christa Burns from Nebraska gave a presentation on why twitter, how twitter, and really, twitter?  Systems are using twitter for event publicity and reference, bbc uses twitter for syndication of material and youc an get boston weather via twitter. And yes, there were people twittering the workshop about twitter.

Finally There was the afternoon wrapup workshop, 2.0 Pecha Kucha Conversation Face Off.   Each of the people pictured below

had 20 slides and 6:40 to cover IM, Podcasting, Videocasts, Wiki’s Facebook and someone played the skeptic.  The below pictures represent some o’ the scene at the middle blogging/twitter table.

Merely a small sample of the many folks blogging/twittering shoulder to shoulder at the session.

Wireless access working swimmingly in the hallway, outside of the rooms.

Meeting more people face to face that I know from the intertubes, including a fellow Quaker.

Two Words: Sushi Buffet. Yum.

Hearing “this product was presented more cathedral than bazaar.”

Misses

Wireless in the actual session rooms. Really, really, spotty.  Several folks have come to the conclusion that the Hyatt was not prepared with enough wireless for at least a 400 people expecting net access when they wanted it.   Thank god I do not need it for my presentation tomorrow.

SWIFT.

So again my hits are better than my misses.  Another great day in CIL2008world.

Tomorrow is another day.

CIL2008 High Touch with Customer Care

High Touch with Customer Care:  Amy Blaine is a Librarian from Inova Fairfax Hospital. Her half of the workshop actually got something useful of, so I will write about that. Amy Blaine, Inova Farifax Hospital is the librarian for a Level 1 trauma center in NoVa, and her obstetrics dept delivers 1000 babies a month. They answer 600 questions a month and provide service to their people seven day a week 359 days a year. They serve medical and nursing students, residents, attending physicians, hospital administrators, patients family members and members of the public.

They use a combination of sources to keep their constituents in touch. They use a regular email Patient Education Newsletter with snippets and mini reviews of new patient education resources, from listsrvs, Google and other national accredited sources. They also use a blog for further communication. blast to staff for selected resources and articles and maintain a blog for other types of information communication. They face some challenges to getting the infomation out to their people. This was my great takeaway form this workshop. This is applicable to all technology roll outs in any setting.

If they cannot read, they will never read it;

if the can read it , they might not be able to understand it; and my addition

If they understand it, they may not use it the way you want them to.

CIL2008 High Tech and High Touch: The full Report

This a more complete report on Jenny Levine - The Shifted Librarian’s talk today at CIL2008. This is her Presentation Wiki . The presentation will be up directly on her wiki. Her Blog is The Shifted Librarian.

Making things high touch does not mean necessecarily making things high tech. Changing the language of your web portal, or how you ask your customers to interact with your library can create the sense of engagement that many public libraries strive for daily. Here are a couple of way to do that:

• Don’t say “you have to place an ill query foto see if that is available for loan” say– We don’t own this, but we will get it for you. Very positive response to the same ILL question.
• Provide direct text responses to questions posed via IM or web.
• Create places where patrons know there are people behind the information. “Real human beings are our (libraries) advantage over Google.”
• Use your services to connect people to people not items, without the technical stuff getting in the way.
• Develop little human touches where every you can.

Two things to remember and one question to ask yourself over and over again: : “Content Creators Connecting in virtual space,” “Gaming also supports face to face contact,” and “Do we use tools that match our social capabilities?”

If you are feeling overwhelmed about the change in technology here are two things to consider:

First a quote: “Tools do not get socially integrated until tools get boring” – Clay Shirky who wrote Here Comes Everybody: about organizing without organizations. He has also started a blog about the themes in the book.

Second: In response to the question: How do you keep up with it? “Use your friends and let go if you can’t get it all”

CIL2008: Now I can catch up

Now that I am full of sushi from my favorite close to the hotel restaurant, and with nothing in the first two programs, knocking my socks off, I can now get to playing catchup with the sessions from yesterday and today. First up, linking things up to the Shifted Librarians talk from yesterday morning.

Just had someone from Silver Spring MD say. “gee, you have been working every time I see you at this conference” It is nice to be noticed for good things.

CIL2008 My Day Two in Review

So, if you notice a lack of posts about the conference, that is because we library geeks with all of our gadgets designed to keep us in touch with each other constantly, fried the hotel’s wireless connection in the conference area, so there was no service in many areas. I will be posting information about the afternoon sessions I attended with notes and all tomorrow. My apologies.

Now onto the Good, Bad and Ugly from day 2.

The GOOD

Meeting old friends in a presentation. And lamenting that I could not provide some support for his presentation, because it is the same time as mine on Wednesday.

Three presentations, two great bookending one good one. Got so me thing from every workshop. Glad I had notepad to fall back upon.

The Internet cafe in the exhibit hall. I was at least able to post some basic information about the morning presentation by the Shifted Librarian.

Electronic Friendly tables in the front of the room for my three sessions. That means powerstrips that anyone could plug into and recharge their equipment.

Putting two faces with voices and people from our statewide Synchronous Training class. Beth from Howard County, Kevin from Cecil County, Nette and I had a grand time at lunch. We found a great pub not too far off the beaten path and had a grand time talking about all sorts of issues.

My wife coming down and staying until tomorrow.

Nette live blogging the conference. The Librarian In Black live blogging.

Finding my blogging about the conference listed in the April 2008 Issue of Computers In Libraries. Check it out. I should have put my real photo in so folks could say howdy here. Oh well.

CIL2008 one of the top tags for flickr today.

Lots of folks of color participating at all levels of this conference.

Folks coming up to me virtually and face to face thanking me for posting the videos from Gaming and Gadgets. I am going to post the best one in a separate post tomorrow. You could look for it on my YouTube channel. Look for Enter Sandman on Rock Band. Trust me, it is GREAT!

Someone asking why don’t you use your webcam and do a streaming feed of the workshops you are attending and your day at CIL.  And then pausing and instantly brainstorming how you could do that with the three people sitting near you.  Then coming to the conclusion that you carry around too much *stuff* to make that work this year, but someone could work on that for next year.

The Bad

I am responsible for reservations for tomorrow’s lunch at the sushi place. They, along with the deli, Legal Seafoods and the restaurants at the hotel were all ahem, jam packed for lunch. There are too many people for the area and not enough restaurants able to handle 2500 or so library folks along with the normal weekday crowd.

Having to drop $$ again for stable wireless. You know my feelings about that..

The Ugly

The conference seems to have overloaded the hotel’s conference wireless capabilities. We inadvertently created a small “denial of serviceseque” on the wireless. Too many needs to connect with too few licenses to connect available equals bottleneck.

Also, there are quite a few folks using twitter to microblog the conference. Seems that created a little stress on twitter also. Or maybe it just seemed that way.

Overall, again more good than bad. I can now say this is my favorite library conference I have attended. I came away last year and will come away from this conference with so much information I almost want to pull myself in eight directions.

I can’t wait for next year.

CIL2008 Our Workshop Yesterday/Nette is Blogging

My co-presenter talks about our Computers and Libraries Workshop here on her blog Nette’s Conference Blog. The Librarian In Black also liveblogged our session. Check them out!

She also did a great job writing about the keynote which I *ahem* missed.

CIL2008: Apologies– Very Little Wireless in my Session Room.

Sorry that I was unable to liveblog the two sessions I attended this afternoon, but I did take notes the old fashioned way..with Notepad <g> and will post them shortly.

CIL2008: Hi Tech and Hi Touch

Just wanted to post a liveblogging note about Jenny Levine - The Shifted Librarian’s talk today at CIL2008.

Some of her quotes.

“:Real human beings are our advantage over Google”

“Do we use tools that match our social capabilities?”

and the best…

“Content Creators Connecting in virtual space” and sometimes meeting in the real world, as happend many times at the gaming workshop.

Her Presentation Wiki .  The presentation will be up directly on her wiki.  Her Blog The Shifted Librarian

Pictures and more detailed reportage to follow.

CIL2008 Editorial: A Melanin Observation

One of the things I truly LOVE about CIL more than PLA or ALA, which I have also attended, is seeing other people of color either attending, or more importantly presenting at the conference.

Just wanted to say that out loud.

I ran into Julian Clark from Georgetown, who helped this blog out with some notes at ALA2008, and he too is presenting at CIL.  Unfortunately, it is at the same time as my workshop.   Insert sad face here.

CIL2008 Day the First A review.

Well, it is very late, I am uploading to YouTube some video of my night at the Gaming and Gadgets workshop tonight. This is my YouTube channel. While I have some time (and anyone who has uploaded to YouTube knows, time is what you have when when using YouTube ,) here are my w00ts, deltas and ugly’s of day one @CIL2008

Some w00ts:

Doing a great IMHO, workshop. The LiB wrote about it here. Glad it went well. Here is the presentation on SlideShare.

Meeting quite a few folks that were blog or IM names before. The Librarian In Black, Walking Paper and the Travelin’ Librarian to name three.

A truly free and unexpected lunch. Thanks Info Today. Also, our moderator and IT were great helping us get set up for our workshop and after we discovered a wee problem in the program book.

Meeting some nice folks from our workshop, talking about what has worked, what hasn’t and trying to turn library staff into change agents.

Using the tools I have yapped about for a year or more to really capture the conference. My Flickr. My YouTube. Look for the CIL2008 and CIL2008gaming tag at a social network site near you!

Signing Gimmie Shelter at the Gaming workshop. Anyone have a picture I can show please let me know.

The Gaming workshop. I am going to purchase and X360 so I can get my Rolling Stones on again.

The room. Nice. Expensive, but nice. And the Hyatt Staff is very nice.

WordPress’s new blog interface. Cool as an Arctic blast.

Delta’s

CIL’s free wireless went away after 5 pm or so.

Program book stuff messup.

Add another night of gaming and games for the main part of the conference.

Did I mention the wireless?

Ugly

Paying 10 bucks for access from my room. See rant here.

Notice that the list is very short at the bottom. That is a good thing. On that note, good night and see you all here “Stepping to the AM.”

and the freight train lulls me to sleep..

CIL2008Gaming: A great time had by all

This CIL had a Game Night (Official Title: Gaming and Gadgets Petting Zoo) and *no one* had any fun. Partial evidence of people looking at each other’s navels is below. For the full shebang on flickr click thislink and you will go to Flickr’s cil2008gaming tag search page. Enjoy.

Just a lil’ CIL rant

Why, oh Why can’t we have “freeish” wireless access at a Computers in Libraries conference with $200 plus per night hotel rooms??!???!  I mean, if Days Inns and Super 8′s can hook a brother up..why not the Hyatt??!???!?!?!?

I just *coughed* up 10 bucks to get some access until tomorrow.   Yea.

Thus ends this message.  Thank you for your time.