Visits to Golden West College and Orange Coast College

Visits to Golden West College and Orange Coast on 2/14
Dona and I continued on our weekly treks to community colleges. We arrived at Golden West College in Huntington Beach and took a little tour of both the Library and the Learning Assistance Center. I was delighted to know that they have a new building in the works!

I met with the Department Chair, Sue Berman


We discussed their organizational structure, the impending accreditation visit, and their new building. It appears she has a wonderful staff of faculty librarians and paraprofessionals and as we spoke, her rotating display on her desktop illustrated their happy faces. I was also happy to receive a copy of their self-study since I was selected to be on their visiting team. (I declined because of my sabbatical leave.) I am anxious to review it since we at PCC are also starting down this self-study road again.

We then had lunch in Newport Beach with my 86 year old Mom and Dona asked her what I was like a a little girl. From her descriptions, (Mary Ann was always running, two steps ahead of me!), we both agreed that I am who I am...and was as a child. ;-)

Then on to Orange Coast College.


OCC serves as many students as Pasadena but it is amazing to walk on their campus and see their physical facility. A new library is being constructed as well as other campus projects. Their library director is Sheri Sterner who is also the director of institutional research. We spoke of administrative techniques as well as self-study activities and although she is new to her position in the last two years, she has been a strong advocate for the library. In her words, she called herself a business manager while the librarians, and specifically librarian Vinta Oviatt as department chair, addresses professional concerns.

Like Golden West, they look forward to the completion of their new Learning Resources Center and accreditation activities.

A "calm" ALA Midwinter meeting in Seattle

Johanna Bowen from Cabrillo sent me this YouTube link from midwinter...somehow it did not catch the frenetic pace though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td922l0NoDQ

I visit YouTube regularly and look for library topics.
The latest is the "March of the Librarians" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td922l0NoDQ

Banned Books at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_ONB24Pugc&NR

You can also see the disruption of a library reading room at NYU with http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt1bgsvsWms
Johanna Bowen
Cabrillo College Library

Transforming the Future: 20/20 Foresight" An ALA Sunrise Seminar with Bob Treadway

I am still sorting through papers from ALA midwinter in Seattle. These notes are from the speech by Futurist Bob Treadway, who addressed the early morning attendees of ALA midwinter on Sunday. Bob Treadway is a forecaster and a a professional member of the World Future Society. He used a very common sense approach to looking to the future: Often we have to just ask what the future holds...and then look at the possibilities. Often there are finite choices of what is ahead: Elections, Legislation, Human behavior...all have fairly predictable consequences. If you look at what drives human behavior (he calls it human adoption drivers), you will notice 4 key factos: familiarity (have I seen it?), Gain (what will I get from it?) Ease (how easy is it to use?) and cost (is it reasonably priced?) He used IPOD (remember the walkman for familiarity, gain=days of music, not minutes, ease of use (it is) and cost (reasonable).

Treadway commented on two library-focused forecasts: Libraries will be influenced by privatized competition, and secondly, that "advice" is already a huge industry now and in the future (e.g. classic example of Amazon...customers who liked this, bought that...)

He looked 10-20 years out and predicted that the virtual environments will predominate and that there will be total digitization. He encouraged librarians to capitalize on what we do now--we are high on the knowledge hierarchy and referred to Russell Ackoff's "knowledge hierarchy" where the lowest level "ignorance". Knowledge then progresses upward to data-->information-->knowledge-->expertise--> and finally wisdom. He also stated that the "advice" business will be bigger than the largest industry now which is travel and tourism.

Libraries were encouraged to create for-profit divisions and “Advice on Call” services. Expand what we do well and with the values we hold, obtain funding to stay vital, grow services and provide accessibility. He questionsed "What will you miss if you don't compete for the opportunities to add value to people's lives?" Address these four tough questions now: funding for continued access for all; opportunities for profitable services, the best use of professional librarians, and how libraries will serve the next generations of users.

Referred us to a book called THE WISDOM OF CROWDS: WHY THE MANY ARE SMARTER THAN THE FEW AND HOW COLLECTIVE WISDOM SHAPES BUSINESS, ECONOMIES, SOCIETIES, AND NATIONS.

Ended with a great quote based on Buffet's 'Noah did not start building the Ark when it was raining.', in other words, "Predicting rain doesn't count, building arks does."