New Blog of Note

http://www.rss4lib.com/index.html

more later...I am so busy playing with my wiki for our campus technology writing group and for CCL (http://cclresources.pbwiki.com) that i can hardly find time to garden, clean house, and, of course, blog... ;-)

more later...

CCL regional meeting at Cypress College

Many thanks to Carol Welsh, Dean of Library and Learning Resources, for organizing a great lunch for the Los Angeles and Southwest rgions of CCL. Librarians and staff from the following libraries attended a great lunch (courtesy of CCL): Glendale, Santa Monica, LACC, Pasadena, Cypress, Fullerton, Golden West, Irvine Valley, Orange Coast, and Santiago Canyon. Carol Welsh provided tours of their beautiful new Library and Learning Resources building. It definitely has a high tech feel with clean lines and wonderful light. Great day with great colleagues! T!hank you, Carol

You can see a timelapse video on their construction: http://www.cypresscollege.edu/~sc/timelapse/timelapse_llrc.html

Playing with Wikis...and a day of "rest"

Aaaccckkk! I woke with a horrible sore throat so I decided to lay low today. With my coffee cup near by, and my laptop on an old bedtray that I used to use for my kids, I setup shop in bed. Ah..the joys of wireless!

I decided to spend the day exploring wikis. I had taken an online workshop and had listened to a podcast aabout the great benefits of wikis but today I would use PBWIKI to create one of my own.

From ALA midwinter's wiki, I had entered my blog int their blogger's site, so it looked fairly easy. I was going to update and create a new resources page for the Council of Chief Librarians (California Community Colleges.)

After creating the page, I copied the old html page from our website and pasted it into thw iki. Voila! All of the formatting and links came along and I had my menu page. Then by using th easy wysiwug editor, I created a new page for each link, going back to my original html page to capture the new information. Unbelievaly easy. There were a few formatting issues but I played around with that and a few hours later, voila! http://cclresources.pbwiki.com/

I started thinking of other links and information resources we could provide. I went back to our newsletter and started to add information. Often we ask the same questions every oher year or so like :how many hours a week are your librarians contracted to work," "where do you advertize for new librarian recruitment?" How wonderful it would be to expand this wiki into a mre dynamic vehicle for community college librarians in the state.

My vision:
Tenders of the wiki (key people who will look after a topic and feed it, nurture it...) Information competency issues, succession leadership issues, new buildings in the state, legislative updates, etc. Although the beauty of a wiki is the opn, collaborative part, it would be great to have someone looking in occasionally to check on it.

The same day I did a wiki for Pasadena City Colleges, Tech Plan Writing Group (which I lead) as well as birthday wiki for my daughter's 30th birthday (people are contributing stories about her and I will present it to her on her birthday." I also did an ideas wiki for myslef where I can just capture all of the things that I want to pursue but don'thave time right now...

I am convinced that these wikis are limitless! And they are free for basic wikis.
Try it next time you are sick in bed ;-)

Visit to Ventura College and Oxnard College

Dona and I continued on our college trek today and headed north to Ventura and Oxnard Colleges. Ventura has a new Library and LRC building and I was anxious to see it. The building is beautiful: the LRC is on the bottom floor and it is a large pit with a "observation deck" around the outside. Faculty offices, including parttime offices flank the perimeter. It is indeed a hub of activity...

I climbed the colored, aggregate steps to the second floor and entered the library. It is another example of a plan that embraces its environment: windows let natural light in and the west side of the building has a beautiful reading room that looks out to the ocean. It was unusually quiet which was unbelievable to me since there were so many groups in the library.

I spoke with Harmony Rodriguez, one of the Librarians who was working at the Reference desk and also preparing a faculty presentation on the Library Services. Peter Sezzi was doing a library orientation so I missed seeing him. Their pride in this library was evident...

I found a great "summary video" of the building of this library on their website:
It is a timelapse construction video that is great: Play RealMedia (450kbps Cable/DSL)

We also visited with Diane Moore who is the Dean. She took us out to the beautiful patio that has a great view of the ocean. Great vistas, great staff, great dynamics on the campus...

Then on to Oxnard College Library...what a contrast (and they are sister colleges in the same district)!




Clearly, this is a college in transition...(at least I hope it is). The library is scheduled for a remodel within three years and this is a good thing. The current building was built in 1977 and the library looks like it was stalled there. I had a great visit with Ray Acosta, the Circulation coordinator who shared information with me about the building plans, collection size, staffing situation. Unfortunatley I was there at lunch time and the only librarian, Tom Stough was at lunch.

Delois Flowers was also not available since (in addition to being the Library dean) she is also the college's evening dean, social sciences dean, coordinator of the Child Development Instructional Program (and she oversees the Child Development Center.) Amazing!

I felt depressed as I left this campus... Obviously this college has issues of funding, but the contrast with Ventura, their sister college was unbelievable.

When I got home, I couldn't stop thinking about the sharp contrast of these sister schools in the same district. I went back to their website to see what was going on. I wanted to look at their accreditation self-study (the link didn't work), looked at their administrative structure (page under construction) and check out what was happening ont he campus. I had a hard time finding the Library since there is no link on any of the dropdowns (but could find it in the Search box.) It is clear that the institution did not think it was a priority. I then tried to select other links, and many of the pages have not been updated since May of 2006.

Kudos to Delois for doing what she can...but realistically, this is what happens when you cannot "tend and feed" a library because you have so many other pressing responsibilities. It is remarkable that the "Dean of Student Learning" is also the eevening dean. She is spread so thinly... but then looking at all of the administrators, it is clear that it is a pattern...

More...5 weeks to a social library

I may have mentioned that this course accepted 40 people, however, anyone can lurk along...listening and viewing the presentations and discussions. Anyone can participate by commenting on participants' blogs that they created to track their progress. Today I listened to the Webcasts 1 and 2 and as I was listening, I was thinking about what our college library could do...so many things. Favorite books of the library staff (reviews and such), New books just on the shelf, exhibit information, faculty favorite all time books (or websites), new websites for students, etc. It is limitless...and a great marketing tool. Ah yes, what studnets are reading...

Presentations
Webcast 1 - A 21st Century Printing Press: Blogs as Publishing Mechanism - Rebecca Hedreen, Distance Education Librarian, Southern Connecticut State University.

Webcast 2 - Next Steps: Taking Your Library’s Blog from So-So to Superb - Nanette Donohue, Technical Services Manager, Champaign Public Library

to check out:
Ohio University Libraries Business Blog (academic)
Kansas State University Library Blogs (academic)
Virginia Commonwealth University Library Suggestion Blog (academic)

More to catch this week:
Screencast: Duck Soup: Using a Blog to Provide Product Support (blip.tv) - Karen Harker, Digital Infrastructure Research & Development unit, UT Southwestern Medical Center Library

Screencast: From Writer's Block to Library Blog (blip.tv) - Anne Welsh, Bibliographic Services, DrugScope; Editor, Catalogue & Index: Periodical of the CILIP Cataloguing and Indexing Group.

Screencast: Using the Tools: How Millenials Use the World Wide Web (blip.tv) - Jami Schwarzwalder, Recent Graduate, Indiana University MLS Program

Five Weeks to a Social Library

Five Weeks to a Social Library "Five Weeks to a Social Library is the first free, grassroots, completely online course devoted to teaching librarians about social software and how to use it in their libraries. It was developed to provide a free, comprehensive, and social online learning opportunity for librarians who do not otherwise have access to conferences or continuing education and who would benefit greatly from learning about social software."

Although I had access to many trainings and conferences, I applied for this course but was not selected. No matter. All of their course resources (webcasts, outlines, blogs, etc.) are available to anyone. You can follow along with the participants and respond via their blogs.

The first week was on blogs. I feel a little like a lurker but actually, now outside readers can post comments on their blog entries. It is a great opportunity not just for those 40 individuals, but for others listening, doing, thinking.

FYI...check this site on Academic libraries' blogs: http://liswiki.org/wiki/Weblogs_-_Academic_Libraries

Blogging_Libraries_Wiki
http://www.blogwithoutalibrary.net/links/index.php?

Community College Survey of Digital Resources: Activities and Readiness

The survey I adapted from the IMLS Survey on Technology and Digitization is now out! You can see a review copy at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=138973345797
Unfortunately, after 3 months of discussion with IMLS, they decided that I could not see the community college results from the national survey. Since the response from community colleges was not overwhelming, it seems that the results might have been a violation of the confidential nature of the survey. I had decided that I could no longer wait so I had drafted mine in Surveymonkey.

As of today (just three days after release), 25 libraries have responded. Yea!

Outline of project plan and activities:
--Explore this agenda fully in the literature
--Survey statewide community colleges
--Survey and visit selected community colleges known for their progressive use of technology
--Frame a discussion paper on planning for continued technology growth and development.
--Summarize findings in a document for the Council of Chief Librarians similar to the one I prepared in 1977: Onramps to Electronic Highways: Database Trends, Practices and Expenditures in California's Community College Libraries

Vroman's Bookstore LATimes Festival of Books

I played with another feature of Blogger today. You can post an entry from your email directly to your blog. Here it is...
it is clear you need to clean it us...this is a mess...I would definitely not use this as is but left it as an example...

--- Vroman's Bookstore <email@vromansbookstore.com>
wrote:

> Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:36:48 -0500 (EST)
> From: Vroman's Bookstore
> <email@vromansbookstore.com>
> To: malaun@pasadena.edu
> Subject: 2007 Vroman's Book Buses
>
> Vroman's 6th Annual Book Bus Ride
> 2007 L.A. Times Festival of Books
>
> It's that time again! Vroman's Bookstore is pleased
> to announce our
> sixth annual Book Bus ride to the Los Angeles Times
> Festival of
> Books, one of the country's premiere literary
> events!
>
> Join us Saturday, April 28 for a day that begins
> with a bagel & juice
> breakfast before our 8:30 a.m. departure, a Vroman's
> Book Bus hat,
> a bag chock-full of books & goodies, games and
> prizes, milk & cookies
> for the ride home, and a 20% off coupon good
> Saturday, April 28 –
> Friday, May 4 at our main store.
>
> And there's more!