Did you miss it?

If you didn't have a chance to read Saturday's Post and Courier, take a minute and look at the High Profile. It features our Nic Butler. Great photo, great article. It's not often that this section is about a CCPL staff member. Kudos, Nic!

Monday musings

I took a couple of days off to visit with some old friends. We worked together at a small branch in Tampa and also worked in the same system in Nashville. They're still there and it was their first visit to Charleston in seven years. We didn't spend all of our time talking shop, but it's inevitable that when librarians get together they will compare workplace notes. Their system is doing some great things, but they were impressed with us as well. They've been forced to open two or three branches without adding any more staff and the Mayor has proposed that all departments plan a budget with a 10% cut, meaning a loss of more positions. Council may well overturn that and I truly hope they do. For such a vibrant city with such a gorgeous Main Library, the current funders don't seem to realize what it takes to run a great library. Also, all of us who work at Main should thank our lucky stars. They pay $120 a month to park in the garage downtown. Yikes.
So, thing look good in comparison here and I'm thankful that we've faired better in budget talks. Let's hope that continues!

Blogs a force for good?

Sunday's Post and Courier newspaper carried a wire story about a recent meeting in Chapel Hill, NC, of more than 150 scientists, journalists and teachers. They discussed the potential of blogging to reshape the world of science and bring it to the masses. While many people think of blogs solely in terms of a forum for personal opinions, the participants imagine a virtual world where scientists can collaborate and the public can share in the most recent discoveries. Acknowledging that blogs would never take the place of professional journals, they see a role for sharing ongoing research, new ideas, and making science more accessible to more people.
I must admit I hadn't thought about the implications of blogs for science, but it makes sense. I've been reading and thinking about blogs as a way to help give libraries a personable touch, so why not science? It's not a great leap, and yet the results could be a giant step. So, are blogs a democratic tool? You tell me.

Family additions

The extended CCPL family is growing. You've gotten emails recently about new babies at Main and John's Island, so this is just a reminder to send me pictures, so that we can see how wonderful your children are! Doesn't have to be a birth. I'll be happy to post any celebrations. I think it's a great way for us to build a stronger library community.
I've taken the liberty of posting a picture of Shawn Wagner's one month old son, Julian, along with the happy parents.

IM at CCPL

I know that I sent out an email earlier, but take a look at our web page and you'll see that our new IM Reference service is there. Pretty cool, huh?
I hadn't ever used IM until I sent questions during our test period before the service went live. It's easy to do and if I can figure it out, I'm sure you can too. So if you haven't tried to IM anyone, jump in. You, as a staff member, and you, as a department or branch, are free to use this service too. Want to send a patron to Main, but need to see if we have the item or the info before you do? IM us. It's easy. You don't even have to load the software, if you set up an account with something like Meebo.com. The Reference staff really want to use their training, so please let them hear form you.

TechTracks 3

Yesterday we hosted another session of TechTracks, taught by the State Library staff. This one was Social Networking and the Millennials. and we learned about the shift of web use from reading to creating and colloborating and thehuge popularity and the functionality of site like MySpace. Several libraries have really created MySpace accounts and I was surprised to see that Abbeville, SC has one too. They're a small library compared to us, but they've jumped into what's being called Library 2.0. Of course PLCMC (Charlotte) has a MySpace page. It's great, teen designed and very popular. I didn't realize that you could send bulletins from your page to your "friends." With one blast, PLCMC can notify everyone who's asked to be a friend, which is 800-900 at this point, of any teen program or service. Just imagine! Something to ponder, eh?

Book Videos?

It's a different world out there and I see more evidence of it all of the time. I think one of the most exciting things is the creativity displayed with these new technologies. I just looked at a site that I was alerted to by the RAYA folks (thanks Summer and Cary). It's a site that combines a blogs with video clips about books. As Summer described it, it's trailers for books. It has an RSS feed, so for those of you who are already using an aggregator, such as Bloglines, you can add it to your feeds. Don't want to go that far or don't know what in the world I'm talking about? Search for Book Trailerpark in Google, Yahoo, or whatever search engine you use. I think you'll find it a whole new concept.

Comments, anyone?

There's been a discussion on several library blogs lately about whether it's really a blog without comments. While no one expects there to be a constant chatter, there does seem to be a consensus that comments make a blog more lively and thus, more appealing.

I know from my side that comments are appreciated. It's hard to know whether anyone reads these random postings. I admit that I haven't been too active lately with updates and have good intentions of posting more often than once a week this year, but it helps to feel that you aren't writing in a vacuum. My hope with starting this was that it would provide another way for us to communicate. I haven't heard from many people and only occasionally have I received information that people wanted posted.

So, this blog can go in three directions:
1. I can continue to urge you to send me staff news items so this blog is a forum of general interest to the staff of CCPL.
2. I can post my personal/professional musings and hope that someone reads them.
3. I can continue to do a blend of the above.

What would you like? Comments, anyone?

Happy New Year!

I spent New Year's Day doing a pleasant mix of old and new. I made bean soup with the leftover hambone, primed and put a first coat of paint on a small end table. I'm planning on glazing it, which is new to me. I helped my husband scan old family photos and burn them to CD's and showed him my budding Flickr account. I thought about how nice it is to do both types of activities and the challenges of retaining a balance in life. It struck me that it's the same challenge we have at work. How do we continue to do longstanding services creatively and also work in new technologies without being overwhelmed? I don't have any quick answers, but I know from my personal life that it's important to do both. So, that's my Auld Lang Syne for 2007. Make new friends and keep the old.