YALSA's Beginner's Guide to Teens in Libraries: 2015 Edition

The Western Maryland Regional Library is sponsoring a daylong institute for the public library staff of Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties specifically focused on staff:teen interactions within our libraries. This information is available on the MERLIN Training Calendar as well. 

Description:

Nearly every staff person interacts with teens in some way. This training is geared toward providing staff with strategies to ensure that the interaction is positive. Participants will achieve a better understanding of adolescent needs and behaviors and how to deal with them.

Date: March 16, 2015

Time: 9am-4pm – lunch will be provided by WMRL

Location: LaVale Library: 815 National Hwy, LaVale, MD

Register & for more info: http://bit.ly/TeensInLibraries 

Mary Hastler, Director, Harford County Public Library, will be leading this daylong institute. 

Charlie 'Noiseguy' Williams Reviews

Image source: http://www.noiseguy.com

On Monday, April 8th, 27 children's specialists from Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties' public libraries, health departments, and higher ed extension offices came together in the LaVale library to participate in, Sound Advice with Charlie 'Noiseguy' Williams.

I must have been feeling uncharacteristically quantitative because I actually asked the participants to fill out ... wait for it ... evaluation forms. *gasp*

This does not mean they are immune to the email that is destined to arrive in their inbox one of these days soon, asking them to share their learning reflections to the blog.

I wanted to share the aggregated results of the evaluations with you because both the numbers and the free-responses are fairly insightful.

Participants assigned a 1-5 rating to the following questions, with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.

Question 1: How well did the presenter keep you engaged?
Average:  4.7 (no one said they were bored)

Question 2: How well did the presenter display knowledge of the material?
Average: 4.9 (Perhaps a 5.0 was out of reach because there's always room for improvement)

Question 3: How helpful was this material to your work at the library/school/organization?
Average: 4.3 (pretty helpful)

Question 4: How good a use of your time was this training?
Average: 4.4 (pretty good use of time)

Question 5: How might you use what you've learned at work?
For this, I created this word cloud.

 

Question 5: Additional questions or comments.

For this, I created another word cloud.

 

Final thoughts:

All in all, I'd say this workshop was a success and for any other trainers/staff development folks out there who might be reading this review, I highly recommend working with Charlie. He communicates well, is sensitive to the financial constraints of working with public library budgets, and has an abundance of energy and enthusiasm.

Coursera

Thanks to Maurice Coleman and his T is for Training Podcast on Friday, I learned about Coursera (www.coursera.org) which is a catalog of free MOOCs (massively open online courses).

These are several-week-long, asynchronous courses taught by professors at universities all across the world – mostly U.S. but there are several international universities represented.

I spent some time browsing around in their catalog and found some courses that might be of interest to those of us in library-land:

• Creativity, Innovation, and Change (Penn State Univ)
• Inspiring Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence (Case Western Reserve Univ)
• Metadata: Organizing and Discovering Information (UNC Chapel Hill)
• Design Thinking for Business Innovation (Univ. of VA)

And my favorite, A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior

LWC Day #1: Visit to MCI-H

This is the 2nd part of my learning reflection for the first class day of Leadership Washington County. After we completed our poverty simulations in the morning we hopped on a bus and headed over to Sharpsburg to the MCI-H, a medium security prison. It didn't dawn on me then but I'm just now wondering if society labels the incarcerated members of our society as impoverished or privileged. Certainly, depending on where you are on the incarcerated societal ladder, some folks have more privileges than others.

After lunch, we spent about an hour touring the facilities and learning about some of the programs offered at MCI-H - the cells (are tiny), the visiting area (is one of the last ones in the state to not have an impassable physical barrier between the residents and the visitors), the recreation areas, the work areas (i.e. metal works, meat packaging, etc), and one of the highlights of my day: the dog assistance training program where the residents work with lab/lab-mix puppies and train them to become service animals.

The next hour or so was spent engaging in a panel discussion with four outstanding residents, all of whom were there on life sentences for murder (someone else might need to correct me on this; we didn't have pens and paper to take notes so my memory is shoddy). They told us why they were there but the most interesting pieces focused on the good they were doing within the prison to improve the relationships between residents and staff. One of the residents, Gino, is in charge of a communication committee (it had a better name than that) and he's working with other residents and staff to create classes to teach new and veteran residents new skills on how to break bad habits so they're prepared to interact in more acceptable ways when they leave MCI-H; and for the ones who are at MCI-H for the long haul, these new skills benefit them and their interactions in house.

They also talked about what they think are some of the most important factors in preventing youth from following in their footsteps. They specified quality time and attention from respected adults. They also couldn't stress enough how important it is for adults in authority (parents, teachers, coaches, etc) to just listen without judging. The panelists said that if they weren't so afraid of the repercussions they would've experienced by talking to their parents and/or teachers about normal youth concerns, then they would have opened up more freely and perhaps wouldn't have engaged in less than legal behaviors. One of the programs that they'd like to start or maybe it's already in the works is a mentoring program with MCI-H residents and troubled youth (and their families, too?) in Washington county. I'd love to see this happen.

The last segment of the day was another panel of four human services experts from Washington County. These folks helped to tie the day together - poverty, privilege, charity - and basically they fielded our questions about gaps in the system (i.e. why aren't the human services departments in one centralized area so folks who need these resources don't have to trek all across town - on foot or bus - to get the help they need?) and shared their unique insights on the situation in Washington county. Again - not being able to take notes greatly hampered my retention rate here so, if any of my LWC friends are reading this, please feel free to chime in with your takeaways, too!

All in all it was an extremely eye-opening day. I knew that I didn't know much about Washington County but I didn't realize I didn't know *that* much about Washington County. There are some amazingly generous and charitable people and organizations out there doing some amazing things for folks but at the same time there's a lot of room for improvement which seems to rely, for better or for worse, on funding and priority consensus. You're probably wondering, what does this have to do with your work at the library? Well, I think there's a lot the library can do but it's going to require me to think about this some more which also means you'll have to stay tuned for pt. 3 of this learning reflection.

LWC Day #1: Poverty Simulation

The first class day of my Leadership Washington County program was Oct. 12th and since the Western MD Regional Library is sponsoring me to participate in this program I thought it was only right to post a learning reflection here.

The theme of the day was Human Resources and the thesis statement we were given to keep in the back of our minds throughout the day was something to the extent of, "How do poverty and privilege co-exist in Washington county?" To drive the point home, we were asked to read the article, "The Limits of Charity."

Part 1: Poverty Simulation
So, the first half of our day began with a poverty simulation. We were broken up into 5 groups of 6 people and each group was given a different scenario. The scenario my group had was written entirely in Spanish. Basically, our situation was this:

We are a family of four - 2 parents, 2 kids (ages 3 and 4) who mostly only speak Spanish though they know a little English. The parents are in the country illegally but the children were born in the U.S. and thus are legal. The family is currently living with some friends but they need to get food stamps, medical assistance, education information for their kids, etc. We have an appointment at La Comunidad Latina which is based out of the Community Action Council building on Summit Ave, to speak with Gladys Rojas. 

So, we set out on foot to La Comunidad Latina where we waited in line just to sign in with the receptionist. Keeping the idea of poverty and privilege it was interesting to hear some of our LWC companions wanting to skip ahead to the front of the line just because of the LWC program. We reminded them that this is a poverty simulation and the wait is what folks do to be seen at the CAC every day. When we got into Ms. Rojas' office she immediately started speaking Spanish, greeting us, etc. There were two of us in the group who had enough Spanish experience to piece together what was happening so, that made it a little bit easier but pretty much she was trying to demonstrate for us what it's like for someone who doesn't speak the primary language. Ms. Rojas continued to guide us, in Spanish, through the intake form that we had to complete. Afterwards, she reverted to English...thankfully! We spent about 30 minutes talking with Ms. Rojas and we learned that since the parents are illegal, there's really no resources available to help them. However, since their children were born in the U.S. they are entitled to food stamps. temporary cash assistance, education at the public schools, and medical insurance.  However, she cannot provide us with any of those resources there, we have to go to the Department of Social Services (DSS) for that. What she can do for us is to help us set up and maintain our own business - should we be so inclined to register one in the future.

So, we set out again, this time to DSS. When we arrived at DSS we were yet again greeted with another line. This time the LWC name (and the need for DSS to stay on their schedule) did expedite our wait (hello, privilege) and we were shown into the room where we needed to be. Did I mention that if your request is processed before 2PM it might be possible for your to receive same-day assistance? So, time is of the essence.

We shared our situation with the two DSS representatives who were waiting for us and they told us about the process we'd go through rather than actually making us go through it. They do group consultations at DSS three times a day and each group session can accommodate about 20 people. During these sessions, everyone watches an intro video which explains, in English, what services are available through DSS. After that, they're guided through the necessary paperwork (approx. 8-10 pages worth). To accommodate non-English speaking clients, they have a telephone translating system where the DSS rep is on one phone, the client is on the other and in the middle (somewhere off site) is a translator. So, each party takes turns speaking into the phone while the middle man translates for them. They can currently translate approximately 26 languages.

Basically, the only requirement for someone to receive assistance at DSS is a social security number. This means the parents in our scenario are still not able to receive any assistance for themselves but they can receive approximately $363 a month in food stamps with which to feed their two U.S. born children. They can also receive a maximum of approximately $453 a month in temporary cash assistance - again to be used to take care of the children (clothes, shoes, toiletries, shelter, etc). The children also will be taken care of medically with medical insurance. If I understand it right, they'll immediately be covered by Medicaid and then once the paperwork goes through the system, they'll be assigned to an MCO (?) through which all their medical needs will be processed. DSS does random spot checks each month and does check in with all clients 2x a year; at least one of those meetings is either in person or on the phone. Approximately 30% of Washington County residents is on one form of assistance or another (either food stamps. temporary cash assistance, medical assistance, or a combination of the three).

Just vising these two departments took about 3 hours and they were abbreviated visits. Imagine if we really had this need and had to invest even more time in our day to get the help we needed. Plus, we might end the day with no cash in our pockets anyway - it usually takes 5-7 days for folks to receive their temporary cash assistance card in the mail (it comes from TX). If we had needed food to hold us over we would have been sent back to the Community Action Council or a soup kitchen, etc.

Another thing that I learned that I thought was important to share is that both La Comunidad Latina and the DSS are safe spaces; if you're illegal - for any reason (immigration, felonies, etc) they will not report you. They're in the business of getting help for their clients, not making their lives harder by calling the police. What a wonderful feeling and I bet most folks do not realize that these safe spaces exist...

A couple more thoughts on poverty and privilege: are the impoverished considered privileged to have these services available to them in Washington County considering these services aren't necessarily available everywhere? One of my favorite questions for almost any topic, can privilege exist without poverty or vice versa?

Stay tuned for part 2 of day #1 - a visit to the MCI-H prison in Sharpsburg.

Creativity and Culture (R2P2)

So, this post is all about R Squared Part 2 (R2P2) - or the bookend post, as I like to think of it. This is all about the inspiration gleaned Monday morning and Tuesday afternoon.

Josh Linkner
Monday morning kicked off with a keynote presentation by author and entrepreneur, Josh Linkner. Below are some of the golden nuggets of information that made me go, "wow..."

Pike Syndrome: I summarize this as letting invisible barriers keep us from success. Josh was much more eloquent in his explanation describing the scientific expeirment that lead to the coining of the syndrome. 

"Scientists conducted an experiment where they put a pike in a tank with many other smaller fish that they pike would ordinarily devour. Instead of the normal feeding frenzy, the scientists separated the pike from the smaller fish by inserting a layer of glass which prevented the pike from reaching its dinner.

The hungry pike continuously smashed itself against the glass trying to get a good meal. As much as it tried, however, it was unsuccessful in breaking through the barrier. After many attempts, the pike become discouraged. It stopped trying to break through the barrier and eventually sank to the bottom of the tank and just laid there. At this point, the scientists removed the barrier allowing the pike to feast.

What happened next was surprising to everyone. The pike continued to ignore the smaller fish, even when they were swimming right next to the pike. The predator remained at the bottom of the tank, and ended up dying of starvation even with plenty of tasty fish easily within his reach." [from Josh's blog]

DollarShaveClub.com: Josh presented DollarShaveClub.com as an example of how even the largest, most successful holders of market's share can have their foundations shaken (not stirred) by small businesses. All it takes is creativity, risk, humor, humanity, and just a little bit of money - not a lot. Watch the YouTube video if you don't believe me.

Creativity is 85% learned behavior: yes, you read that right. 85% of our creativity can be developed through practice. It's just like exercising any other muscle. If you don't work it then it's gonna turn to flab. Fortunately, there are plenty of creativity 'gyms' out there to help you get pumped up. Start by downloading Josh's Guide to Creativity - for free!

How to unleash curiosity

1. Get curious. Ask why, what if, why not at least 5x. Pretend you're a 2 year old, like in this segment of Louie CK's routine - the 5 Whys bit starts at 2:38. 
1. Also, take a look at littlemismatched.com. This business competes on originality, not price.
2.  Encourage courage. Failures are our portals to discovery.
3. Challenge assumptions. Josh told the story of a little girl who was helping her mom make meatloaf and before putting it into the over, the mom cut the ends off. The little girl asked, "why do we cut the ends off the meatloaf?" Mom says, "well, I don't know. I guess I've always done it because that's how my mom did it. Let's call grandma to find out." So, they call Grandma and ask her the same question. Grandma gives the same response. So, they call Great Grandma and ask her the same question. Great Grandma laughs and says, "Well, I have no idea why you're cutting the ends off of your meatloaf but I had to do it because it wouldn't fit into my pan." LOL Get it?
4. Think small. Like a start-up.
5. Shatter conventional wisdom.

 There is going to have to be a R2P3 because this post is getting a little lengthy. Stay tuned to learn about 3 exercises that help put some zip into your brainstorming sessions!
 

Marbles, and Mazes, and Mines, Oh My!

I was very fortunate to be able to attend the Risk and Rewards Conference in Telluride, Colorado, September 9th - 11th. As part of the registration I had to choose an Experience (aka Track). So, I chose the Culture Track. This will be a 2-part blog post.

Here's a little bit more about the Culture Track:

"Staff culture is at the heart of any organization, and core values influence an organization's culture, including internal processes and community perception. The Culture Experience will help attendees understand the key concepts of what builds a vibrant, creative, risk-positive organizational culture and how employees at all levels can influence and support it.

We believe work should be fun. This experience-based learning adventure will take attendees out of their comfort zones and into Telluride's gorgeous Mountain Village to discover ways they can foster courage, collaboration and communication in their libraries."

So, what did this look like in practice? Well, first we were randomly assigned to groups of about 10-12, each identified by different colored bandanas. We had to come up with a name for our team and assign a team captain. I'm not quite sure how it happened but we ended up being the Aqua Butts and our captain was a summer camp counselor in a former life so she always had fun cadences for us to yell as we moved from each of the 8 challenge stations we faced that afternoon.

Everywhere we go!

                               Everywhere we go!

People wanna know!

                              People wanna know!

Who we are!

                             Who we are!

So we tell them!

                             So we tell them!

 We are the Butts!

                             We are the Butts!

          The Mighty Mighty Aqua Butts!

                             The Mighty Mighty Aqua Butts!

What were the 8 challenge stations? 

Sherpa Challenge
We were asked to pretend we were mountain climbers on an expedition up Mount Everest and we needed to assemble a climbing team made up of our other teammates. Each of us was randomly given a card which was tucked into our bandanas so we could not see but so our teammates could. Our value as a mountain climber was determined by the card on hour forehead. Aces high all the way down to the lowly 2 (suit made no difference). We were asked to treat each other based on our cards so that we could guess which card we had. This exercise helped us identify ways our libraries explicitly and inexplicitly place value on employees and which qualities/positions appear to have more or less value.

Body Spelling
As you might guess, this was an exercise in non-verbal communication and teamwork. Working together without talking we had to spell words out with our bodies. We successfully spelled three words: Risk, Aqua, Butt. 

Obstacle Course
I like to call this one the Bouncy Castle Maze challenge. Working as a team we had to go through a huge (at least 50 meters long) inflatable obstacle course. In the center of the course was a large piece of paper with a hangman-type code written on it. There were 10 words written in symbols (triangles, arrows, astrological signs, etc). We had to come up with a strategy for memorizing them and then bring them back to the start of the course, write them down, and then decode them to find out what the hidden message was. The hidden message was, "Be the change you want to see in the world." 


Disc Golf
We had to play disc golf as a team. There were three 'holes," 2 were fairly close and one was further away. Each team member had to get one disc into one of the closest holes. Two team members had to get one disc into the furthest hole. Each hole made was awarded with a puzzle card. If no one got a disc in the furthest hole the team could instead opt to do 2 alternative challenges like playing a round of charades or creating a 30 second synchronized swimming routine sans water (both of which we did). Then, using the puzzle cards, we had to assemble a 3D version of the puzzle using wooden geometric blocks. Did I mention all of this was timed? Yeah, we had 5 minutes to do the disc golf portion and then we were trying to complete the puzzle in the shortest amount of time. We completed it in 2 min 20 sec, doubling the shortest time on record - we celebrated our failure with gusto as that was one of our core values (celebrate every failure).


Rock Climbing
Yes, we each had a chance to climb an indoor rock wall. Two of the team members had to put on harnesses and make it all the way to the top. The rest of us has to climb sideways from one side to the other. Two of us made it to the top. None of us made it all the way from side to side. Rock climbing is really difficult!!


Fear Factor
So, this challenge was one of two indoor activities. We walked into the room and on a long table were 4 terrariums. The first one had about 3 inches of yucky smelling earthworms and mulch. The second one had 5 field mice sitting atop a bed of cedar shavings. The third one had a huge tarantula sitting atop a similar bed of cedar shavings. The fourth one was tall and all black so we didn't know what was inside it. Then there was a large cardboard box on the floor that barely contained the 15lb boa constrictor that was inside it. Our challenge was to pick a card, the image on which would tell us which terrarium we and our partner would be pawing our way through to find our Aqua Butt blue-colored poker chip. I drew the snake card (see the very top right image of this blog post). However, since gently nudging the cute Boa (her name was Zoe) wasn't too much of a challenge for me I asked to hold the tarantula since that was a huge challenge. I have a very strong aversion to spiders and they seem to be everywhere outside my house this time of year. Anyway, here's proof that I could hold a more-than-palm-sized arachnid and not be scarred for life:

 
Minesweeper 
For this challenge we paired up to take turns guiding each other through a duct-tape mine field. There was more than one person working their way through the mine at one time and our partners had to stand at the far end of the mine field so, with our blindfolds on, we really had to listen for our partner's voice. Most of the time, if we were the ones giving directions, we'd preface everything with our partner's name and that seemed to help. If our partner touched a mine we had to start all over. 


Marble Race
Our last challenge of the day was the marble race. There was a route marked by little red flags out in the grass and around some trees. Through this route we had to pass a marble from one person to the other using about 18" of PVC pipe cut in half length-wise. The only rules were: you can't move your feet if you're holding the marble in your PVC pipe, your body can't touch the marble in any way, if you drop the marble you have to start over, and you have to complete the race in less than 3 minutes. So, each of us had our own length of pipe and we lined up shoulder to shoulder passing this marble to each other. We dropped the marble 3 times but on the 4th time we successfully completed the race in less than 2 minutes!


In part 2 of my R Squared blog post I'll share what we did Monday Morning and Tuesday afternoon when all attendees were together in one room! Stay tuned...

Guess the Google

I learned something new this week but I didn't learn it by sitting through a webinar or by traveling down the road to a conference; I learned it from talking with friends on Facebook.

Here's the scenario. I'm preparing two 1/2 day reference workshops on behalf of Elizabeth Hulett, Head of Adult Services at WCFL and I have the pleasure of teaching 8 of my colleagues all about Google and some of the library databases. 

As I was going through my 5 questions for assessment design that I use to craft all of the workshops I present myself, I came to the third question: Pedagogy: What's the learning activity? I could simply repeat what I did last year for a different group of colleagues but where's the fun in that? 

I tried brainstorming some ideas by flipping through various instruction materials I've acquired over the years but nothing was jumping out at me so, I decided to crowd-source my brainstorming efforts by posting the question to Facebook.

That's when I learned about a new and fun way to introduce Google.

The game is called Guess the Google and there used to be a web-based version of it but I found out that it has been taken offline for maintenance so, there's nothing for me to link you to so you can experience it yourself. I am making my own PowerPoint version for the workshop.

What you do: 

1. Do a Google Image search for something - the level of difficulty depends on who you're going to be playing this with. So far, I've opted toward creating several different rounds, each one increasing in difficulty. An easy search would be "dog" and a hard search would be "perturbed."
2. Browse through the image results and select about 7-9 images to make a PowerPoint collage. The images you select depends on how difficult you want to make it for the players. For example, for the dog search, to make it extremely easy I would copy and paste a bunch of pictures of dogs. To make it harder I would scroll further down in the results list and select images that aren't of dogs but are of some obscure reference to dogs like feet or Dog the Bounty Hunter.
3. Once the collages are complete, you play by showing the collage to the players and then they have to guess what you typed into the Google search box that retrieved those image results. You can try it with the two below and you can put your guesses in the comments field

Guess the Google (easy)

 

Guess the Google (hard)

 

eBooks: Benefits, Challenges, and the Future

Thanks to the folks at the Southeast Florida Library Information Network, a virtual conference is coming your way on September 21st!

You can read all about it and register by visiting the conference's site directly. 

Learning: What's on the Horizon

I thought I'd take the time to share with you the learning opportunities that are on the learning horizon for the library staff in Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties. Most of these aren't set in stone yet but I wanted to give you a head's up.

September & October: SkillSoft

Now, there's no need to groan here. Yes, for some of us it might feel like SkillSoft has been beaten into every fiber of our being but there's a good reason for that. By itself it might be a little lame and sterile but this year I'm hoping to show you the hidden sexiness of SkillSoft that can be teased out through blended learning events. Let me explain.

Yes, I will be offering Introductory SkillSoft courses for the first-timers and as refreshers for anyone who might have neglected SkillSoft during the past year and wants to give it a second chance. Then I'm going to create Shared SkillSoft Seminars where colleagues from across the three counties all take the same SkillSoft course and then come together online in the new Blackboard Collaborate (formerly Wimba) to have a discussion about how we can try to apply what we've learned in the course to our everyday work lives. CEUs are awarded for the SkillSoft courses as well as participating in the online discussions.

October 15th: Storytime Extravaganza
9am-4pm @ Clear Spring library 

From the 2012 MLA Conference Program:
"Spend the day with these amazing programming librarians in fun,interactive lecture and activities. Whether a beginner or a seasoned programmer, you will take away new ideas, great information, and endless inspiration. Learn about the hows and whys of using puppets in story time; how to connect with your audience effectively using a variety of storytelling methods such as readers’ theater, felt board stories and more; learn methods to engage and keep the attention of large story time groups, how to mix music into your programs; and how to plan thematic story times. Audience participation is encouraged!"

Lunch will be provided.

PRESENTERS:
Amanda Ellington - Youth Services Supervisor, St. Mary’s County Library
Tess Goldwasser, Youth Services Librarian and Early Childhood Community Liaison, St. Mary’s County Library

REGISTRATION:
Will be open 8/27/12 - 10/08/12. 

 November: Serving Your Customers Without Sacrificing Yourself
From Rayna Schroeder's website: 
"Do you wonder how you can provide better customer service AND not let difficult customers drive you crazy? Attend this workshop and learn the keys to serving your customers without sacrificing yourself. You will discover the four fundamental things customers want, which will enable you to serve them well. You will understand how to leverage "Moments of Truth" - opportunities for customers to evaluate you and your business. Finally, if dealing with difficult people is something you encounter daily, learn techniques to deal with difficult customers and not let them ruin your day."

December & January: Databases
This is one thing that showed up several times in the training needs assessment and it's something that was asked for last year but I regrettably did not get around to offering it. I'm determined to do better this year. I'd like to highlight 2-3 databases during one workshop and in order to decide which ones to highlight, I'll first look to the WMRL Database Advisory Committee to see which resources might need a boost in marketing. However, you guys reading this are the ones who help the patrons use the databases so, I'm also going to look to you to tell me which ones you think should be focused on as well. This doesn't have to be just a December event. It can be on-going if there's a need/desire.


February: Making the Connection
From Julie Gaver's website:
"This fun and highly interactive session provides attendees with opportunities to increase their comfort and confidence for networking, establish rapport with others, enhance their listening and conversational skills, and understand good social etiquette."


June 10th & 11th: Give 'Em The Pickle
 June 10th @ ACLS @ 1:00-4:00pm
June 11th @ WCFL @ 9:30am-12:30pm

From the 2012 MLA Conference Program:
"In this interactive workshop that takes a fun, motivational look at customer service, participants will explore various techniques to apply the four key principles of service, attitude, consistency, and teamwork. In this training, we join “Bob Farrell on a cross-country journey to meet employees and managers who have put his customer service mantra - Give ‘em the Pickle - into action.” Participants will learn the importance of giving away pickles - small but meaningful things or actions that show customers they’re valued, identify their own pickles to give away, work in groups, as well as create their own personal action plans. The presenters share their own experience with transforming customer service at Blackwell Library and provide tips and pointers for participants to take back to their institutions."

PRESENTERS:
Mou Chakraborty - Director of Public Services, Blackwell Library, Salisbury University
Sharon Payne - Head of Circulation, Blackwell Library, Salisbury University

REGISTRATION:
Will open April 29, 2013 

Additional Presentations Yet To Be Scheduled:

• Top Trends in Technical Services 
• The Changing Face of Circulation and Support Staff in the Library
• Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Joys and Pains of Middle Management  
• The 360 Degree Performance Appraisal
• Microsoft Office - Outlook 2010

 

WCFL Intranet RSS Feeds

A couple of weeks ago the Washington County Free Library launched a brand new Intranet courtesy of Tracy Carroll at the Western MD Regional Library.

If you're like me and never go to the Intranet but still feel left out when everyone else is posting there, then I have a solution for you!

Sign up for Intranet RSS feeds. Anytime anyone posts something new to an Intranet Forum you'll get the post in your Outlook inbox.

Note, this only works for Outlook users - webmail users do not have this luxury that I am aware of. If I'm wrong please let me know and we'll get those instructions up here as well.

Firefox and Outlook users can open this PDF to learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds. 

Internet Explorer and Outlook users can open this PDF to learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds.

Happy reading!

In the Works: Reader's Advisory for Children/YA/Teen/Juvenile Librarians

Go to 100 Scope Notes to view full image.

This morning Jeff Ridgeway and I met to talk about the possibility of coordinating efforts in order to schedule a day-long staff development event for the region centered around reader's advisory for children's/teen/YA/juvenile literature and below are the notes and ideas I gleaned from our discussion. Please chime in with feedback and ideas!

Format: We're looking at following a modified format of BCPL's Great Books events they once held back in the day where it might look something like this:

10am-11am - Keynote speaker (author or RA guru)

11am-11:30am - Q&A with keynote speaker

11:30am-12:30pm - lunch and time to catch up w/colleagues

12:30pm-1:30pm - Breakout Session: Hands-on RA activities

1:45pm-2:45pm - Breakout Session: Colleague show-n-tell

2:50pm-3pm - Evaluations / CEUs (up to 3 CEUs)

If there's interest among the library staff and the public school teachers in each of the three western counties and if I'm feeling especially ambitious, I can foresee a plan where we hold this event three days in a row - once in Washington county, once in Allegany county, and once in Garrett county. But this absolutely depends on interest and # of attendees because of course the cost would go up regardless of the keynote speaker and we definitely want to make sure ROI is high for something like this.

Content: I like the idea of using films to predict popular titles among youngins and if we can identify 3 top trends in this genre then we could identify either one author from one of those genres or one RA specialist to be our keynote. These top trends would then set the stage/framework for the hands-on breakout session at 12:30pm and the show-n-tell session at 1:45pm. Some current trends that we identified: fairy tales, distopian fiction, supernatural but not vampires. Which trends do you see on the horizon? It might also be to our benefit to invite local authors/RA specialists who fit the bill rather than looking nationally. Thoughts on this?

WENTK: (Who Else Needs to Know?) I'm currently working to pick the brains of my colleagues at the Eastern Shore Regional Library who recently hosted a public event featuring Jack Gantos.

 

But if you know of other libraries near or far who have done something similar, please let me know. This type of thing - content wise - finds me bit out of my element so, I'm happy to learn from those who have more experience! 

In addition, I have been in contact with Jamie Watson at BCPL to get more information about their Great Books events - they haven't had one of these in a couple of years but it's still good to have a contact to give me some perspective! These events were on a much grander scale than what I'm envisioning is possible for the west but it seems scalable enough.

As far as who else I might be roping in with me ... well, I definitely want to involve anyone from the MLA Reader's Advisory Interest Group - especially those who work in Allegany, Garrett, and Washington counties; any and all library staff from the western region who work closely with the youngins in our libraries; and possibly the public school teachers from those counties, as I know this group is near and dear to Jeff's heart since he works with them (at least the ones in Washington county) quite frequently. 

Did you know? There's a Children's Literature Centre at Frostburg State University? This just happens to be almost right in the middle of the western region! They often host literature festivals and author institutes. These would count toward certification so, if you're interested be sure to bookmark the site and talk with your staff development coordinator.

Stay tuned ...

Nodes, views, UI's, and API's...

My "geek" shirt from the conference! Lol!
"Nodes" are actually a  piece of content on the website.
Drupal assigns each piece of content
an ID number called a "node".  

What the what? They were speaking my kind of language here.  It was a lot of "geek" talk and a lot of "collaboration" for the latest installment of Capital Camp DC.  Capital Camp DC is a conference that brings together the local Drupal community for two days of learning, sprints, and collaboration. 

Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) written in the PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) programming language. Drupal provides a robust platform for publishing a wide variety of content on the web, and is used through government, publishing, commercial and non-profit organizations around the world.

Because it's "open-source" software, there is no added expense in using the software; many of our government sites are transitioning over to Drupal to reduce expenses.  Since there is no added costs for the software, they save millions of dollars in what used to be sent on purchasing software and licensing.  Open Source software receives updates and upgrades from the Community and doesn't belong to anyone, so everyone wins.

So here's a sample of a few website that are running Drupal:

• My first Drupal website :) Choose Civility Washington County 
• http://www.WhiteHouse.gov (White House)
• http://www.ed.gov/ (Department of Education) 
• http://www.commerce.gov/ (Department of Commerce)
• http://www.uarts.edu/ (University of the Arts)

Impressed? Drupal is the next best thing in creative and collaborative CMS tools.  It's amazing!  There was so much that I learned in this Camp, mainly because I had a better understanding than before.  It was a huge learning curve for me initially, but now I'm well on my way to one day becoming an expert!

These were a few of my "aha" items, or things that were interesting to me:

• Panopoly - http://drupal.org/project/panopoly -  (a Sitebuilding view that creates a custom view for a better UI [user interface])
• Pantheon - https://www.getpantheon.com/ (a company that provides a custom Drupal download package that has an easy interface to allow users to get up and running in less that 5 minutes.  One of the developers for this Company is a former Librarian!)
• Guidelines for Intranets & Packaged Intranets (OpenAtrium and Drupal Commons)

1. Prioritize what users need to see
2. Make it easy to find other useful content
3. Since it is difficult to encourage adoption of the Intranet and continued use, develop ways or incentives for users to use the Intranet. (games, points for posting, logging in, etc.)
4. Facilitate communication and discussion (through Forums)

• Drupalize Me -  http://drupalize.me/ (Drupal training videos)
• The Drupal IRC - http://webchat.freenode.net/ - (an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel specifically for Drupal users)
• Drush - http://drupal.org/project/drush - Command line scripting - to make changes to the Drupal site faster (way cool!) 
• api.drupal.org (application programming interface (API) reference guide)

New WCFL Intranet

Overall it was an exciting 2 days for me. I'm excited about some of the newer modules and views that I'll be able to implement into my existing Drupal websites.  In addition to the Choose Civility site, I've also recently published an Intranet website for Washington County.  Now that I've learned how to create my own website and server on my computer, I can play with more tools without disrupting any of the live sites.  I'm super excited about what's next and the great Drupal websites that will be coming your way soon!


Definition of Terms:
Node: a  piece of content on the website.Drupal assigns each piece of content an ID number called a "node"
View: a customized control display in Drupal (basically a puzzle where you pick out the parts and display it how you want)
UI: User Interface.  Much of Drupal involves creating a customized interface for the user.
API: Application Programming Interface - basically the instructions, how it all works.

Successful Email Marketing with Constant Contact

I attended an all-day workshop yesterday with Dave Snow of Constant Contact and I have about 7 pages of handwritten notes; I'm not going to share them all with you here but I am going to extract some of the best practices I learned about as they relate to sending email newsletters which the Regional is getting ready to do at the end of August.

When creating a Constant Contact eNewsletter:

All of this plus more training materials is on the Constant Contact website.

• Brand your eNewsletter so that it matches your other communications (website, business cards, etc)
• Tell your readers what you want them to do with the eNewsletter. What's in it for them?
• Always preview your eNewsletter without images before sending. 82% of email programs automatically block images. See what your readers will see.
• Incorporate a plan text version of your organization's name so you have instant brand recognition even if the logo is blocked.
• Use sans serif fonts but do not use Comic Sans MS
• Use 10pt font or larger
• Incorporate personal images - pictures of people and places your readers know/recognize

• Keep it short and sweet. eNewsletter should fit into an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper so the content appears above the scroll (ala above the fold)
• Incorporate videos - will keep your readers engaged longer
• Choose the template based on layout and purpose
• Create master templates. The more you copy from a copy from a copy of an eNewsletter in Constant Contact, the muddier the HTML gets. This causes formatting issues and frustration.
• Use colors that are consistent with your branding. Use 3-4 colors maximum.
• Use ColorCop to find out what colors your website is using for your brand.

• Stick to 3 major articles per email - maximum. Use the space in the eNewsletter to place teaser content - hook your readers - then provide a link to the full document (PDF or Blog post). This helps keep the length short and the content interesting and eye-catching.
• Use a clear and/or clever subject line when sending the email - you don't need to say, "WMRL Wave eNewsletter Sept/Oct 2012." Instead, use the subject to tell them what's in it for them. Use action statements.
• Assign the eNewsletter its own email address (i.e. wmrl_wave@washcolibrary.org)
• Always use the SPAM check button before sending the eNewsletter
• Send emails on Tuesdays and Wednesdays between 10am-3pm (someone actually researched this...). But it's really up to your readers. Use the statistics/reports feature to find out when your audience is reading your emails and cater to them.
• Ignore the # of Opens. This figure means nothing, zero, zip, nada. It's worthless.
• Pay close attention to the # of Clicks. This is the most valuable number. The reports on this will show you who clicked what and when.
• It's a good idea to send a thank you note to whomever forwards your newsletter onto another person. 

Big Talk From Small Libraries

All conference presentations were recorded and will be made available for your viewing pleasure on this site: http://nlcblogs.nebraska.gov/bigtalk/presentations/
Maryland library staff in Allegany, Garrett and Washington counties can earn 1 CEU per archived presentation viewed so long as you write a blog post about them.

If you're on Twitter you can see tweets about the event at #BTSL.

The Nebraska Library Commission organized and hosted a free, all-day online conference yesterday, Big Talk From Small Libraries. Each of the seven presentations focused on topics familiar to libraries of all shapes and sizes but the presenters brought a small library point of view to each issue. Rather than commenting on each presentation specifically, I'm going to reflect on the one I found most poignant.

It's might not come as a surprise that I found Jessamyn West's presentation the best organized and most interesting; Jessamyn is a veteran librarian, writer, and presenter. Her presentation, Magic Tricks and Maintenance: Helping the Public Learn Technology, didn't blow my mind but she did bring awareness to some habits I am guilty of from time to time like:

• Don't grab the mouse away from whomever you're helping no matter how much he or she is struggling to maneuver; use reassuring, non-condescending language and tone to help them ease into whatever it is they're trying to accomplish.
  
• Translate technical mumbo-jumbo into language everyone can appreciate or leave it out completely (does the individual really need to know that the computer is running OSX? Or that it has an Intel Celeron Processor? What does that even mean?)
  
• Avoid the soapboxes - even if a person asks you your preference on which browser or piece of software to use. Sure, tell them your opinion but leave it at that.
• Avoid expressing your disgust when someone tells you they prefer IE9. Be accepting of what works for each individual and work with it the best you can without expressing bias. Unless they ask for your opinion, it is best not to encourage them to you a superior browser like FireFox.