Great session… full of concrete and useful ideas! Well done. I have several things to pass along and I also added Rabey to my Delicious network. Way to go, girl. Sorry there weren’t more people to enjoy the session. Gotta go. Have a great weekend everyone.
Used some downtime during the Virtual Conference (can’t visit the vendors or anything) to listen to Dr. Forni’s keynote address and immediately hit our catalog to order the book and get another book on “teen etiquette” (what does that tell you?). Listening to Dr. Forni, I am also reminded of that ballroom dance movie called “Take the Lead” with Antonio Banderas… based on a real story of a dance instructor who believed in the some tough urban kids and taught them dance… but he also taught them “civility” and respect for others. This was a great session and I would highly recommend that everyone who missed it to listen again.
Had a bit of a rough road today in the Qwaq demo. The technology is difficult to juggle when running multiple platforms at the same time and I felt bad for the presenters. Also, the participants were less familiar with 3D worlds in general which made it more difficult to explain how the world could be used in a library-specific environment. Personally, I would like to see more… so I hope we can create a better venue for examining this world… but also, I think Second Life has its place as well. If you are interested in 3D worlds, please contact me directly as I would like to put together a contact list of interested librarians & other staff.
Stephanie Ewell and Jessica Smith-Harper had a really informative session this morning. Starting out with “just a collection”, and look where they are now! They both had great ideas (all worth stealing..ummm…BORROWING). AlleganyCounty has started out almost the same way but we’re moving right along. I like it when systems share their wealth of ideas, and even more when smaller systems can benefit!
Stephanie Ewell & Jessica Smith-Harper shared some great ideas to use with teens this morning. As we are starting a teen volunteer program, the idea of a wiki to plug the volunteers into is something for us to think about. All our librarians across the county could see what is going on in each library and the teens can also check it from home and add blog entries. As they have made changes within their teen areas stats for fiction has even increased! I will be checking out their myspace site and adding them as a friend - www.myspace.com/wicomicopubliclibrary and also check out ours at www.myspace.com/the_teen_lair
Thank you Stephanie and Jessica for sharing your experience with us. For of us struggling with where to go with the new era of Teen Services, your presentation offered some good programming ideas. We will take you up on your offer and “enthusiastically borrow” from your success.
Dr. Forni’s presentation was as interesting as I had hoped it would be. Some of his comments are so common sense and some are so obvious it’s embarassing that we need to have them pointed out to us. I’m grateful that he will be available on the virtual conference for us to watch now (way to go Jennifer Howell, excellent job on spearheading that committee!)
Dr. Forni made a great presentation for choosing civility this morn. Again I took lots of notes! It’s nice to see the plea for good manners once again. I know growing up in the 60s it was taught at home and backed up at school. I thought it was interesting when he said that a thought crossed his mind while he was teaching that he wanted to teach his students all about Dante, but what if that same student went out into the world and was unkind to an old lady. With 3 teens of my own and dealing with all their friends - there is a huge absence out there of civility and of course, not just with teens. Dr Forni reported that for the first time ever, the #1 issue at work is not the workload, but people issues & conflict. It was a great session and Dr. Forni - I like country music too!
Attended Warren Graham’s Blackbelt librarians workshop on Wednesday and loved his presentation. He can carry off a 5-5 & 1/2 hour workshop with all the information (and reality) that he shares. I am really looking forward to Dr. Forni’s session this morning. I’m reading Choosing civility, which is overdue. It has been pointed out that that is not very civil of me.
Great start for the virtual conference… Officer Dennis Cornwall did a great job on the program … recommend it for anyone who hasn’t decided what program to do next. And, if one of his goals was to make us a bit paranoid… it worked. Best piece of advice? Put a “security freeze” on all social security card numbers at the credit reporting agencies for children under 18… othewise, the number could be stolen and you’d never know it.
Also… shred everything. I’m going to invest in one for sure now.
