I’m lucky enough to have been asked to serve on an Action Team for our school district’s Visioning Committee.  At our first meeting, they showed the Did You Know? piece from Shift Happens.  If you haven’t seen it before, it is really worth viewing:

I feel honored to be asked to help with planning for the future of my children’s schools, but even more, I am so happy to have my children in a school where this sort of conversation is taking place.  How will schools best serve the students of today and tomorrow?

And for us, how will libraries serve them?  This is a large part of my spiel on Library 2.0.  The youth and older digital natives are special in a way we haven’t seen recently.  And we have to serve them in different ways than the generations who came before.  How do we do that?  Where is our ground-shaking library video on service to teens and youth?

At Regular Geek, there is a post about whether blogs have become mainstream.  I agree completely with his take on the situation.  Yes, because so many blogs are some of the top sites online, blogs are mainstream.  Yet – no one knows that those sites are blogs. 

This holds true for librarians and libraries as well.  Though our focus may not be as traffic-driven as commercial sites, we have to make sure that we are serving our patrons well online.  For me, that means taking advantage of the ease of use and the comment features of blogging software.  But if something new came along and blogging ended, I would still be creating content for my patrons just in a new format. 

The format can’t be the big thing.  It has to work for the library.  Yes, I’m a blog evangelist, but that’s because at this time it’s the ideal tool to start librarians creating content and reaching their communities in new ways online.  It is a tool.  A format.  We can’t get worked up that no one knows we are blogging.  let’s just be happy that they are reading, using our websites, and enjoying our content.

I’m tweaking my Library 2.0 presentation once again. 

At the end of August, I did a presentation up in northern Wisconsin using just images and almost no text on the slides.  Though the presentation went OK, I found that in retrospect, I had skipped over some important parts.  I had problems reading my notes on paper and matching the slides.  Just didn’t work for me.

So it’s back to having some text on slides and lots of photos.  Kind of a hybrid of the two versions of the presentation I have done before.  We will see how that works.  I also think that the audience missed having detailed handouts, which this new version will make possible again.

I am trying to stay strong and keep my cell phone image in the presentation, though I thought I might be set afire for suggesting that libraries might actually want to allow cell phones.  That seems to be one of the big hot issues in public libraries.  Two other big issues were reaching outside the library and serving youth.   I recommended that libraries of all sizes need to be active in their communities outside the library AND cater to all ages of the community, meaning youth, specifically teens.  You know, those creatures that cute preschoolers eventually turn into.

So I added a new caveat to my presentation.  Right at the beginning.  Informing everyone right up front that Library 2.0 is not easier than what they are currently doing.  I never thought that needed to be clarified.  But the horror that I saw when I suggested that librarians talk to patrons individually was an eye-opener.  And eventually one librarian said with exasperation in her voice: "But that would make it harder!"  Yup.  But better.  Which was my point all along.

This green wiki offers information on sustainable living and the environment.  They have sections on environmental issues, science and technology, recycling, conservation, buying local, organic living, and the green movement.  They allow editing of pages by members and link to other related communities of interest.  Right now they have over 600 articles pertaining to green living.

Sweet!  This site offers the latest links shared by people on Twitter.  So just in case you don’t want to hear that someone like me is headed to yet another meeting, you can head to this site instead and just bask in the glory of all of the tweeted links of the day. 

I plan to feature this in programs I do about Twitter, because it nicely focuses on the link love of Twitter rather than the dull mundane posts about people’s cats.   Which I can say because I often Tweet about my own kitties.  Sad really…

I know, I’ve blogged about the award already, but I wanted to share our press coverage as well!  

One never knows what will happen when photos are taken, quotes are jotted down, and an article comes together.  But the Appleton Post-Crescent did us very proud with their coverage of Library of the Year.

In the photo with the article, you get what I consider a tantalizing glimpse of our warm, bright and friendly library.  If you take the time to read the article, you will also get a glimpse of the quality people who work here and their pride in this library.

A very interesting approach to health information, this site offers what they call WisdomCards, which are created by experts, and offer information on a wide variety of health care issues and concerns.  Each card has links to reputable online resources, links to the latest headlines related to the subject, definitions, clinical trial information, fast facts, related websites like blogs and message boards, and much more.  This is a great resource not only for general information but for finding other online resources on very specific health subjects.

An interesting service that allows you to put in two spellings or wordings of a search and compare the number of hits on Google.  For me, this has huge training implications.  People using Google often think that they are seeing the be-all and end-all of their search, all of the possible hits.  Think of the power of demoing this very simple site in front of a group of novice or even advanced users!

My only complaint with the site is that if it is truly to be more than just an interesting exercise, it needs to link directly into Google with a single click for each search entered.

Polymeme is a great site for news.  They try to go beyond the tech news that so dominates online news sites, and delve into more interesting and intelligent content.  The site is gorgeously designed to create a clean and welcoming feel.  Large photos and lots of white space give one room to breathe and think. 

The stories on the front page are wide-ranging, very clickable, and always interesting.  If you can only head to one news website and are not looking for headlines or tech news, this is the site for you.

We have won Wisconsin Library of the Year!  Our application cited the large increases in circulation we have seen this year, our increased programming for all ages, our del.icio.us links, and the way we work with our community and other organizations. 

Personally, I love the linkage of technology and service, which makes me immediately think Library 2.0.  While I definitely give my staff all of the credit for winning the award, I am so happy that at least a small piece of it was because of 2.0 and all that it offers libraries in terms of innovation and creativity. 

What a thrill to be a director with a staff of people willing to play and try new things.  What a joy to serve a community so diverse and interesting.  What an honor to be given the opportunity to lead a library this fantastic forward.  It takes one’s breath away.