“Camaraderie” defined by Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary is “a spirit of friendly good-fellowship”. When power fails, computers crash, and the lights go dim, the human element still works, and camaraderie is the circuit along which knowledge will continue to travel.

To develop that among the variety of age groups and intellects that work in a library is no easy task. Sharing two things, food and humor, are excellent methods to develop this. Food I’ll leave to individual tastes (pardon the pun) but relevant humor can be trickier to find.

Castles’ del.icio.us resources include Unshelved, from Overduemedia.com (saved by 108 members), has hundreds of funny cartoon strips about librarianship. Librarians have unique opportunities to observe the human condition, and have a good laugh over it. Unshelved does that without being mean. Today’s page has a photo sent in by a fan with a great librarian quote on her T-shirt, “Will work for books”. Love it!

I would imagine there have to be more strips like this. Feel free to comment if you know of any others!

This brings me to a final point about the del.icio.us collection software. Unlike the Librarything various display options, del.icio.us only offers chronological sequencing at this point in time. The last link you put in is the first link the visitor will see. I edited mine in chapter sequence, and found that the first chapters are at the back of the list! I’d forgotten the Unshelved link, and put it in after I added an introduction link. Unshelved appears as my first link!

You could use an introduction link like I have just below the Unshelved link. It doesn’t offer much writing space, but it compensates for the fact that the site doesn’t offer as many descriptive capabilities as the Librarything profiles do. An introductory link can help visitors use your collection better.

Plan if you want your links in specific order. I could delete my current intro link, and reenter it so it would be the top one. However it’s more useful to demonstrate this concept for this blog the way it is now.

A new book also takes a interesting look working in a library. The title says it “all”: Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library by Don Borchert. If you and your staff ever feel inundated by the public, especially middle-schoolers, this book is for you. It was published after Castles Against Ignorance so I couldn’t use it in my book. One book I do mention is the Whole Library Handbook 4 by George M. Eberhart, which is a great compilation of library facts and trivia. This resource has grown the most since I put my books resources online; it now has 160 members sharing it, up from 45 last summer!

Another outlet and way to build up your understanding of staff issues is to join listservs or monitor blogs like this one. Librarything has a very active web site with chat areas as well as message boards for specialized groups. And who has the largest group on Librarything? Librarians! Librarians who librarything has over 3700 members. They have a very well put together page. I’m enjoying reading the “Books that just never seem to be returned” thread.

To summarize, here are my 10 ways to make your library great in 2008, using the Web 2.0 tips and tricks in this blog and in my presentation:

1. Use Technology

2. Continuously Train

3. Polish your Comportment

4. Reduce Clutter

5. Handle Noise

6. Handle Conflict

7. Have a Plan

8. Develop Partnerships

9. Create Great Programming

10. Build Staff Camaraderie

Remember, you are not working in a warehouse, or an assembly line, or a bar.

You are librarians, who preserve and help propel our civilization forward!

I hope this has been helpful. Please leave comments or get back to me personally at erossman@shakerlibrary.org

Good luck on your resolutions. Here’s to a great 2008!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

What’s great programming without great marketing? A resolution is basically a goal, and to reach the goal you need “action plans”. A programming goal needs specific steps to reach it as well, and that includes marketing!

As mentioned earlier, the Ohio Library Council, thanks to financial support from the Drew Carey Fund, has developed an online training resource, entitled “Marketing the Library.” It’s comprised of six self-paced training modules, and it includes links to marketing resources, examples, quizzes and exercises. Planning, products and promotion are all covered in this free, comprehensive training program.

In my Librarything resources the library program tag has 8 books, 6 library specific and all of those dealing with children and youth. My favorite is Toddle on over : developing infant & toddler literature programs by Robin Works Davis. The one with the most members sharing (15 as of today) is Outstanding Library Service to Children: Putting the Core Competencies to Work by Rosanne Cerny.

In my del.icio.us resources tagged with “programs” I used the example of the IMLS Youth Initiative, as a way of capturing more members. Iml.gov currently has 151 members sharing it (up from 130 in August). The IMLS Youth Initiative has none, zero, but it’s still a great resource for ideas and funding!

So, rather than have a link shared by no one, I put the top level domain name in as the link, and the real url in the notes section, which shows directly under the title. I’m hoping that in seeing “saved by 151 members”, people stop to take a second look at a resource in what might be a cluttered screen for them.

Having the proper page title and URL below it, will aid in finding the resource, after a user clicks and gets to the main home page for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. They may be momentarily confused. Once again, the full url (http://www.imls.gov/about/youth.shtm) had way fewer hits, 0, than http://www.imls.gov so I used the one with the most members sharing, but it’s a resource-rich page about helping youth learn.

To me, the ends of sharing funding sources and programming ideas justifies the means of a temporary misdirection. Feel free to leave comments on this!

I have bounced this idea off other people I know, and no one argues with me. Support networks are essential to making good decisions, creating good ideas, and adding elbow grease to carry off complex programming events.

And that leads me to our final resolution, #10…Build Camaraderie!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

Regarding some of the resources I’ve used on my del.icio.us pages, in the ALA Library Bill of Rights (saved by 56 del.icio.us members!), Articles 1 and 6 form the framework of why libraries need to work hard on community relations:

Article 1. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

Article 6. Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.

In 2004, the National Network of Libraries of Medicine started a terrific campaign to build awareness and provide resources for the building of partnerships, Public Libraries and Community Partners: Working together to Provide Health Information. They have a simple process that can also be applied to areas outside health partnerships, using these steps:

• Set the Direction with a Community Assessment
• Define Stakeholders and Partners
• Define Measurable Goals, Outputs, and Outcomes
• Plan Activities to Reach Project Goals
• Define How a Program Will Work
• Define an Evaluation Plan

Each of the above is linked to great ideas and easy-to-implement partnering methods.

In my book I do use a number of magazine articles. Currently Librarything is geared towards books, but there’s no reason a person couldn’t build a catalog of professional articles linked with appropriate tags.

Some articles I cited in the book include these:

Morton, Norman. “Beyond Public Exhibits To Partnerships.” American Libraries 36 (November 2005): 42-45

From a librarian in Louisville, Kentucky, a best practices-type article; it contains five steps to successful collaborative programming:

1. Build contacts with community relations and development staff of high-profile arts, cultural, and social action organizations in your community.
2. Conduct informal meetings to identify common communications and community relations goals.
3. Generate a cooperative program idea.
4. Develop a program plan utilizing manpower and assets of both organizations.
5. Execute the plan utilizing promotional assets of both organizations.

Welch, Jeanie M. “Silent Partners: Public Libraries and Their Services to Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs.” Public Libraries 44 (September/October 2005): 282-285

This article presents a historical perspective as well as good present day best practices on how to help, and network with, an important community sector.

For books in my Librarything account, my most popular professional resource tagged with planning is the “Blueprint for your Library Marketing Plan”, by Patricia H. Fisher. Let’s look at the data record for the book through the link above. A limited number of library professionals share this book. Their content is usually very specialized!

Another “best practice” profile belongs to rangeview.

Created by a library district in Adams County, Colorado, it illustrates how beneficial it is to plan the categories for your site.

Some features of this detail record are automatically taken care of by the Librarything software, and are on all detail records on the right. Notice the box on the lower right. It shows members who share rangeviews’ collection books. It shows Castles shares 3 of theirs in the my collection of 47 books. NorthernLights’ has 13 out of the 799 in that collection.

It’s fun seeing who has what! It can also lead you to creative ideas, which is related to the 9th Resolution…to create great programming!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

If all you have is an evacuation plan, that’s like a football team only having one play. Or in football, only one audible signal when there’s a blitz…no matter what side it’s coming from! There are various patron scenarios staff should be prepared for: Noise issues, violence issues, lost children, odd patrons, suspicious activity, orderly evacuation and lockdown procedures.

“Ignorance does not have a plan. Its characteristics include lack of forethought, no concern of consequences, and disregard of the past. It’s often scattered, disorganized. Anticipation, focus, and organization are its enemies. Employ these allies, and you will counter and overcome ignorance, establishing and maintaining a library of excellence.“ Castles Against Ingnorance, p.72

Regarding del.icio.us resources for planning links, I have 15 items, and the largest shared with other members is the OCLC Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources report with 281 members, up from 248 users as of August ’07 (actually up to 286 one week after the webinar!). I can assure you that almost every one of them has library focused collections on del.icio.us!!!

If you’re not aware of it, the Perceptions report provides the findings and responses from a survey in an effort to learn more about:

•Library use by the public

•Awareness and use of library electronic resources

•The Internet search engine, the library and the librarian

•Free vs. for-fee information

•The “Library” brand

The findings indicate that “information consumers view libraries as places to borrow print books, but they are unaware of the rich electronic content they can access through libraries. Even though information consumers make limited use of these resources, they continue to trust libraries as reliable sources of information.” (http://www.oclc.org/reports/2005perceptions.htm)

Knowing how you’re perceived goes a long way in establishing service goals; that’s the beauty of this report. And thanks to the Web 2.0 powers of sharing, you can discover a universe of URL’s, all oriented towards libraries!

Another resource I mentioned in the webinar and have as a resource in my book is: NLG Project Planning: A Tutorial. Institute of Museum and Library Services. Access Date 25 Jan 06. <http://e-services.imls.gov/project_planning>.

Although designed to help secure funding for National Leadership Grants, this interactive tutorial can help in any project planning. Try it, it’s fun and practical.

Does anyone have any other online Planning suggestions? If so, please leave a comment above!

My Librarything account contains 15 books dealing with planning everything from library careers to crisis management, including Demonstrating Results: Using Outcome Measurement in Your Library by Rhea Joyce Rubin. In clicking on the members icon (the little heads), you’ll see that the Librarything recommendations list 10 other books on various aspects of library planning: Technology, weeding, children’s services, even how to create workshops!

Obviously a serious library book, currently 8 members share it. One of them is another “best practices” example of a user profile on LibraryThing, Jennifry’s.

Besides using specific tags for the 105 books in her collection, and a cool icon, she takes the time to describe the meaning of the tags in her collection in the “About My Library” section of her profile. This helps a fellow member understand her background and perspective as well as her taxonomy. Obviously well planned out!

Planning is also VERY closely related to Partnerships, tomorrow’s Resolution…

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

As more “non-traditional” library users visit our facilities to only check out DVD’s, not books, or use the Internet, it can be a challenge to get them to buy into the standard library code of conduct, quiet behavior, civility. As I see it now, librarians had better learn to deal with the rowdy, uncivil, or mentally imbalanced people in society coming to the libraries to only use the internet. They’re fine as long as they’re non-disruptive to others. But oftentimes they aren’t. If not checked, they will drive out traditional library users.

The non-traditional library user today, who doesn’t care about books, reading, or learning, may be the traditional library user tomorrow, for those libraries still open.

Because as funding gets tighter, more and more citizens will refuse to fund public entities that spend taxpayer money offering internet access to people with no respect towards others, who’re disruptive, and who intimidate people from using services and space that all should be allowed to share peacefully.

If these patrons discourage “traditional” patrons from using the library, there can be some significant problems ahead. A New Years’ Resolution to stay compassionate, yet firm in dealing with people needs a good tool box of tactics.

In the webinar I briefly alluded to different methods of handling conflict.

We conducted a brief poll of “Friction Points” and although all 200+ attendees didn’t participate (I only gave about 30 seconds, and some folks were lagging due to their bandwidth problems), this is what we found:

In response to the question, How many of you have handled the following conflict situations?

There were about 114 participants in this question.

The results were:

• Inappropriate patron behavior - soliciting, eating, cell phones, rule-breaking: 96 (85%)
• Aggressive/unstable patrons: 78 (69%)
• Misuse of library - inappropriate online activity, sleeping, lounging on furniture: 74 (66%)
• Lazy employees: 57 (50%)
• Space issues - other interdepartmental turf issues: 55 (49%)
• Antagonistic attitude towards supervisor (behind the back gossip or criticism): 54 (48%)
• Alcoholic/substance abusing co-worker: 17 (15%)
• Security guard conflicts with staff / too hard vs. too soft: 10 (8%)

One exercise I have in my book, Castles Against Ignorance is to examine how you handle conflict in Friction Point situations. In both Castles and in the “Common Grounds” web site I mentioned in the webinar, I emphasize the practicality of using different styles for different situations. Five tactical styles for conflict are examined:

1. Forcing
2. Avoiding
3. Accommodating
4. Compromising
5. Collaborating

1. Forcing conflict style: resolves conflict by getting your way. Assertive, uncooperative and autocratic. Useful for rambunctious children and immature adults.

2. Avoiding conflict style: ignores conflict rather than resolving it. Could be temporarily used when human resources are low. You could use Observation as a behavior suppression tactic and still be using an Avoiding style successfully, but this is only on a case by case basis.

3. Accommodating conflict style: resolves conflict by giving in. In other words, bending the rules.

4. Compromising conflict style: resolves conflict through giving and getting concessions. Using an “If I…then you…” approach will usually solve the problem, short term. Not to be encouraged because some patrons will view this as a game. However, useful when arbitrating between two bickering, but otherwise mature patrons.

5. Collaborating conflict style: An attempt to jointly resolve conflict with the best solution that is agreeable to all parties. This is the only style that creates a win-win situation. It can also take time that you don’t always have on the floor, but if it’s a long running situation that you know you’re going to be dealing with, it is worth the time working on a solution.

What conflict style do you… would you… could you…be using in the above Friction Point situations, to get the best possible outcome for your patrons or library?

Here are some of the other exercises and resources I use in Castles:

Exercises:

1. Visit 3 different library systems and compare and contrast what tools/policies they have to handle conflict. Guards? Written policies? Visible signage on conduct?

2. Review past incident reports to see how the situations were handled according to the 5 styles of conflict resolution.

3. Try finding your own conflict style by taking the quick quiz at http://www.sfcg.org/programmes/cgpartnership/profile/pprofile1.cfm

Selected Resources Of Interest:

• Supervisor’s Guide – Conflict. Human Resource Management Services, North Dakota State Government. Access date 25 Jan. 06. <http://www.nd.gov/hrms/hr/supvguide/conflict.htm> - A great site that not only reviews the 5 styles but adds strategy to go with the tactics, such as, “make mutual benefit agreements”.
• Glass, Lillian. Toxic People : 10 Ways of Dealing With People Who Make Your Life Miserable. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1997. - This book would be really funny if it wasn’t so accurate. Although the topic is serious, it provokes thought and insight into some terribly sad personality types in a way that makes you both chuckle at and pity them. Her techniques are good ones that should be part of your repertoire for specific types of people and situations. Shared by 19 Librarything members as of 1/12/08.

Regarding building your own del.icio.us accounts, here’s a tip that can make it easier in the beginning. Every link has a “save this” link next to it. You need your own account established first. Create your account, then check out various links about libraries, confrontation or any other tag that interests you on my site, and with a click of a mouse, that site can be on yours!

But remember if you add a lot of random sites, they’ll appear random on your list because del.icio.us at this point only lists them in the order you add them, you can’t re-sequence them by alphabet or numbers like Librarything will let you do. If you want them grouped together in some way besides using similar tags, you have to practice Resolution #7: Have A Plan!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

Obviously a pet peeve of librarians, probably since Egyptian times, and exasperated by cell phone usage in the last decade.

Please don’t get me wrong. Noise itself is not always ignorant. Sometimes it happens and shows a place is alive, celebrating new knowledge or camaraderie. Socializing can be important and well justified when employed in the resupply of knowledge.

“Learn to appreciate the peace and harmony of a room full of thinking people.” (Castles Against Ignorance p.12)

del.icio.us resources – The Noise Pollution Clearinghouse has 29 members sharing it. By clicking on the “number of other members saved by” link, which is highlighted in red, you can view the posting history, going back to 2005. This is an awesome resource, and has a special campaign going on for quiet learning environments.

The above del.icio.us members page has a variety of interesting features. Common tags, user notes, and a posting history are efficient ways for you to grasp the usability, credibility and currency of the resource. All these are vital components of web site evaluation criteria that I taught in my Information Literacy and Research class for Bryant and Stratton College.

Librarything resources- The “Checklist of library building design considerations” is shared by 17 others, some with an interest in acoustical as well as aesthetic design.

And when room signage indicating policies and role modeling don’t do the trick in establishing an effective educational environment, you need to practice Resolution #6….Handle Conflict, coming next!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

This has been a resolution of a lot of people I know!

In the webinar I showed how two different members who shared the book Taming the Office Tiger: The Complete Guide to Getting Organized at Work by Barbara Hemphill, used two different philosophies about tagging books. One didn’t use any, the other described their books really well.

Tags are NOT Clutter. They should always be used to describe the subject as well as to develop a channel into other people’s collections.

If you look at the main record for this book, you’ll notice in the tag cloud, various ways to describe the subject the title implies. If you click on “Organization”, it leads you to a listing of all the information Librarything has assembled about the tag “Organization”.

This would include the last 15 books tagged with Organization. If one of those strike your curiosity…as I write this the last added is Order from Chaos : A Six-Step Plan for Organizing Yourself, Your Office, and Your Life by Liz Davenport, you can click on it and, if it looks interesting, you can click on one of the order houses on the right side of the screen to see a review of it, order information, etc.

Tags tie all this great information together. Tags do what subject headings do in our library classification systems, help you go directly to an area of knowledge and find your targeted resource as well as other similar resources co-located next to it. To get the most out of your Web 2.0 endeavors, start first at considering your tag scheme, and by seeing what other members seem to be using on a few of your sample resources. Don’t forget the most popular tags are the largest in font size. I’d think, if you want to share your collection with the largest group, that you’d be using those.

Besides tags, if you have Reducing Clutter as a New Year’s resolution to make your library great in 2008, below are exercises and resources cited from Castles that can help you get organized to organize.

Exercises:

1. Review the “5 ways to zap clutter” in your work setting. List inhibitors for each method (e.g. no budget). Once identified, try to find solutions and go through the methods. Time yourself as to how long each method takes. Schedule another time soon and go through the process again, once again timing yourself. This should help you establish a time budget that you can use to regularly schedule organizational tasks.

2. Take an inventory of organizing mechanisms at work/school. See if you can brainstorm any more. Use one page for each environment, and see if you have tools in one that can be used in both!

Resources:

• FAQ of an Office Organizer. OverHall Consulting. Access date 25 Jan. 06. You can learn a ton about organizing just by going through this web site.
• Greiner, Tony. “Collection Development and Shelf Space: A proposal for nonfiction collections.” Public Libraries 44 (November/December 2005): p.347-350. This article takes a scientific approach to determining shelf space allocations based on classification circulation. It’s a structured approach to eliminating shelf clutter.

Clutter is the ally of ignorance. It hides answers from questions while ignorance watches, laughing. Clutter and litter in a library are signs of disorder in the environment, not the message you want the public to receive!

The next resolution deals with another type of clutter. Noise.

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

Despite all the fancy technology in our lives, there’s nothing like person-to-person communication to help pass the torch of knowledge, overcome shyness, or make a tax-payer feel they’re really getting unquestionable value and service for their investment.

Comportment involves body language, voice tone, observation and listening skills, and a good librarian needs to become an expert in all of these to establish a sound and safe educational environment.

Regarding del.icio.us resources I mentioned in the webinar along these lines, The Non-Verbal Dictionary is shared by 242 members. Once again, it’s a resource you can use to learn how to project the proper non-verbal communication for the situation: friendly, open, alert, maybe dominant if need be?

As I mentioned in the webinar, we should consider adopting the attitude of being “performance coaches”.

In a book entitled The Winning Spirit, the famous football quarterback Joe Montana and his co-author Tom Mitchell outline 7 important roles of a performance coach. What body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice could you use to perform the following?

1.Encourage: Give power strength and confidence; supply belief; help release fear and doubt.

2.Support: Be present and available; participate and assist; reinforce and comfort.

3.Challenge: Invite reflection, growth and change; demand honesty and clarity

4.Envision: Dream and imagine; understand goals, plans and processes.

5.Inspire: Be a source of energy; give optimism, desire and will; generate enthusiasm.

6.Counsel: Be an active listener—ask essential questions, understand ideas and feelings, care deeply and take a personal interest.

7.Center: Help the patron to focus and remember; offer calm performance confidence; celebrate, evaluate and re-create.

Think about these as you peruse the Nonverbal web site. Perhaps start with their section on Hands, which the author argues are our most expressive body parts. In my Librarything collection, one of the books I use that has been shared by over 150 other members is Body Language by Julius Fast.

Remember to look inside the record for three significant features:

1.Tag Cloud - remember, the most common tags used in describing this book are in the largest Font size. Clicking on a tag will produce a list of other member books using that tag, and show you an RSS/HTML button that shows recently added books with that tag. At the top of the list now is a promising entertaining one on how to read Poker Faces!

2. Recommendations - Books of a similar orientation. Clicking on all recommendations lets you see books with similar tags, what people who have this book also have, and a few other collection criteria lists. They also have an un-recommended list, books least like this one. Strange but fun!

3. Reviews – What other members have to say about it. These can load pretty slow, have patience.

Becoming a Body language expert also involves two other skill sets I discuss in my book, Observation and Listening.

Regarding Observation skills, In the webinar I had folks do a quick observation, and talked about focusing on details of a person “from the top down”. When you are confronted with a shocking incident, reminding yourself to remember details from the top down can help you avoid repressing them. Here’s another observation exercise:Go into a crowded area and review your immediate space (30 yards) for 10-15 seconds. Then go somewhere else, use a sheet of paper and record how many people were in your observation area, how many of which gender, race, age group. What were individuals wearing, did they have glasses, approximately how tall were they? Weight? Hair color or hat? Do this several times over the course of a few days and you should see a good improvement in your observation skills.

Regarding listening skills, those resolved to improving their skills in this area should go through the Ohio Reference Excellence Module 2 for The Interview. Do the exercises for paraphrasing, open questions, clarifying, the six results of a good interview, and ending the interview.

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

In my del.icio.us resources the sites I designated as training are technology based, but not all strictly about technology. The most popular one is “Jakob Nielson on Usability and Web Page Design”, with over 6400 members sharing his site on web design as of December 2007; his current article talks about what makes a great Intranet. The Ohio Library Council has a program, Ohio Reference Excellence, which has a fantastic site about Library Reference (including a new section on Virtual Reference), Customer Service and Marketing skills. It only has 9 members, but I strongly recommend it as the best free library training site on the Internet. Educause is a news clipping service focusing on stories about education and technology, and has 600+ member sharing it. Our own Webjunction.org, is currently saved by 218 people, up from 157 in August 07!

In my book I cite two books that are not library, but people focused. Skills in these two books, when used in training, offer solid grounding in people and organizational skills. In my Librarything resources the highest shared resource is “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” shared by 3100+ members with 23 reviews, up from 2500+ with 15 reviews in August. Another book, “The Greatest Salesman In the World”, is shared by 342 members, up from 270. Besides having great content, these books are also widely available, as opposed to books from our industry, which, even in a large consortia like SHPL belongs to, are often hard to get a hold of. Plus they’re expensive.

The most popular Library-focused one, with 103 members sharing, up from 90 in August is Rachel Singer Gordon’s “The Nextgen Librarian’s Survival Guide”, mentioned in the webinar. It contains things they won’t necessarily teach you in library school!

If you’ve got favorite web sites or books that help in training, please share them in a comment!

Next week, I’ll be blogging on New Year’s Resolution Resources on building up your body (language), reducing clutter, dealing with noise and handling conflict.

In honor of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, I’d like to refer you to the chapter of my book that deals with fighting Intolerance, another ally of Ignorance.

Enjoy the day off!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Click here to access an archive of Ed’s webinar and a PDF of the slides he used.

Everyone probably agrees a resolution is always better supported with other people’s help and encouragement. If you made a New Year’s resolution to walk more, lose weight or anything, you’ve been told, I’m sure, to get a “buddy” to go along with you. Regarding Web 2.0, this is where Social Networking sites can really show how beneficial they can be.

This blog will offer you 24/7 access, although I may only post once a week myself, after the initial first 10. I’m submitting the 10 Ways to Make Your Library Great in 2008 blog over the course of 10 working days.I hope this will allow all of you to see your area of interest, or where you need help regarding your New Year’s resolutions, as soon as possible after our webinar session, that over 200 librarians attended!

Then you can practice what I call, the “4 Cornerstones of Social Networking”; you can comment, share your resources, respond to others thoughts, or “lurk”…just read and not participate…for now. It’s a Cornerstone just as important as the other three. Despite the fact we’re librarians, we still have a wide range of intelligences, what Dr. Mel Levine would call “All Kinds of Minds”. People get acclimated to different environments and different paces. Lurking can be as rewarding as commenting or any of the others. However we will all grow stronger professionally as the other three Cornerstones are used.

Try challenging yourself by using an RSS tool to keep in touch when new content is added.

When you see references to “Castles” those are quotes from the book I’ve written “Castles Against Ignorance: How to make libraries great educational Environments”.

Have fun!

-Ed Rossman, Interim Branch Manager for the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library and author of Castles Against Ignorance: How to Make Libraries Great Educational Environments

Resolution # 1.Use Technology

Any resolution needs some kind of logical starting point. If you resolve to use technology more, or to become an expert in your immediate circle, you need to know how to start and have some good role models emulate for practice, and then to spark your own creativity! The following addresses both areas.

Most registration for Web 2.0 sites are pretty standard, much like setting up a free email account through Yahoo or Hotmail. Setting up a del.icio.us account and creating links is very simple and I went through the relevant screens in the webinar. Librarything is just a bit more complicated. Here’s a document in Word format that explains the process that I used in teaching college students Information Literacy skills:

Here are 3 examples of Librarything in action:

1. The Shaker Heights Public Library (SHPL) Local History collection. The link will take you to an introduction page on our web site, and from there you can go to the Librarything collection page, or see an index of Tags used.

2. A listing of business books I put together for a special partnership arrangement we have between SHPL and the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE). Anyone coming into our library looking for books on business plans and the like, we inform about the SCORE program, and the fact that their counselors will meet with them at the library so they don’t have to go downtown. Based on the consultations, the counselor may direct them to some books or resources to help in their planning. This collection not only uses subject tags but tags that indicate the location within the library these resources can be found. Please note the first book is marked with a 1. and is not a real book, but actually an introduction to the catalog.

3. The Librarything account I use to catalog books I cited in Castles.

If you have a Librarything or del.icio.us account you’d like to share, please leave a comment! Likewise any other library technology oriented blogs, email lists or web sites that you like.

The strength of our profession will depend on how much knowledge and wisdom we can share. Web 2.0 has great, low cost tools for this.

In the next few days I’ll be uploading comments and resources for Training. Use the RSS feature to keep up to date with the updates!