I thought it might be fitting to end the Happy Birthday celebrations this week with a link (right here? from the blog?) to a clandestine view of the new WebJunction home page. Cleverly titled “sneaky peeky” this is the view that WJ staff have themselves been playing with in our “sandbox” for the last couple of weeks. It’s not nearly ready for beta release yet, but as you can see, My WebJunction is right there at the top of the page, along with our fancy new brand, just waiting for me/you/us to populate it with whatever i/you/we care about. It’s gonna be rockin’ and we can’t wait to start evolving this with more than just a few of us with our eyes on it.

Next week we get together with all of our current community partners for some good old fashioned f2f training, and this will be our first chance to show off and gather input on the new system with people outside of the WJ staff. Next? Our WJ Advocates will get a sneak peek and they’ll tell us what they think. Then? Well, by that time I think we’ll all be ready for a broader audience. And that’s where we all get to tell each other what we think. And it will grow from there.

Stay tuned…

I left out the Putnam stuff I’ve been talking about in some of my recent presentations and instead focused on our community building roots and how in-person community building and online community building share the same principles and practice; then I connected what our patrons are doing with web2.0 tools to what library staff are doing with the same, and with projects like WJ.

I was a little nervous about the mix, with only one hour for a joint presentation with my co-presenter, Mala, the team lead for WebJunction Arizona, but at the end of it all, one of our audience members come up and says something like: thank you for your overview of social networking and what it means for WebJunction; now I understand why this stuff is important. I work in a rural library and I’m trying to help my community understand how to use this stuff and understand what it’s all about; this was really helpful.

Does it really get more libraryland luscious than that? Maybe. I’ll be here for it if it does. I only posted a few pictures from this very short visit, but you’ll find them here. Many, many thanks to the organizers of AzLA for having me. I had a great time and it was wonderful meeting and talking with so many of you and your library staff in Arizona.

(reposted on Libraries Build Communities)

Otherwise, IL2007 has also been fabulous – I’ve had a great time connecting with people that I haven’t seen for a while, as well as spending time with people that I know online better than I do in person. I always take a chunk of breakfast/lunch/dinner slots while I’m here at this conference to talk in person specifically with people that I’ve known or met online over the year before – it’s fun! This year I’ve met with Amanada, Jennifer, Josh, David, Robin, and a few others that I’ve maybe seen around before but really became ‘friends’ with in the last several months – either through facebook, twitter, or the WJ. Not to mention the folks that I know well, but don’t see very often – great connecting with these folks as well. Heck, even the people I see every day, I end up having inspirational conversations with. It’s such a wonderful source of new energy and innovation to get away from daily activities – get out there and talk to people (even the same people!) in a new context. THANK YOU to OCLC and WebJunction for making this an important part of our roles in the cooperative; it really makes a huge difference! “I love my online community” (and it gets bigger all the time) is the only thing I have to say about that!

One project I’m working on now (also with libraryman, and with cindi trainor (current WJ member spotlight) and michael sauers (traveling librarian)) that I’m super excited about is a series of interviews with “veteran” library professionals – the innovators of earlier times – that we can publish as primary resources (oral histories) and excerpt as a popular series, beginning sometime next year. It’s the most exciting project that I’m currently involved in, really, and it’s great to be here with colleagues – gathering new ideas (and names) for those interviews. Stay tuned for more info … I think there will be a lot of ways the WJ community can get involved in this project once it takes off.

I’ve also been encouraging anyone who’s interested in working in the social networking, community building, or learning areas to check out our open positions right now (on OCLC’s career site). See something you like? Please apply. Three positions are currently open in the Community area; we’d love to hear from you!

Back to conferencing …

Last night Jenny Levine, Aaron Schmidt, and myself (Michael Porter) co-hosted an open gaming event/flickr and/or twitter meet-up, which was a total blast. It felt great to be able to say: “this even brought to you in partnership with ALA, WebJunction and ITI“. Collaboration abounds! As does some gaming night competition. Here are the two Guitar Hero competition winners David Free and Michael Sauers proudly standing in the project’s glare with their fabulous prizes:

*Just a side note, this event was held right after Jenny and Aaron’s “Gaming in Libraries” pre-conference which was SO worth the time and money. Gamer and non-gamer librarian alike are encouraged to seek out this type of content and these two speakers in particular to understand the importance and value of gaming in Libraryland. The connections are surprising and VERY real. Thanks Jenny and Aaron for your excellent work!*

But that was yesterday. Today the morning started off for Chrystie and I in a pretty public way as we gave this presentation together:

Here is a shot of the audience (can anybody spot themselves in this pic?):

Here is Chrystie in action during the presentation:

While those are fine shots, in my mind there is already stiff competition for fave IL2007 photo between these to pics:

and…

What’s your vote?

For now, it’s back to the conference sessions and the wonderful people here at this years’ Internet Librarian conference. I’ll look for you here or online!

-Michael

Kannan (his hand anyway), Chrystie, Anna, Dave, Jeff, Joe, Doug, Clayton, Dale, Mike and Janet….toasting WJ in the middle of a big ole’ planning meeting.

Here is a very happy shot of a nice hunk of your friendly neighborhood WJ team members during a recent meeting we had in Seattle. Three days of very productive meetings were held in the always visually impressive main Seattle Public Library. We worked and thought very hard, focusing like lasers on the tasks at hand and getting lots and lots done. Heck, we even sang a song along the way. In fact, we were singing when I took this shot! While I can’t repeat the words to this particular song, suffice it to say that Jeff was hazing me by leading the group sing-along of this particular ditty. Don’t worry, for the greater good of the community legal action will not be forthcoming.

In addition to singing, we really did work very hard. Trust me when I promise that you’ll see result springing up as we move forward (cool, cool stuff!).

While we’re talking about being at the Seattle Public Library here is a shot of one of Libraryland’s very favorite Chrysities, Chrystie Hill. She was on break from this meeting in the hallway, on her cell phone, in a separate meeting! Between that and the reflection on the floor, we’ve got some seriously recursive action going on here! Enjoy!

A couple of folks from WebJunction World HQ in Seattle will be joining our Community Partners from Arizona, Kansas, and New Mexico. You can find us in booth numbers 57 and 58 (one booth alone will not do!) in the exhibit hall.

Better yet, please consider joining us for a presentation on Overcoming the E-Rate Hurdle on Friday, March 16 from 1:30-2:30 pm. For those of you who can’t make the presentation, the MPLA folks have been kind enough to post our materials to the conference handouts archive.

But if you are going to be in Albuquerque next week, we hope to see you there!

March: Dublin, OH (again, this time for a product manager meeting); Portland, ME (state library visit)

April: Dublin, OH (again, again, this time for community partner training) …

And so, I won’t likely be going to Computers in Libraries this year. As much as I would love to go, especially since the focus is on Community Building, I just can’t see myself getting on a plane again in mid-April. There will be plenty of other folks from the WJ there to connect with folks, and also bring back conference highlights. Looks like a great conference. I hope everyone has a great time!
(Even though I set down to write this with firm resolve not to go, now I sort of feel like I’m in high school again, about to miss out on prom. Maybe I should go. Will you be there?)

I fantasized about some kind of device that would signal to me when I was in physical range of one on my virtual acquaintances. At the recent OCLC Symposium Who’s Watching YOUR Space? (podcasts available here), Marc Smith of Microsoft’s Community Technologies Group informed us that my fantasy is already reality: SpotMe and nTag Interactive are companies producing electronic networking devices that do just what I had in mind. Each person in possession of a device enters personal data including interests (think of tagging yourself like you tag your books in LibraryThing); when two devices in proximity register the same interest/tag, the signal goes off indicating a potential meet up. A month later at the ASTD TechKnowledge conference, Rick Borovoy of nTag presented another use for the interactive devices to extend e-learning into the informal, interpersonal arena, thus nudging the online classroom into more social, enriched learning environments. All cool.

Perhaps the proliferation of mobile technology is starting to get out of hand. Why not just incorporate the peer-locating functionality into our cell phones? But for the sake of my inner luddite, just make sure there’s an off switch for those times when I don’t want to be so darn findable.

]]> http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2007/02/09/a-different-kind-of-tagging/feed/ 0 http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2007/02/04/sweet-home-webjunction/ http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2007/02/04/sweet-home-webjunction/#comments Sun, 04 Feb 2007 21:05:33 +0000 chrystie http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/?p=352 Every year since 2004, we hit the road to visit our most recent partner sites, and learn a bunch about local needs, interests, and innovations — crafting a local and national strategy for cooperation and collaboration all the while. We’re just back from Montgomery, Alabama – visiting the state library there, getting started on a custom version of the WJ for public library staff across the state.
Every time I visit a state library, I’m struck by how truly unique the state and state library are. Surely there’s a lot of synergy between state library agency initiatives, missions, and approach to services (otherwise, WebJunction wouldn’t be as useful, would it?). Still, each state library is made, culturally, from the communities they serve. Visiting state libraries, though not an entirely glamorous form of travel (yes, I visited the bowling alley next to my hotel, for example), is a bit like working in an episode of this american life.

Alabama library folk seemed to be already living and working in the cooperative spirit we work to foster at WebJunction. You may have heard us talk about “the WebJunction way.” Sure – there’s something unique about “us” too – but it struck me during our visit that Alabama is already traversing this path. First, they don’t seem to be concerned with sometimes typical boundaries around library size, or even type. They’re just like – hey, let’s help each other by working together! Second, they seem somewhat lost on the concept of boundaries between the state library staff roles. Over the course of our day there, we had a number of staff members from different aspects of state library services raising their hands saying I want to help out on this project! How can I be involved? Some of these folks even surprised themselves. What a treat!! Finally, at least the folks we met with, had a real let’s just get it done sort of approach. We came away with more ideas for connecting and sharing content than I’ve had in a single 8 hour period since, I don’t know, ALA-midwinter? And in spite of their insistence that I am indeed a yankee, southern roots or no, what a lovely group. I can’t wait to start working with them on the WJ-Alabama site, which should be live sometime this summer. (MP took some pictures while we were there. I’m sure he’ll post them soon and at that point I’ll update here.)

And who is next? you may want to know. Well, I’m very excited to say that Maine and Illinois are our next two destinations.

• Who’s Watching Your Space?, Friday, 1.30 – 4.30pm, Sheraton Seattle, Metropolitan Ballroom, featuring online community experts Marc Smith, the boss of our old friend Danyel Fisher, danah boyd, who I already talked about here, and Howard Rheingold, who recently said:

Some things about online social behavior seems to be eternal and universal–trolls and griefers and the eternal meta-debate about what to do about them, for example. There’s a widespread amnesia, as if these kinds of cybersocializing were new. Not many people online have much sense of history. That’s probably true of just about everything. What I really like is that it’s so easy to roll your own these days. It used to be a big deal to set up your own chat or BBS or listserv. Now it’s part of the tool set for millions of people, and it’s mostly free. My main concern has always been about the quality of online discourse–are we improving or degrading the public sphere?

Which reminded me of something that someone said to me at the Online Community Summit last year when I mentioned that I went to library school to become a better historian but came out (instead) an enthusiast for librarians and online collaboration (did I already talk about this somewhere? losing track):

I guess you decided to make history instead of study it.

Nice idea, but Howard’s point remains: how do we keep our history in online community development within sight while on our current path? He has some ideas, and so I’m excited to hear what he has to say to our ALA-midwinter librarian crowd.

• Social Networking, Best Practices for Libraries, Saturday, 8:00 – 10:00 am, Sheraton Seattle, Metropolitan B Room. I am not exactly sure who’s on this panel (investigating – will update if I find out), but I saw the short list and I’d say it’s worth the early morning time.

• Celebration of Life for Mr. Kilgour, Saturday 5:30 – 7:00 pm, Westin Seattle, Grand Ballrooms I & II. This is where you’ll find most WJ-staff members all in one place. We’ll be wearing our little WJ rock-star buttons (if we can coordinate such theatrics in time). Seriously, we’re looking forward to the chance to honor Mr. Kilgour, and see folks in person that we’re usually working with online.

• Next-Gen Sharing Libraries, Sunday, 10:30 am – 12:00 noon, Pan Pacific Seattle, Cascade Room (OCLC Meeting Room). This session’s all about “immediate satisfaction and personalized service.” Also, Michael Porter’s gonna be there, and he’s an excellent speaker. What more do we need to know?

More info on these and other events is on OCLC’s registration site. Have fun. Hope to see you around!
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