Tech Training

Yesterday, I taught another one of my Introduction to Web 2.0 classes - this time at the Missouri Public Library Director’s meeting. There were about 50-60 library directors there, which was pretty cool!

Afterwards, they asked some great questions. One of their questions really puzzled me at first - someone asked me to explain the difference between a portal and an RSS feed. Really. I said something about how a portal is really just a large website with lots of links on the main page, and how an RSS feed isn’t anything like that at all - but still wasn’t really satisfied by my answer.

So as I was driving back to Kansas City, I was mulling it over… and here’s what I came up with.
Anyone remember Netscape’s front page from, say, about 1999? It was a portal site - lots of links, and the page pulled up information from different sources - reuters, stock information, sports stuff, etc - and stuck it all on that single page. I think you could even customize it a little bit. Pretty cool for the time.

Even though it was customizable, it couldn’t REALLY do all I wanted it to do. It couldn’t, for example, pull up the list of new fantasy novels at the local public library. It couldn’t deliver just the news I was interested in. So there were some definite limitations.

As I was thinking about that library director’s question, and was remembering all that stuff about portals … it dawned on me just how excellent of a question that really was. Because, with RSS:

I am the portal

And that’s a huge shift. In 1999, I had to rely on a company to gather the information they thought I might want. But today, with RSS, I don’t have to rely on said company. I can, instead, rely on MYSELF to gather whatever it is I want.
I can get the information I want, when I want it.

So now I have my answer (not that it’ll ever come up again :-).

Anyone else have creative, useful answers to questions about emerging digital technology? I’d love to see them.

In the last week or so, I’ve seen three pretty cool things:

1. John Blyberg’s post about how to overcome the tech deficit
2. Glenn Peterson’s new project, EngagedPatrons
3. Sean Robinson’s project, the PayITForward web wiki

Blyberg always has good stuff to say - you should go read his post, and let it soak in. There are plenty of good ideas to be had there. And to me, the best thing he says is this:

“Look at where your patrons are spending their time, get a sense of what they want and need. It may be that your community is happy with what you’re doing, or it may be underwhelmed by what you’re not. As always, identifying what they want should drive spending, it shouldn’t be the other way around, where patrons are forced to use what we’ve spent money on.”

Glenn Peterson, web dude at Hennepin County Library, has started EngagedPatrons.org as a way to “provide website services connecting public libraries and their patrons.” Right now, EngagedPatrons is offering a variety of hosted services to libraries, including: Library events, library blogs, contact your library forms, RSS feeds, and custom web-enabled databases. Use the site’s handy contact us form for more info.

More from Glenn (via an email Glenn sent me - yes, Blyberg, you scooped me! Dang, I’m slow… -

“I’m offering to host website services for public libraries at my site and to assist libraries in customizing the services (via options I’ve built into each application) for their needs. Libraries will input data, about their upcoming events for example, using web forms I’ve built and the data will be stored in a database on my server. I’ll also assist libraries in storing the HTML for their site’s navigation in the database and integrate my code with the look and feel of the library’s own website. Libraries will link from their site to mine for the services they have chosen.The patron won’t know they are on my site - the pages I host will appear to be hosted at the library…”

Now on to Sean Robinson’s PayITForward project. From the wiki:

“This idea surfaced at the Ann Arbor Library Camp. Pay “IT” Forward.
There are lots of Public IT library professionals struggling to
implement technology. Sometimes the IT department at a library is made
up of one person. We have limited budgets and limited time. The
question was asked “What would happen if we shared our expertise with
each other?” This idea then grew to “What could I do?” “

I believe (Sean or someone else, correct me if I’m wrong) the idea is for library IT professionals to share their knowledge about whatever on the wiki. This way, library techies can start building a sense of larger community - and of course, get those techie projects done!

So - lots of extremely cool stuff related to library websites and library technology this week. Keep it up!

I’m getting ready for my webcast with OPAL this Friday… it’s part of their Continuing Education Seminar Series, held the 3rd Friday of the month at 10am - check out the full listing of seminars.

Anyway… here’s a list of links to some great articles on different aspects of techies and non-techies getting along:

• How to help someone use a computer - Great ideas for techies on how to be nice, includes a good list of “things to tell yourself” when helping a non-techie with a problem.
• 13 Tips on How to Tech-talk to Non-techies - tips on how to write for non-techies
• Seven Tips for Talking with Nontechnical People - How to get your ideas understood by non-techies
• Don’t explain an idea to a deer in headlights - provides some advice on communicating complex technical concepts to nontechnical folks
• Getting Technical - Tips for librarian non-techies on getting a little more technical

How to Create a Tech-savvy Staff, Travis Bussler

Why does IT need a tech-savvy library staff? Makes everyone’s jobs easier and provides better customer service to patrons.

Assessments, training and documentation - what we need to do

Assessments: all staff members need to assess where they are when it comes to technology

what to assess: everything… including USB drives - what are they, how do they work, etc.

Training: in-house, workshops, cd-rom, online, university, books

What to train on? Everything that is relevant

Tips:

• make training mandatory
• short sessions
• organize staff into groups of similar skill levels
• stay focused
• make the training as interactive as possible
• go slowly and give plenty of practice time
• repetition
• offer CEUs
• offer the training to other libraries or organizations
• let staff share experiences with each other
• use a variety of trainers and techniques
• let staff members bring drinks (non-alcoholic of course)

Documentation:

document everything - instructions, FAQs, cheat sheets, etc.

Tips:

• keep it simple
• use lots of pictures
• have both print and electronic

CIL2006

Technology Training for Library Customers, by Janie Hassard Hermann - www.princetonlibrary.org (note to self - look at their website. It looks cool!)

Library customers are becoming more proficient with technology.

Tech training expectation are rising.

We need to evolve…

Looking forward:

• classes that focus on digital cameras, MP3 players, etc
• instruction on eAudiobooks and legal downloading
• RSS, blogging, wikis, etc
• lectures and demos that help community stay current with technology and related issues
• individualized instruction - open, “tech time” sessions

10 steps to creating a tech-savvy technology training program:

• Step 1: implement monthly programs that appeal to advanced users (tech talks) ALso “Databytes” - they look at one database a month - captured the same audience that went to the tech talks
• Step 2: build a mailing list - gather email at every session
• Step 3: Make a Training Plan - as comprehensive as possible, especially if you go for funding/grants
• Step 4: write lesson plans
• Step 5: train staff or volunteers. Gives you a dry run for patrons, also trains staff.
• Step 6: decide registration procedures. If you restrict to card holders, have a set of courses, etc.
• Step 7: acquire equipment & software (if you don’t already have them). Think digital cameras, iPods, etc. - whatever it is you’re training with!
• Step 8: Promote, Promote, Promote! press releases, traditional library promotion, network with computer clubs, email lists, etc.
• Step 9: Feedback and evaluation
• Step 10: update frequently

What’s hot - photoshop bootcamp, digital cameras, etc.

CIL2006

We just held our annual Staff Day last Friday, and it was a good one! For those interested, here’s some of what we did:

In the morning, we had food (very important at any Staff Day event). Then our library director spoke about change, his projections for the next year, and about his trip with the Urban Libraries Council to Singapore and Hong Kong. Then a comedy troupe performed for us for about an hour, and did all sorts of team building types of skits (yes, that involved us).

Then we had a set of breakout sessions. I was one of those - I did a shortened version of my Introduction to Web 2.0 presentation - it went well, with lots of questions and comments the rest of the day.

Other morning breakout sessions - View from the Other Side of the Counter: Managing Customer Service Perspectives, Creating Stress Resilience, See No Movies? Hear No Music? Speak No Catalog?, and Kansas City Hot Spots. Three IT staffers did the “See No Movies” session - they focused on new things to do on our public PCs, like how to download an MP3 file, how to burn a CD, etc.

Lunch came next, along with a gaming demonstration - DDR (Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, to be exact) for anyone who wanted to experience it. Everyone thought it was extremely fun (or funny, depending on one’s point of view). As you can see from the photo, there was definitely a crowd!

Then afternoon breakout sessions. Crystal, who attended the Gaming in Libraries conference in December, spoke about games, and what our gaming taskforce is planning to submit to management group. Great presentation, and it really got a lot of staff talking and thinking about games, programming around games, and what our library can do to reach out to the gaming community.

Other afternoon breakout sessions? Let’s Play Yan-Koloba, Healthy Habits, Storytelling Adventures, and a tour of the Central Library.

Then more food - check out this video of the two chocolate fondue pots that were set up! After the short break, we participated in a team-building exercize, then had a closing Q&A time with the director, gave out awards, and held a raffle.

In general, here’s what went on: change, Web 2.0, gaming, new technology, customer service, and team-building. Yes, and food. All great things to talk about in a library!

What does your library do? Is there time for staff to get together, discuss possibilities for the next year, learn something new, and celebrate doing a good job as a team? If not, I’d suggest starting - what’s not to love about these things?

Take a look at this - just received this postcard in the mail. The Postal Service is hosting free events about selling (and shipping) stuff using eBay. How cool is that?

Their website says “eBay Day is a FREE event where you’ll learn how to make eBay and the U.S. Postal Service work harder for you.” They plan to answer questions on eBay and shipping; provide one-on-one help in listing items on eBay and on printing shipping labels; consulting with “experts;” and discovering “power selling” strategies.

Hmm… doesn’t that sound like something, say, a library could be teaching it’s customers? But we could go one (or two) further with the classes. For example - the Post Office partnered with eBay - so obviously, they’re going to talk about the wonders of shipping items using their service, and the amazing selling powers of eBay.

But if libraries taught those classes - we could also discuss selling stuff on Amazon, Yahoo!, craigslist, AND eBay. And talk about UPS, FedEx, etc. Plus point attendees to books, videos, articles, etc IN OUR LIBRARY on how to sell using eBay.

Hmm…

I just got back from teaching a basic search engines class to nine local library workers. This class is, to me, extremely basic information - I cover topics like “What is the web?”, “differences between search directories and search engines,” and “How to evaluate what you find.” Very basic stuff. While all of my students work in libraries, they have different job duties - I had everything from a circulation clerk to professional, “degreed” librarians. Some of them were there to earn CEUs, some were there to learn about searching the web.

And you know what? Many of them DID learn something today (they told me so). So here are those observations hinted at in the title of this post:

• No one is born knowing everything
• ya gotta learn sometime
• I know lots about library techie stuff, but not everyone is like me
• I don’t know much about other areas of librarianship.. but someone else does.

As I was pondering this, I realized this really relates to the whole Gorman “blog people” thing. Obviously, Gorman is not an idiot. He’s an intelligent library director who is not familiar with library-related blogs. Blogs aren’t tools he uses on a daily basis. My guess is that his first experience with blogs stemmed from the negative feedback he received after his discussion of Google’s e-text initiatives - probably not a very pleasant or positive introduction!

I DO use blogs as a tool in my daily job routine - they help me keep up with technology trends, and keep me learning about new things in the library world.

So here’s a thought - are there any “library director” blogs out there? Something that Gorman could actually use as part of his daily job routine? My guess is this - if someone showed him a blog that proved useful to his job, his opinion might change. Much more so than if he reads that some weirdo on Dave’s Blog thinks his opinion is…. well, you get the idea.

Checkout this flickr collection: Upload Video. It’s a tutorial on uploading video to the Internet Archive, etc… but the cool thing is this: the tutorial is saved on flickr!

It looks like someone turned powerpoint slides/other graphic files into jpgs, and posted them in order in his flickr account - saved as a colleciton. From there, you can view the collection as a slideshow.

Try it out - what a great and unique way to use flickr!