Roadblocks

When writing a draft of a story or poem, it's really important to keep writing and not look back on the work and start editing. Once the editing begins, it's possible for a person to lose the real story to the turn of a phrase or the flip of a sentence. The idea should be the primary goal during the draft process, the process of discovery. I haven’t always perceived my role as a learner similarly, but as I write this, the goal of this class becomes clearer. This is a class for discovery and for experimentation. It is about the possibilities.
Once we are actually working in libraries, however, we move from the draft phase to the editing. The reality of editing makes it hard for me to embrace the exploration of technological possibility. In my head, I keep hearing the voices of my school’s Tech Chair and administrators. I am taken aback by my naturally skeptical nature and my own hesitations about technology and change.

I want to be enthusiastic and optimistic, but I find myself focused on the ways in which things can’t work. I think about the physical roadblocks: the cables that aren’t movable, the tables that just won’t fit anywhere else, the computers that HAVE to be somewhere else. I remember the logistical issues that make adding software or updating the card catalog long, difficult processes. In my position, I have not been given the privileges that would make these tasks under my immediate control. I have to put my requests to others and justify every decision. I have to decide what is truly worth entering the bureaucratic maze.

I also face additional human roadblocks in the form of teachers who are too overworked or old-fashioned or scared to embrace new technology. So, in this class, when I should be charging forward, dazzled by the prospect of new ways of teaching and learning, I find myself imagining the glazed over faces of the teachers to whom I’ll be introducing ANOTHER new way of doing things.

Some of these roadblocks are just plain out of my control, others require a little bit of patience and perseverance, and still others reflect my own insecurities, perspective, and understanding that there is only so much that can be accomplished in a day or week or year. As I challenge the editor within myself who keeps trying to revise the draft before it’s done, I realize part of my frustration is because I LOVE some of the things I’ve been learning. I can see the potential of where we can take students—if the conditions are just right. I have to remember to keep being the writer, the learner, the explorer. I wish my mind didn’t echo “roadblock” each time I hear a new idea because I really want to put some of these ideas into action. I want to be more open to the ideas, to push my library work and myself.

I’m hoping that I’m making at least a baby step with my innovative project. I could really see it working, and hope it does. I’m starting with something small and focusing on a perceived need which might be resolved via del.icio.us. Since none of the school computers can hold bookmarks on their computers, I can use technology to help teachers and students easily access the items they often refer back to. Enter del.icio.us/Feehanlibrary. It's a start at turning roadblocks into speedbumps.

I think my realistic (okay, and somewhat skeptical) nature has a place in library science and particularly in terms of technology. I just have to be sure to use it to a positive end. I need to ask questions such as: What is the greatest need in my academic setting? Where can I make a positive difference? What is possible within the given constraints? If I ask the right questions and don’t let myself become overwhelmed with thoughts of “this will be more trouble than it's worth”, I think I can make the process of learning more powerful and efficient for the students and teachers at my school. Who knows? We could all be surprised.

My library and facebook?

Among our classmates, there have been discussions about how facebook pages link in with Twitter and other aps. I don't have a Facebook or a MySpace page, and I'm not sure I want one or need one. It is interesting to me, though, to think that libraries could use these tools to advocate for themselves.

Apparently some bookstores already do it, according to this article from the New York Time about MySpaces pages for City Lights and Square Books. The article ends up focusing more on how the stores are described in the profile (are bookstores male or female?, etc.) than what it means for bookstores to have a face on MySpace (in this case). Sadly, the comments for the NYT article follow this same train of thought, no debate of necessity for their presence on social networking sites, only their question of a bookstore's gender. Yes, world, this is the important stuff. The comments on the MySpace pages are filled with buy my book and thanks for adding me comments, and again, I think I must be missing something. City Lights has a website, though it doesn't seem to acknowledge the MySpace presence. I find it all very confusing. So confusing, in fact, I can't really articulate myself well.

I guess I'm just asking: what are your thoughts on stores or places (or ideas even) having a "face" on Facebook or MySpace? In what way does their presence there fill a need of the user that another resource couldn't?

the 2.0

I've just realized that some people might think that my covs2.0 is an homage to Brotherhood2.0, but that wasn't my intention. In fact I didn't think of that connection until a friend mentioned it. My 2.0 was meant to reference the discussions in the world of the library of Library2.0 and Web2.0, which I understand to be the upgrades of these systems into the rest of the world.

Here I am in this class using a Wiki regularly, reading blog posts, discussing servers and FTP...all under the guise of the library! In some ways, it makes me feel really lucky that I decided to become a librarian now, because I am beginning to understand that this "upgrade" is here to stay and so we must alter the way we think about libraries and reconsider what it means to research, to locate information, and to serve patrons.

In all this new technology (and even the old stuff), I still can't get my head around some of it. I can't quite figure out what to do with the "public" aspects of so much of it. If I make a del.icio.us page for my teachers and students, would I need to reconsider what I have on my own, if perchance they found mine? My name is out there now in the blogosphere and interweb. Does 2.0 mean more individual exposure? If so, are we always aware of what image we put out? It makes me think that more of us (but especially schools and libraries and libraries in schools) need publicists. Perhaps social networking is a type of backlash toward the society pages of the 40s, 50s, and 60's. Now there's a thesis for someone? Is social networking more than a society page upgrade?

A few ways technology followed me to NJ

Took the bus to NJ for some graduation festivities This means that for days I was away from my computer. Still, I found myself talking about technology, libraries, and schools while I was traveling. I even observed some various things. Here are a few:

1. On the bus, I sat next to a college student from Brazil who uses Skype to talk to his family back home. He and I also talked a bit about the difference between libraries in Brazil and those at his college campus. We also talked about Wikipedia, which he found to be a great resource when it came to looking for information about musicians and other cultural things. He seemed to like the way Wikipedia allows a person to maneuver around an entry to find other related information. In this way connections are made that many of the best "scholars" in a field seem ignorant of.

In addition, I asked him if he went to the Library at his college. The word on the street is that students don't go to the library much anymore. And he said "No." But when I asked if he used Databases he livened up saying "I use Jstor for everything!" Jstor is only available by subscription, so the library must get this database to assist their students. In other words, in today's world, I find it believable that students would never enter the library space during their academic career (still a bit sad, but believable), what I don't find believable is that library resources go unused by an academic community. Several schools have IM accounts to provide assistance to those at home. Others make sure that their database access applies outside the library walls. Those who use these services are still using the library. Aren't they?


2. Before I even read the student tech.encyclopedia entry on Facebook, I watched my recently H.S. graduated cousin rapidly log in to her Facebook account, simultaneously chat with like three people and then run out of the room again. She (or her twin sister, I really am not sure which) did this on various occasions during my time there. I can't think of a time I heard them on the phone, but they certainly were checking their profiles, their friends' profiles and making plans via the vast world of the interweb.

Then when I got home last night there was a Law & Order about a girls "B-friends" page where she complained about her mother and essentially put a hit request into virtual cyberspace. It made me wonder how much my own cousins say and expose of themselves on Facebook. It also reminded me of the culture of "dangerous internet" the media and adults seem to push. In some ways, a person's cyberlife seems to be a dirty little secret.

This morning, I read an old NYT article about Webkinz and Club Penguin. Seems the social networking is going further down the ladder and now there are sites to get 8 & 9 year olds in on the act. At my favorite toy store in NJ, there was a big sign in the window announcing, "WE HAVE WEBKINZ." I thought it was like the beanie baby craze. I didn't realize the stuffed toys give a person access to an online character. That's right, the toy has a special code which can be used to access an online avatar for more interaction with your toy. Somehow, this reminds me of Gremlins.


3. On the train in to NYC, my recently H.S. graduated cousin helped me program my phone to use T9 texting so that I could write messages more quickly. This was interesting in part because recently, the YALSA blog had an article explaining that young people prefer not to use T9, as they already know what letters are on which keys and how many strokes it would take to write their message.

Of course, my cousin is just one person, but she seemed a bit fan of the T9. And with its help her fingers flew across her phone, sending out notes at lightening speed. I've now added the T9 to my messaging, and must admit that I'm not so sure I like it. In some ways it's faster, but alternate or unusual spellings really slow the whole thing down. In addition, I have to keep figuring out how to change "On" to "No" or "them" to "then," etc.


4. I think my mother may be a YouTube addict. This isn't really true, but whenever she hears of something funny on there, she then wants everyone to see it. Granted she finds great things, but she did run into an interesting dilemma last February when she showed my niece a Panda Sneeze video that she found great. Later, when my niece wanted to find the video herself, she ended up alone on YouTube. My niece is in elementary school, and while YouTube would have some content appropriate for her age, it also would not. While my mother's intent was honest and good, it made my sister-in-law nervous. Is the computer the new babysitter?

Of course, YouTube is rife with candidate videos, and this is one reason it hasn't been blocks at the HS I work at. This doesn't stop media personalities from commenting on these videos. At dinner one night news correspondants were busy talking about the YouTube videos of Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton. At the same time NBC plans to create videos to help students with AP exams. The article on this was linked in Twitter, and I had to go back pretty far to find it again. Anyway, read more about NBC's plan here.


5.My grandfather's house has no internet access, no cable, and only one working TV. It was nice to be there. He missed all the graduation festivities for health reasons, and it was nice to pull out my digital camera to show him pictures of the event. With the help of a magnifying feature, I was even able to show some details I hadn't even realized I captured. He got to witness some of the events, and I was really glad I could share those pics with him. I placed a few of the pics on my Flickr page, but the majority will go into a Snapfish album, because I've found that Flickr is for socializing for me...Snapfish is for sharing pics that people will want to print. At least that's how I use those two programs. There are so many programs, it seems necessary to me to determine each one's personal usefulness or else, why use it at all?


I suppose there were more simple technologies I encountered this weekend as well, but these are just a few thoughts on the matter. Time to go out in to the real world...