goblin cartoons

I flew back to Kansas City from DC on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning, I got up and drove 3 hours to Wichita to present at the Kansas Library Association’s annual conference. Erin Downey Howerton, Brenda Hough and I presented on using internet tools to network, to engage in conferences and community building beyond official conferences–blogs, wikis, IM chatting, Twitter and things like the Library Society of the World.

The presentation went well, although we probably could have done the presentation in one hour, rather than stretching it into a two-hour slot. Erin and Brenda are both extremely engaging speakers, Erin bursting with loads of energy, Brenda with a calmer enthusiasm. I talked about how important the LSW is to me and others, and used Laura Crossett as an example of getting professional help from the LSW when designing her library’s new website. (Laura has apparently become the poster woman for the LSW.) The presentation was much smaller, more intimate, more conversational than my Computers in Libraries presentation, which is just fine by me. I prefer smaller and conversational overall. Oh, and getting wifi at the conference was easy, because Wichita has a free citywide mesh network.

After our presentation, I hopped back into my car and drove another 3 hours back to KC. By that time, I was exceedingly glad to be home.

Amy Kearns had an idea yesterday. I think it’s an interesting one.

What do you think of some sort of WORLDWIDE, 24/7, 365, volunteer, independent TWITBRARIAN or something like that (name can be something else)?

What I mean is – what I’m thinking is we are all on Twitter all (much) of the time. I know some of us are working – sometimes we’re not working – and I know it is also a source of “fun” and/or pleasure, socializing, etc., and not necessarily work, or a place we would want to end up getting work from…But – I can’t help but think of what an incredible social resource we are – all of us LIBRARIANS from all over the place on TWITTER…

Cindi Trainor has thought about it some more and put forward some good ideas (and possible pitfalls). I definitely think it’s an idea worth considering and brainstorming about. To that end, Amy has written more about her idea on the Library Society of the World wiki, created a wiki just for this idea, and reserved a couple of domain names (just in case). So let’s get crackin’!

Today is my birthday.

I’ve gotten used to having a birthday the day before Christmas. In fact, I rather enjoy it. But one thing that’s always been something of a drag is how cut-off from my friends I generally feel. I’ve never had a birthday party with friends on my actual birthday. My family has always been good about giving me a good birthday celebration, but because of the holidays, I’ve never gotten to have my friends around me on my birthday. It’s always made me feel a little lonely, no matter how good a time I was having with my family.

I didn’t feel lonely today. I still didn’t get to have any friends hang out with me, but I got very nice birthday wishes today from people on Twitter, Facebook, Livejournal, and through email. The social web has made me feel as if I was surrounded by friends, old and new, even if they weren’t in the same room with me.

Are our libraries making people feel connected, even when we’re closed? At 3 a.m., on Christmas day, on Easter Sunday, are we connecting people with information and with other people?

Thanks to everyone who sent me good wishes today. You’ve brought a smile to my face and warmth to my heart. And in 2008, let’s see if we can’t bring more smiles and warmth to our patrons and to each other, especially at times when people can be at their loneliest.

In my previous post, I said,

I need face-to-face interaction and conversation. I need spontaneous gatherings. I need occurrences of random escapades and shenanigans. I can get some of that online (the LSW Meebo room is great for that), but nothing really replaces in-person socialization.

Some people may see that as saying I think social software is inferior to face-to-face interaction, so let me expand on my statement: in-person socialization is also no substitute for synchronous and asynchronous interaction through the internet.

There are people in my life that I respect and admire, both personally and professionally. Many of them are spread out across the globe, and it is simply not feasible to have them all in the same geographical space at the same time as often as I need. Being able to interact with them through IM, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, web forums, email and other internet-y ways is so very important to me. My life would be much poorer without these means of interacting with these people in my life. The internet brings these people closer to me when it would otherwise be improbable or impossible.

Plus, there are ways of communicating online that you can’t do as well (or at all) in person. This is why we have prose, printed poetry and essays as well as live storytelling, performance poetry and lectures; there are ways of using text that you can’t do with other forms of communication. Heck, for some people, interacting with others at a distance is preferable to meeting in-person, and social software gives them more ways to do this.

Social software is not a fad or a flash in the pan. That’s absurd. Social software didn’t come about because a few programmers thought it would be cool. It came about because humans are social creatures and they will use any technology they can to interact with each other. That’s why humans have written so many letters and postcards, why we’ve made so many phonecalls, why we’ve invented telegraphy and radios and televisions. Social software is no substitute for in-person interaction, but it adds to the potential and the richness of our interaction in ways that other technologies don’t.

That’s why it’s important for libraries to incorporate “Web 2.0″ and other new technologies into their services. Not because it’s “cool,” not because it makes us look “hip” and “modern,” but because people are already using these technologies to connect and communicate with each other. Implementing these technologies offers people more ways to use our services, not less. Isn’t that what we want to offer?

No one method of communication is good for everyone, which is why variety is so goshdarned great. More technology, more social software, more in-person interaction! Bring it all on, says I!

My gosh, I sure do love LibraryThing! Today they added a new feature, Common Knowledge, which adds more social cataloging mojo to the site. I think it’s the start of more tasty exploration and collaboration, and I’m excited to see how it develops. Tim Spalding’s blog post about it gives better, more detailed information about it than I can without just outright plagiarizing him, so I’ll just link to it…now. And for one last bit of gushing, let me reiterate: I think Common Knowledge is awfully spiffy and LibraryThing is full of win.

My fellow carping nerdboy Steve Lawson has an excellent post about Facebook. I highly recommend reading it.

In my own short time on Facebook, I’ve found that there’s a lot I dig, but it does have a definite “gated community” vibe.

Don’t anyone dare call me an “early adopter,” because last night, I signed myself up on Facebook for the first time. I joined up mostly because some of my coworkers are on there, and I was inspired by Michael Porter‘s Social Software Showcase presentation. I also liked Facebook’s clean, basic look, and thought it made a pleasant alternative to MySpace‘s cluttered, noisy gaudiness. I’d decided against signing back up on MySpace, even though some friends and family members are there, because pages there generally look too flashy and out of control.

And then I read danah boyd’s essay “Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.” It provides some really good food for thought and has made me take a step back and look at both social sites and at myself. I haven’t come to any conclusions yet, I may never come to any conclusions, but it’s got me thinking.

UPDATE: danah boyd’s essay has made the BBC.

I got an interesting email the other day from Ted Lee. Ted works for Meebo and wanted me to pass along a job posting. Meebo is looking for Customer Support Manager, and they think someone with reference librarian experience would be good for the position. I have no idea what Meebo is like to work for, but I think it’s great that they want a library type for this job. The job is posted here, and if you have any other questions, you can email Ted or Kathy at Meebo. (Please don’t email me. I don’t know anything more than I’ve posted. I’m only posting this because Ted asked nicely, and because I think it looks like it could be a nifty opportunity for someone.)

As Walt blogged about, the Library Society of the World Meebo room got attacked by guerrila spambots on Thursday afternoon. I was at work and had a meeting to go to, so there wasn’t much I could do about it. I quickly posted on the Meebo forums, then suggested to the people in the chat room that they abandon ship for the moment. In the aftermath of the pr0nbot bombing, I’ve made the room accessible only by password. I’m not all that happy with the solution; a number of the LSW room regulars are people who stumbled into the room, found it to be a welcoming environment, and stayed. I don’t see that happening as much now, although we’ve made the password as easy to find out as we could. (Hint: it’s the same as the LSW wiki.)

In another sense, though, it’s awfully nifty the room was attacked at all. During the attack, people checked other rooms and found that the only ones getting hit were the popular rooms, the rooms with lots of people in them. And the LSW room has been consistently popular. You can usually find at least one or two people there, frequently a lot more than that. You can even find it hopping on a Saturday night (which maybe says as much about us library folks as it does about Meebo chat rooms). I love hanging out there, especially when there are a lot of people in the room. Conservation ranges from food (a topic that seems to emerge with the slightest provocation) to “what do we like and dislike about ALA” to “can someone help me with the reference question?” to “can someone give me professional advice about being a librarian?”

I know why the room is so popular: the people who hang out there are friendly, approachable, funny, and smart. But I honestly don’t know how it became so popular. I’d love to take credit for it. Often, when I log into the room, someone will make a joke about “our leader has arrived!” But I’m not their leader, I’m not the primary influence on the room. I creeated the room, I perform the rare administrative function for the room, but it’s the people in the room who make it what it is. I’ve never invited anyone to the room, I don’t drop links to the room anywhere (except once on Twitter and here on my blog), and yet a really good group of people have come to the room, and they keep coming back to interact with each other.

An example of the great social dynamic going on: when I told everyone to flee in the face of the pr0nbot invasion, LSW member Rikhei immediately created a backup room, password-protected, and people spread the word. I came back from my work meeting to find a whole new LSW room where people were congregating. Soon after, I made the original LSW room password-protected. Again, the word was spread, and everyone flocked back to the original room.

Whatever the reasons, I’m pleased as all get-out the LSW Meebo room has attracted such a great group of people. I’m not solely responsible for it, but I’m thrilled to be a part of it. It’s now one of my favorite hang-outs. It’s a place I can go where everybody knows my name.

I woke up this morning to find that Meebo now has chat rooms. Chat rooms have been around for ages, but Meebo’s are awfully slick. You can incorporate multimedia into them, so that they make excellent conferencing and collaboration areas. At a coworker’s suggestion, I created a Meebo room for my colleagues and me to use. Then I created a Meebo room for the Library Society of the World. There’s a lot of potential for professional use of these chat rooms. Also, they’re fun!