goblin cartoons

Steve Lawson has written a funny funny scene involving a hep, cutting-edge dude and a dusty, fuddy-duddy librarian.

As a public librarian, I have to say: I wish I had people like this coming into the library and saying things like this to me! Granted, I’d mostly have to say, “We don’t have that yet, but we’re working on it!” But part of the problem I have in selling this kind of thing to my coworkers is that we don’t have people asking for this kind of service. I’d bet dollars to donkeys there are people in Olathe, KS, who want a 2.0 library and who would use it if we provided it, but they aren’t being vocal or demanding about it. I suspect that the technophiles and Millennium Kids who use our library just expect us to provide a minimum of jetpack tech and have given up asking for much beyond “Where is the WiFi signal strongest here?” (Answer: in the children’s area.)

So, please, Mr. and Ms. Biblioblogger and other futurians, be as demanding as the chap in Steve’s dialogue. Make your voices heard! You never know, your local crusty, dusty librarians may really be 2.0 Librarians at heart, looking for just this kind of patron passion to move their libraries forward.

Check your sanity at the door! Our Summer Reading Program begins today, and the library is pretty much a madhouse, a madhouse. I think our regulars are a bit Bambi-eyed at the noisy hordes that have descended upon our library this morning. Me? I’m fine, as long as I keep myself kneedeep in coffee.

Apparently, I look like Larry King.

Apparently, The Dead Bride was a movie “kinda like a cartoon” that came out a few years ago and starred Jonathan Death.

Let’s roll that footage and go back over the plays I made. Let’s see how this “Introduction to the Internet” class went, what was successful and what wasn’t. And then, if we have time, let’s go for a slice of pie and a cup of coffee. We’ll start with the beginning and the end. The middle will unfold on its own.

I started the class about 10 minutes late, just to make sure I gave everyone enough time to get in, and finished about 10 minutes late, so it really evened out into a full 90 minutes. I began the class with 5 out of 6 students in attendance. For one of my library’s programs, that’s a good showing. (The sixth student called today, apologized for missing the class, and asked if we had another class on the schedule.) I ended the class with all of the students–all older men and women–saying they learned a lot and they would definitely be interested in more computer classes. So, any way you look at it, the class was a success.

The middle? Hmmmm…

I had much too much to cover in just one class. Did I give a quick overview of how the Internet works? Check. Did I explain how the World Wide Web works? Check. Did I show them how to use a web browser? Well, I showed them the most basic stuff, but didn’t have time to show them things like bookmarks and changing your home page, which is a shame. Did I give them the pros and cons of both IE and Firefox? You betcha. Did I still manage to get them interested in using Firefox instead of IE? I don’t know how I did it, but I did. (Behold, the power of Firefox!) Did I show them how to use search engines? I gave them the basics, but there was so much more I wanted to cover. Did I explain e-mail. Yes, but again, only at its most basic (as in “This is what e-mail is. Next!”). Did I get them hep to IM? I got them intrigued (so much for the “chat is only for ADHD teenagers” jazz), but by that point we were really running out of time, so all I could do was give them the most cursory of explanations. One woman actually looked visably frustrated that I didn’t go into more depth on IM, although that looked passed quickly. (As quickly as my coverage of IM. Zoom!) Did I talk about how to use the Internet safely? How to avoid viruses and worms and spyware? How to avoid phishing? Yup. No identity theft for my students, no way!

It wasn’t a flop by any stretch, but I really could have made two or three or four classes out of that one. And maybe I will in the not-too-distant future. My library originally committed to doing two classes, an introduction to computers (which one of my fellow librarians taught) and an introduction to the Internet. Seeing how there’s a demand for these classes, we’re now discussing doing one a month, developing a curriculum and teaching a rotation of computer classes on more focused topics. It’s pretty goshdarned exciting.

And now? Where’s my pie and coffee? I think I deserve pie and coffee.

Yesterday’s Blog Breakfast went very well. (Everything goes down better with Krispy Kremes.) I have a more demanding teaching gig tonight. I’m doing my first adult program and my first patron tech training, an “Introduction to the Internet” class.

There will only be six people there at most, but because this is my first time trying to teach grown-ups how to use the Internet, I’m just a wee bit on the butterflies and goosebumps side. It’s a 90 minute class (twice as long as the Blog Breakfast) with complete strangers (rather than coworkers). What if I’m trying to cover to much? What if I’m not covering enough? What if I just confuse the students? What if my jokes fall flat? What if my trousers fall down halfway through the class? What if a hungry bear wanders in, looking for pic-a-nic baskets?

If the class doesn’t go down like the President’s approval ratings, if the class actually goes well, I’d like to do more advanced classes. I’d love to do a class on how to use the Internet for more than just free email and discounted airline tickets, how to start your own blog, how you can contribute to Wikipedia or start your own wiki. But I need to get through this introduction class first.

In less than two hours I will be hosting a “Blog Breakfast” at my library, showing my coworkers how our intranet WordPress blog works, what the blogging guidelines are (as developed by the Web Committee), and how they can all contribute to the blog. We’ll have donuts and juice. I’m bringing my own coffee, because I’m a bit wary of the coffee and condiments we have in the staff breakroom, and nobody at the library drinks coffee besides myself and the branch manager.

Initiate Tech-Savvy Teacher-Mode…NOW!

When I first got my job, I didn’t get my own desk. I had to share it with a coworker who works part-time. I didn’t raise a fuss, because I was just happy to have a job. Plus, the library building falls somewhere on the wee side, so I figured there just wasn’t room for a desk for me.

But while the coworker and I got along swimmingly and maneuvered around each other’s schedule fine, it became apparent that I needed my own desk. I humbly asked my supervisor, and as it turned out, someone at our Main library was getting a new desk and I could inherit her old desk.

The new desk delivery had some hitches, though. In the meantime, my supervisor procured a very small desk that was due to be thrown out, to serve as my temporary desk. It was so small (”How small was it?”), with my computer and one basket of papers on it, I had no room to do any work at the desk.

Well, my new desk arrived today. It’s huge! It’s so big (”How big is it?”), I could sleep on it. When I die, I plan on being buried in my desk. It’s got loads of work space, plus shelving and lots of drawers. I am at no loss for space.

I’m very happy. I feel like I’ve graduated to the next level. Yeah, sometimes it’s the little things that make your day. Like a big honking desk.

I haven’t posted here in a while. At Library HQ, we’ve got employees on vacation, employees at PLA and CIL, and employees out sick. We’re stretched really thin, like butter over too much bread, which means I’ve had to pull a lot of long shifts on the desk lately. Now, I love working at the reference desk, really I do. I love interacting with patrons, I love helping them find information. Heck, I even like helping them with their computer problems. But it’s difficult to get desk work done when you’re constantly interrupted by patrons, so I feel like I have a backlog of work that’s not getting done. And I’m starting to get really sick of hearing the phone ring and listening to children whine and scream at their parents.

I’m in serious need of some off-desk time, preferably with a bottle of whiskey and a box of dark chocolate, and I’m not sure when that will be.

So, my brain is feeling pretty mushy. I can’t formulate thoughts well enough to blog about anything (except this, obviously). Just reading my RSS feeds on library stuff makes my eyes spin.

Expect blogging and ranting to resume when our skeleton crew gets a big more full-figured.

My Place of Work is pretty stuck on Microsoft, both for public and employee computers. I asked Tech Support to have Firefox installed and it took ages before they actually agreed to install it. The installation was only on a few employee computers that I usually work on, on the condition that if there were any problems (I can’t imagine what problems there would be, but this is what I was told), I would have to handle them myself. This was right as Firefox 1.5 was being released, but they installed the previous release instead. In order to upgrade Firefox or install any plugins and extensions, I have to call Tech Support because administrative privileges are required (which I don’t have…probably for the best). I haven’t bothered calling Tech Support for this, because, well, they seemed fairly grumpy about installing Firefox in the first place.

Which is why I am enamored with the Portable Apps Suite. I now have portable versions of Firefox, Gaim, Nvu, AbiWord and Sunbird on my work-supplied flash drive. I can be on any computer at work and use Firefox–with Flash, with Greasemonkey, with all of my bookmarks–without having to deal with Tech Support. I keep my calendar with me on my flash drive now. I’ve tried out AbiWord, which I’ve come to find is a nice little word processing program. I can hop from computer to computer without having to log in and out of my personal profile and still have lots of my customized tools with me.

My Portable Apps have become so important to me…I hear wedding bells.