PLA Blog

Meg Canada, who works as Librarian as well as in Assistive Technology & Teen Services Online for the Hennepin County Library (I hope I got your title right!), and is also a lovely friend of mine, graciously took the time on Thursday, March 27 to give me an epic-yet-whirlwind tour of not only the Hennepin County Library system headquarters in Ridgedale, but also a quick run around the Central Library. Both libraries are wonderful, and everyone is doing such impressively progressive things, the whole tour was a treat.

The Ridgedale Library building not only houses the library, system headquarters, and centralized technical services processing of books, but also an office of motor vehicle services, local courts, a coffee shop, and a library book store. From the very entrance of the library, you can tell that the children’s librarian values early literacy, starting with the counting steps (apparently, you hear kids count those steps every time they come in), and carrying through to the rest of the library:

It was really good for me to see how their self-checkout stations are set up, one for adults, one for kids, since we’re planning on launching a similar self-checkout setup at my library in July. As for check-in processes, I got an inside look at their “high I.Q.” Automated Materials Handling (AMH) system (my apologies for the shake on the video!):

After meeting more of the staff and seeing more interesting behind the scenes workings at the Headquarters and the Ridgedale branch, we were off, heading back downtown to the Central Library. I must say, if you’ve heard anything about the wondrousness Hennepin County Library Minneapolis Central, it’s all true.The architecture is beautiful, all that light wood and glass. This was the truly whirlwind part of my tour (I was playing hookey, trying to get back in time to host the Virtual Happy Hour for the Virtual Conference), so I didn’t get to visually document everything that was cool. Like, say, the elevators that, as they go up and down, form words and letters in lights that spell out the titles of recently checked out books. Or how each floor has a uniquely-designed fireplace, complete with art (the giant “burned matches” were my favorite). Or even the beautiful lighting on the different media shelves, and the interactive touch-screen map systems that help people find things. The even have an ATM machine, not far from the coffee shop and book store. Make the trip to Minneapolis to see it in its full splendor, it’s worth it.

I did, however, get a comprehensive-yet-quick tour of Teen Central. Teens from all over the city were involved very early on in the development process, so the entire space is customized to the audience. Teens said they wanted a space of their own that didn’t look like the rest of the library, where they could eat, drink, hang out, listen to music, meet. As a result, Teen Central is a completely enclosed area within the library, complete with a meeting room that has dry-erase board wallpaper, cool flat speakers installed in the ceiling hooked up to a sound system that supports iPods but also plays CDs, excellent comfy seating near the windows, and vending machines (in the only area of the library where food is allowed). And the red-dyed wood for the shelves is *gorgeous*.

Next time I’m in Minneapolis, I’ll spend *way* more time at the library ;). Thank you so much to Meg and all of the staff at the Hennepin County Libraries for your hospitality!

OK, I’ll admit it, I skipped the first session slot on Saturday. It wasn’t because I was out partying or anything, but rather because I wanted to hang out with the friends I was staying with in the morning and have plenty of time to grab a leisurely breakfast (which I did at Gigi’s Cafe). Also, none of the 8:30 sessions looked particularly compelling. But here I am ready for one last session on “Changing Cultures: Experiences in Fostering Innovations from Within.”

My wife is a public-sector (ie. government) change management consultant for a little company called IBM, so this is a topic I know a little bit about, and I was interested to hear how people went about it in the public library world. A lot of what I heard was pretty basic stuff about empowerment, encouraging risk-taking, removing the fear of failure, and soforth. Nothing that amazing, although there were two little bits I thought I’d share.

The Director of the St. Louis system emphasized the need to give people the tools and chance to be a part of the change, but then if they didn’t buy into it, the necessity to get rid of them. That’s a huge problem in my own system, where unionization makes it very difficult to get rid of the “dead wood.” I guess the solution is that managers and administrators have to be willing to face the hassle of documentation and endless procedure required to dismiss unionized staff.

The other thing I liked was the idea that if you raise a problem or an issue in your branch or system, you should also offer three solutions at the same time. This isn’t to say that one of your solutions will be used, but demonstrate that you’re thinking about the complete cycle of change needed, rather than just pointing out a problem for someone else to solve.

So that’s it. My conference is done. I’m using the last little bit to blog then I’m off to dim sum with friends — no Paula Poundstone for me!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions/comments that fall outside the realm of this forum, feel free to email me at !

– Tony

I had the best time at PLA.  The best!  I was having so much fun, in fact, that I didn’t even finish blogging until I had been home for two days.  It took that long to recover!  I must say, my first PLA was a resounding success, leaving me with the desire and excitement to implement all I learned.

Thank you to everyone who attended for being so nice and polite and friendly to me!  And thank you to all the presenters for making my eyes sparkle with possibilities.

Thank you, John Wood, for showing us how simple it can be to make a difference.

Thank you, Nancy Pearl, for being my rock star and being so gracious about my giddiness.

Thank you, Sarah Weeks, Brian Selznick, Avi, and Pam Muñoz Ryan, for a phenomenal preformance.  I could watch your Reader’s Theatre every day.

Thank you, Paula Poundstone, for making me laugh until I had to leave the room or make a mess on my chair.  Thank you, also, for making me the envy of pretty much everyone I know.  Because I got to see Paula Poundstone and they didn’t.

Thank you to everyone who smiled at my exuberance and told me that my excitement was infectious.

Thank you for reading this blog.

And most importantly, thank you all for being librarians.  I’ve never known a nicer people!

She is delightful!  She talked to people in the audience, joked about what was going on without humiliating anyone, and generally had us all laughing heartily the whole time she was on stage.

Sorry for the bad photo, but all I had with me was my camera.

 She really did have my laughing most of the time, but you kinda had to be there.  Here are a few things she joked about:

• Sorry, this conference is only for “public”, you can’t come in. 
• Why are we considering getting rid of the Dewey system?  It’s always made her feel so safe!  She didn’t realize there was all this secret unrest about Dewey.
• Don’t you take a unified stand on dog-earing?  I hate dog-earing!
• When people started leaving early (just a few, really) she said “I’ve been in this business long enough to realize that it’s best if I leave first.”
• Librarians helping people find information and truth becomes more and more important as mis-information becomes more popular.

Michael Porter of WebJunction and Janie Hermann of Library Garden and Princeton Public Library, New Jersey, combined to discuss how new technologies can help libraries build and serve communities.

Marilyn Mason introduced them. She also told us to watch for newly expanded and redesigned services on Webjunction that we will see in the next few weeks.

Porter began with a quick, entertaining, and relevant look at social sites on the Internet, focusing on applications that libraries are already making.

• YouTube - there are already 3650 public library related videos loaded on this popular social video site. Getting the camera and learning to make the videos is the harder part. Loading them to YouTube is easy. Members of the audience concurred.
• Amazon’s Wish Lists for Libraries - 380 public libraries are utilizing this service with readers donating fully processed books instead of just buying books for their home library.
• Meebo - for monitoring instant messages. You can see multiple accounts on one screen.
• Flickr - Posting a picture a day is a way to show the many services of the library. These photos could be sent to clients by RSS.
• Del.icio.us - make public your web recommendation lists

Porter talked about how essential having MySpace and FaceBook accounts and having them link to all your libraries other web sites, including Flickr or other social offerings. “Be where the user is” is the goal and way to stay relevant.

Hermann talked about the importance of staff technical training and resources to help the library establish a training program. Princeton Public Library does something that I had not heard of before - combining public and staff technical classes. Much of what the staff need to learn is the same as what the public is learning for Web 2.0, so one set of classes can often cover both public programming and staff training. PPL has 25 established classes covering various computer and Internet topics.

PPL also has Data Bites programs, which are lunch time talks about databases, open to the staff and the public. On the first Tuesday night of the month, it has Technology Talks with invited speakers who cover current computer and web topics.

She then talked about other sources of online training that staff can tap. She recommended WebJunction, OPAL, and Neal Schuman PEN courses. When the library asks a staff member to take these, she said the library should be sure to schedule adequate off-desk time for them.

Hermann also recommended making screencasts or slidecasts for staff or public instruction. Wink and CamStudio are free. Camtasia is a popular fee-based software for creating online instruction.

About library websites, she said that we should always be redesigning them.

The program ended with a virtual presentation of Ning.com by Stephanie Gerdling, which is used for building online social networks. Some technical glitches lessened the impact of this portion of the otherwise helpful program.

Saturday morning I once more hauled myself out of bed too early and bussed to the convention center. My volunteer shift started at 8am, and my first order of business was to find caffeine. And then the local interest booth. Both were achieved. My volunteer captain was from the Great River Regional Library System, and sadly I have forgotten his name because we went over that before I was fully awake. Oops. If you read this, please remind me what you name is, because I feel like a major jerk right now.  [ETA: Thank you, Verne Oleksowicz, for being my fabulous volunteer captain!  I am sorry I couldn't manage to remember your name for more than 5 minutes, but I have used my research skills to track it down.]

However.

The first thing I got to do was drop off Peter Ostroushko CDs to the 8:30 presenters; this was a “thank you for presenting” gift from PLA. There were lots of presenters, so I did a lot of walking. THen it was back to the booth to answer questions. Sadly, there weren’t many questions, but I’m terrible at giving directions, so that was probably a good thing. Mostly I chatted with my captain about our respective library systems, Carnegie libraries, New Orleans, New York, and art. There was another mad dash to deliver CDs to the 10:15 presenters, and then my shift was done. I did stay and help recycle leftover handouts, but that went fairly quickly.

I walked down to Nicollet Mall, caught a bus home, and that was the end of my first PLA experience. I hope I can attend again in the future, because I had a really good time.

Flew in from Indianapolis yesterday, took the Light Rail in from the airport and checked into the Westin (it was so easy.)  Since this is my first major conference in the library field, I was surprised to see how easy it was to recognize other library professionals.  You know the stereotypes of how we look (think Nancy Pearl inspired action figure) but I think it is in more how we carry ourselves, a sense of competency.  (OK- more like we know what we are doing or if we don’t, we don’t mind asking someone).

Finally found free internet access - hotel was 12.95 per day - and am sitting here surrounded by people reading and responding to email.  I am so excited to see the presentations and will report more later.  I do think the nifty PLA blue tote bags are a tad heavy, I guess they are full of goodies.  Next time, I’ll check in early and then edit the contents of the tote before I go the convention.  Live and Learn.

As a part time library school student and full time reference worker, I understand the value of evaluating print sources.  Sometimes what is written is not what you get.  I have been to eight presentations in the past two days.  Three of the presenters commented on the title of their presentations (what was printed in the official program) were not necessarily what they had originally proposed nor did it accurately reflect what they covered.  While I think you can almost always find “nuggets” of wisdom no matter the topic, I now know to be more critical when determining what sessions to attend. 

A tip I learned, to help lighten the load you carry, is to rip out the pages from the official program that apply to that day’s sessions and bring those pages only with you.  Leave the rest of the program at the hotel.

It is great to attend this conference with coworkers because it allows you to “divide and conquer”.  We can attend different sessions and give mini-reports to each other prior to the next session.  It also allows me to immediately share ideas that I think are of value for my library with fellow employees rather than waiting until next Monday.

Today is the last day and I’m noticing many attendees walking with a hitch in their step.  The weather has been great for this time of year.  Got my picture taken with Mary Tyler Moore (her statue) and appeared on the Channel 4 CBS morning show (in the window) on the way to the convention center.  My head is abuzz with all the ideas and practical knowledge I have been exposed to during the presentions.

I think the convention center was a great place - comfortable seats (sat in a variety of them) - plenty of restrooms (Women’s Restroom on the 2nd floor usually had no waiting) - good lighting and sound systems.  The only thing I would change (this is out of PLA’s control) is the room numbering.  I looked at the diagram in the program but L100 being two floors below 100 goofed me up yesterday afternoon.  I know L meant lower level but since I was also looking for L100 F-H, I was concentrating on the room letters and not the letter in front of the room number.

We have done much walking around downtown and it is very clean.  A wide variety of eateries and attractions are easily accessed.  It has been a pleasure to be in Minneapolis.

Whew…what a conference. My first PLA and I must say I’m much impressed. And much tired. And much with good grammer too. And to think I was just one of over 9000 Public Library people that attended. Wow! That’s a big kind of number. So here then is the final run down.

After a quick packing and breakfast I attended the first of my last final prgramming sessions, “How to Deal with Difficult Patrons.” Good program, and sadly one I think more and more of us have need of. I work in a big, downtown library and there is no avoiding the fact that dealing with difficult patrons is pretty much a daily task. I liked this program for two reasons: it gave very good advice and it also outlined how you can go about teaching this to your own staff (through the online info the presenters are providing). I will definitely be dong some downloading when I get back to work tomorrow (and yes, tomorrow…no rest for the conferenced).

My final session was “From Hype to Help,” and dealt with ways of helping your organization collaborate using technology. While mostly an overview with a couple of specific samples thrown in, it did present some ideas and places to check out online that I will definitely have to investigate. I enjoyed the presenters enthusiasm and honesty. Using technology to address “communication” issues requires a lot of staff “buy-in” and that is never easy to create.

The final event of PLA was the Closing Session featuring Paula Poundstone. I knew the name, but I don’t think I had ever seen her perform and now I feel kind of bad about that. She is damn funny. I enjoy comedy quite a bit, in all it’s forms and fashions, but I have a soft spot for those comedians who think on their feet and can turn chance statements from the audience into running gags. Paula Poundstone did that and more, and I doubt I will ever look at “Public” Libraries quite the same (sorry, you had to be there).

And so it ends, my first but hopefully not my last PLA. Two years from now I’m going to face a major delimna. Do I try and encourage others in my system to attend so that they can have the experince I had this week? Or do I keep it quiet about it so there might be money left to send me again? Damn…I wonder if any of them are reading this blog?

And speaking of readers, thanks to PLA for letting me do this and thanks to you few who actually read them. I can only hope that some small part of what I experienced I was able to communicate and that two years from now, some of you who have never attended will be in Portland (with me if luck prevails) and will be blogging away about your own experiences. Sure, there are some downsides, but overall it is a fantastic opportunity and well worth the effort.

I keep coming back to one of the first comments that appeared on one my messages. Recharged? Yes I feel recharged. And why? Because being here at PLA helps give me the big picture. I am part of the world of Public Librarians, and they are all facing the same problems I am and there are those, much smarter than me, who are figuring out solutions. The least I can do is take that knowledge back with me to my system, and spread the word.

Thank you!

And before I forget, than you Minneapolis! I had a great time in this fantastic city. Cold? You betch ya! And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.