wrapping up Learning 2.0

I missed the deadline for the Nebraska Learns 2.0. I did learn about new web applications. I learned more about some that I already used. Some that I never got to I will to go through and learn. Others that I never got to I use quite a bit already. All in all it was a good experience, and if such a program is offered again I will try to participate and keep up so that I get the full benefit of the program.

2 posts in 1 More Learning 2.0

Thing 4:

Register your blog and join the party.

Ummm, well for Leraning 2.0 this is done, however as far as how does this help my patrons or co-workers. If they don't know where your blog is, how are they going to be able to go there and find all that useful information you keep learning and typing about? If you are going to use your blog for work, then the people who need to know what is in it need to know where to find it. Advertise yourself!

Thing 5:

Instant messaging

I IMed with Allana, and asked her about starting up on this whole program of Learning 2.0. The whole conversation went exactly as a reference question should go. She was right there; there was virtually no wait for answers. Afterwards I jumped in and started looking around the Learning 2.0 site and thinking about how all this can work in a library setting.

There is a lot of potential for keeping up with co-workers in a different part of the building, asking questions about how to get that invoice paid, or clarifying procedures. It also has some benefit for reference work, but if your reference desk is busy with face to face questions, the person handling IM for reference might be better placed away from the desk.

Learning about Technology while working in a Library

Thing 1:

Discovery has never been so much fun.

Okay, linking discovery and learning to help library patrons and customers internal and external. This is an easy one. Our patrons/customers are becoming more and more tech savvy. Many of them can help themselves and learn the new technology on their own. But, do we have to provide that technology in our libraries. How do we know what to provide? Can we as library workers use the technology ourselves so that we can help our customers who are not tech savvy?

We find out or learn what technology is needed in many ways: talking to our patrons, reading professional journals, attending training courses, and going out on the web and looking around for it. I think we all know that Google is not just a noun. I google frequently to find things. So what if it isn’t a scholarly source, it does find scholarly papers that have been web-published. It finds vendors that want to sell you the technology you are looking for. Sometimes you even find freeware. We as librarians are in the business of evaluating resources to see if they are valid or not, we just use that evaluation skill to determine which sites are giving us the good information. I find Wikipedia to be an excellent source for answering many quick questions like what is (insert name of computer program you need information about here). For example go to wikipedia and type CAD in the search box. The main entry is about Computer Aided Design, but there is a disambiguation page on Cad that fits my introduction to the word (many many years ago): Cad (character), a man who seduces a young woman, often to her social or financial ruin. (My mom used it in reference to Ashley Wilkes and his dishonesty in dealing with Scarlett.)

I could go on and on about how we need to continue to learn and discover new things to help our patrons and co-workers but really I think it has all been said before and much better than I said it in the previous paragraph. I think the only thing left I want to mention here is, is this fun? Well, for me it is. Especially when I am not on a deadline, deadlines always take the fun out of things, don’t they?

Learning 2.0

Hi, I'm back after almost a year. I'm also going to muddy the waters even further. I am working on the Learning 2.0 project through the Nebraska Library Commission. If you are interested in this program, you can read about it here. And what the heck, I'm going to work on National Novel Writing Month in November along with Learning 2.0 so I'll blog about it here too.

Gee general overlapping with craft and now switching to Learning. The Learning 2.0 exercises will be a part of work, and I'm going to apply the learning 2.0 specifically to work this time around and how these new skills can be used in the library to help patrons, or co-workers.

Those of you looking at this blog from library land will probably find my personal life floating in and out, but at worst I will be writing out the posts at home and uploading them quickly at work. At best only the learning 2.0 will be on work time and anything personal will be uploaded after work.

Work temperatures now livable

Okay, to say they were not livable before is an exageration. But almost 90 degrees with little to no air circulation was definately wearing almost all of us down. One day they even allowed us to go home on administrative leave because of the temperatures at 90 + and OSHA rules. All this week the temperature in our office suite has been in the 70s. I think even the individual offices have been dropping into the 70s. It is heaven. The humidity in the office suite is also at a good level. The air quality is better now that they have quit excavating the basement level. So from my point of view, all is well and work is good again.

Renovation update

I was hoping to post more often than I have been. Funny how life and work get in the way.

Renovation is moving along and currently out the door. The estimate is that when all is said and done 600 to 800 truck loads of concrete, dirt, carpet, and who knows what else will be removed from the 1st or basement floor of the Criss Library. I think most of the concrete floor has been removed as I have not heard any banging or pounding for a few days.

The air quality of the building has been, well dismal. They are doing everything they can to keep things comfortable for patrons, employees, and the contractors. Most of the employees are running fans as the building's air handlers get turned on and off as need be. All of my fellow employees, or at least the ones I've talked to about building issues, are keeping an optimistic attitude. There are complaints, but nothing worse than under normal working conditions, and possibly not as vocal as under normal conditions.

Also on campus this summer, the Library is not the only building undergoing renovation. The student center food court, the HPER building (or was it the field house), and the former Engineering building are all undergoing improvements. New dorms are being built, which is a good thing. There is rumor of a new parking garage, and I think the old parking garage has also been undergoing repairs. On a sad note, the home my father grew up in was torn down to make room for the new dorms.

Relocating for Rennovation

Preparations for rennovation are continuing. I decided not to take my desk with me. Who needs that much storage space at work anyway? I will have a desk sized table with a desk topper and an arm off that table for typing. The person in charge of the move is pleased that I am not taking a desk along, and now I am starting to regret my decision. All the drawers are emptied, and my life at work is strewn over the top of the desk and the top of the table where I do most of my work. I have a one drawer locking file cabinet for the files one needs to keep locked up, and that is stuffed to overflowing. What I am wondering is how I accumulated so much stuff, why do I need it all, and how much will I throw away?

Preparing for Rennovation

I work at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Criss Library. We have recently completed an addition to the building and are getting ready to start renovating the old portion of the library. The library was built in 1976, and when I started college in 1978 I though it was a wonderful building, it was so new and modern. That feeling of new and modern had definitely worn off by the time I started working here in 1989. Among other things the 1970's colors were no longer new and trendy and much of the staff seemed ready for a change to conservative and classic. The architectural style of the building is called Brutalism, and I feel that people should not be made to work or live in anything described as brutal. Some staff members have described it as looking like a parking garage.

Several drawings and plans were made up in anticipation of remodeling, three that I know of. Two deans later there is funding and we are anticipating groundbreaking for the project. Literally groundbreaking. The entire slab of the basement floor will be ripped up, a process starting sometime in mid May to late June. Everyone who works on the basement floor will be relocated, as will the collections housed on the first/basement floor. The bound periodicals will be shipped off-site, we don't know where yet. I really wish to know where as I am all that is left of the serials office and even though it is not my collection, I do feel rather protective of it. The Government Documents are already on their way to their temporary lodgings on the third floor. Archives is also supposed to go to the third floor.

The staff members and Faculty from first floor will be spread out between the second and third floors. We are all supposed to be cleaning out our offices. Taking home the personal knick-knacks that came to roost and multiply on our desks, and cleaning out old files. Almost everyone involved in this move will be working from smaller offices or cubicles. Despite the fact that our work space will be reduced, and our work lives made temporarily more complicated, there is a feeling of anticipation in the air. I am actually ready to move to a workspace about a third of the size I use now. I am ready to try to fit everything in, arrange it all, and throw away more things; because, no matter how hard one tries, one never gets rid of everything before they move. Everyone at the meeting seemed almost excited. We had been joking about being moved to the cupboard under the stairs, like Harry Potter's cupboard in the first book. We joked about spiders and hoped there would not be snakes as well. Our temporary digs will be much nicer than that infamous cupboard, no matter how cramped, and we will adapt to the confusion and mess. And I am sure we will also complain about the noise and dust, we will bemoan our temporary loss of parking spaces, and no matter how quiet the workers try to be, it will be noisy. But then most Libraries are no longer the quiet refuges they once were.