The Only Online Platforms you Need (right now)

Posted on by pcsweeney

I recently gave a webinar on social media and I thought I would write a bit about it even though I’m pretty tired of talking about social media. But, I think there is something new to say here. The talk stemmed from noticing that so many library campaign committees and librarians running their organizations social media have fallen into the trap of trying to identify the next big platform to use. They’ve joined everything from Snapchat to Pinterest to Facebook in search of some kind of social media nirvana that will solve whatever problem they are trying to solve. I don’t think this is a good use of our time or resources so instead of asking you to join and use more social media platforms, I’m going to ask you to ignore all the social media static and only focus on what we know works (for now). We are going to step away from focusing on being as social as possible, to being as effective as possible.

We have seen libraries ineffectually chasing social media as fast as that social media comes and goes. If you remember the clamor to get on to MySpace, Second Life, Friendster, etc… and then next big rush to get onto Pinterest, Goodreads, and G+ you’ll also remember how fast some of those faded away. This is basically the fishing net method of social media marketing. Libraries are throwing the biggest net possible and hoping that they catch something they want and throwing the rest back instead of using the bait that works to get exactly what they want.

All of this is largely because we are looking at using these tools backwards. For example, our organizations get on Twitter and then try to figure out their Twitter strategy. But this doesn’t work because there is no such thing as a Twitter strategy. Twitter is a tool to help you achieve a strategy. What is more effective is to ask what the library’s goal is in building a relationship with the community, then figure out how to measure it, then figure out which tools satisfy your requirements and use those. Remember that for an election or advocacy standpoint, our goal is to get our message out to as many people as possible as effectively as possible.

With that in mind, I’m going to argue that the only two online tools that you really need right now to win a library election or advocate for your library are Facebook and Email. These two platforms can be used effectively in conjunction to build the relationships that your campaign is looking for in a more focused and streamlined fashion. These are two complimentary tools with enough depth, scope, and longevity to take the time to invest resources in and they connect with each other in a way that supports both.

The most important thing I learned in political advocacy is that its all a numbers game. As of 2013, the only two online tools with a high enough usage to be advantageous are, in fact, Facebook and email. According to a Pew Study, around 85% of Americans have email and around 74% of Americans have Facebook. The next highest user percentage rates are less than 25% of the American Public with Linkedin at just 22%, Pinterest at 21%, and Twitter at 18%. What this means, is that if you capture every Twitter user in your area and win them over with your message and they are all registered voters and they all go out to vote, you’ll still lose the election because that is just 18% of the public. Yet, 58% of Americans report that one of the first things they do in the morning is check their email. So, where do you want to be?

A much better strategy would be to go with the tools that you know have enough market saturation to get your message out in a high enough volume to really help you get your message out. Those are email and Facebook. There are some strategic differences in how these two platforms work and how people engage with them, but that will be a post for a later day.

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Announcing the winner of Round Two of the Great Librarian Write-out.

Posted on by pcsweeney

With much delay, we are very excited to announce the winner of the second annual Great Librarian Write-out. We had many fine entries this year and our team took longer than expected to make a decision. But no worries, we’ve made our choice of articles. This year’s winner was Anne Marie Madziak who published an article in Municipal World Magazine entitled Public Libraries: Helping Communities Thrive in a Changing World. Her award for this article amounted to 800 dollars thanks to contributions by LibraryAware, Andy Woodworth, Tina Hager, and Sue Anderson.

Municipal World is the oldest continuously published monthly municipal magazine in the world. Founded in 1891, the magazine is devoted to promoting effective municipal government.

Anne Marie Madziak is a library development consultant with Southern Ontario Library Service, an Agency of Ontario’s Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport. In her work with public libraries she has trained both staff and trustees on a wide range of topics, assisted with board development, and facilitated planning sessions. She authored the SOLS publication, Creating the Future You’ve Imagined: A Guide to Essential Planning. More recently, Anne Marie coordinates the APLL Institute, a leadership development program for public library staff.

Over the past few years, Anne Marie has been busy consulting with municipal leaders and developing strategies and best practices for better positioning the public library in the municipal environment.

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Ignite Sessions at #ALAMW13

Posted on by pcsweeney

Ignite ALAThis year at Midwinter, the ALA Think Tank is excited to announce the first ever Ignite ALA! If you’re not familiar with Ignite, Ignite is a geek event that is being held in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes. Many of these presentations are recorded live and broadcast or archived to be shared around the world. This will be ALA’s first ever attempt to Ignite our passions for our profession!!

We are looking for around 8-10 presenters on any number of topics. These topics can be library related, or just something that you are passionate about. Maybe you have a presentation that you already gave, one that you are working on, or something that wasn’t accepted for a full ALA Session? This is your shot to debut the most radical or passionate idea you have and Ignite your passion in the rest of our profession!

If you think you have what it takes, all you need to do is leave a comment below with your name and topic. Then, put together your deck of 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds and start practicing. The Ignite session will be held in the Networking Uncommons on Saturday at Noon at ALA Midwinter.

For more information about Ignite in general, take a look at their website for more details and to see who else has signed up, take a look at our Facebook event page or the Networking Uncommons page for ALAMW13

Presenters and Topics (so far)
JP Porcaro – Something Awesome TBA
Angie Manfredi – YA Fiction
Beth Hereford Patin – Libraries: Information’s First Responder
Kate Kosturski – ALA CraftCon
Patrick Sweeney – The Story Sailboat
Tom Bruno – How To Change All The Things: A #MakeItHappen 2012 Retrospective
K.G Schnieder- Radical Optimsim
Amy Buckland- Doing Things that Scare You

If you’re looking for a good explanation of the why and how of giving an Ignite talk, then take a look at this presentation by O’Reilly author Scott Berkun. He does a great job of summarizing what can be achieved in five minutes with twenty slides. Here’s a short video to share:

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LOL Second Lifebrarians. Chill.

Posted on by pcsweeney

Ok, there were a whole bunch of people who rallied on my last Second Life post. (which was actually my second Second Life post). They brought some points that I didn’t address in my first or second post but Roy Tennant talked about on his Blog. I’ll address them all here or at least write until I get bored with talking about SL more.

The trolling nature of my previous post. Lol u mad bro? Really? Chill Second Lifebrarians. Seriously. But I will say that interestingly enough I wasn’t trying to troll, but rather just write something entertaining. I do want to point out that it was one of my most read blog posts and explains to me why people like the Annoying Librarian* an Dan Kleinman get so amped about their blogs. I just found that interesting as a passing thought.

What My Previous Post was Actually About
Here is why I have the negativity for SL. My SLIS made me partake in SL after spending tens of thousands of my tuition dollars on their “island.” ALA spent way too much money on SL (my dues). There are STILL libraries spending my tax dollars on Second Life. I’m negative because so much of my money has gone to support a failed endeavor. So basically after spending way too much of my money and forcing me to spend way too much time learning the interface I then had a number of experiences that would have been fine with a simple link in an email, tweet, FB, G+ hangout, or even myspace post. Hell… I would have settled for a flyer with a QR code on it! It would have been a lot cheaper.

The valuable “work” that librarians are doing there.
I don’t know. I haven’t seen any stats on that. My own experiences were disappointing. Anyway, I’m guessing those stats are not kept but I would say that they should be. Maybe I’d be surprised but I doubt it. The stats I have seen for second life overall are dismal at best and grossly inflated at worst. You can see them here.

I’d also like to point out that the examples of valuable work being done on SL were actually excellent examples of valuable things being done in SL, but really not library related at all. Some people built a car, some people made fractal art, etc… (that is very cool but this is a library blog) The things that people used as an example of library related work were also very cool, but again could have been accomplished by about a thousand other mediums with zero learning curve and as such could include hundreds (maybe even thousands) more librarians to really achieve something great. Instead, a few librarians encased themselves in a format that is an exclusive group by its learning curve, overly large necessary computing capacity, internet speeds, technical skills, etc… Well, I’m glad you could afford all that to create an exclusive group of librarians who loved SL before (and after) it was cool. But then again… As sjclarkfl pointed out, I’m the hipster.

The numbers
Linden labs juiced their stats to artificially inflate their numbers to a million active users. This number is world wide and only .002% of the population at their highest estimate of 15 million but the real numbers are actually around 800 thousand when not calculated by linden numbers (who inflated it to one million most recently). Someone made the ridiculous comment that if we’re going by stats then we should close libraries. Clearly this person didn’t see the numbers on libraries or a library’s ebranch. I guarantee that they are above .002% of the population. (hint- its around 60%)

Innovation
As I said in my previous post, there are people who make their names in convincing other people (and themselves) of innovative library services. These people often talk about the great new things libraries can use. How great this or that new service, program, idea, or QR code is. But once again I’ll say, that part of being innovative is knowing what things need to just be dropped like a bad habit. (drop eBooks, get eReaders).

Better options
You know, I’m all about solutions and Craig Anderson presented what I thought was absolutely a much better option. Why not go were users actually are? There are tons of MUVEs with millions more active users than SL. Craig brought up the idea of a Library in WOW. I fully support this. I think that if we got a couple dozen librarians with Librarian Avatars in WOW or other popular MMORPGs running around and answering questions for folks, advocating for libraries, or even placing holds on physical books out and having them sent to their local libraries through Link+ or WorldCat. I think, then we would really have something.

I will admit that I don’t often participate in MUVEs these days but that is only because I have a hugely addictive personality and way back in the day I spent huge amounts of time gaming and participating in virtual worlds and now I just don’t have the time to give in to that as I did in the past.

*I know its Annoyed Librarian but she’s pretty annoying*

Seriously? Are We Still Using Second Life?!

Posted on by pcsweeney

<rant> A recent post on an article hipped me to the fact that some library organizations might still be active in Second Life!! I couldn’t believe it. But maybe I’m just totally wrong on this one so I’m open to your criticism of my criticism. Here is why I think that Librarians should get off second life.

Second Life is for Geeks and Pedophiles

It WAS cool. At one point, a long time ago in the way back machine. It looked like it would turn into the next Facebook but then it kind of fizzled out to become the next Myspace. I take that back, that’s kind of harsh, they do boast about having 15 million users so I guess it’s more like G+. Everyone has an account, but nobody actually goes there. (the soundtrack to Second Life should just be crickets and wind blowing and investors being sad).

It WAS innovative. Part of being innovative is knowing when to know to walk away from something. Sometimes I think innovation is as much doing something as it is not doing something ridiculous. Here is a good example – a tumblr of people using QR codes.

This program also boasts a completely ridiculous learning curve for use. Basically, what someone has to do is re-learn everything that someone had to learn to live a regular life all over again. That is, walk, talk, move, dress yourself, pick things up, put things down, etc… (you do get to learn to fly though). I already learned that crap, why do I have to learn it again to get the same effect I do in first life?

Here’s the deal. After learning (relearning) all that garbage you then have to find the place you have to go on a map then get there however you want to get there, then interact with that space in some way to get what you want. All the while you spend massive amounts of time dodging people asking “ASL?” But, what really irks me is that once you get there, you sit in a room and watch… wait for it…  a freaking webinar!! WTF!!? People!! WTF!!?

You know what would make it all easier? Turning on your computer and clicking ON A LINK FOR A WEBINAR!!!??? I’m a freaking genius! Why has nobody thought of this before!?

Anyway… I have more, but I just feel like being done now.</rant>

Don’t be a Hater (a how-to guide to being happy)

Posted on by pcsweeney

So after my post about haters I promised to write a blog post about how I got off the cycle of negativity. The problem is that it took me a long time and a lot of hard work to do it (both the blog post and ending the cycle of negativity). Consequently, the blog post kept getting longer and longer and longer.

First of all though, let me tell you that I used to be a super negative person. I was easily irritated or angry and hated on a lot of folks. If you had met me about 4-5 years ago you might have noticed that it wasn’t pretty and I was fairly unhappy. So, one day I realized how I felt and I decided to do something about it. The first thing I did was read all those goofy stupid self-help books about being a better me, or finding my path to enlightenment, meditation for dummies, seven secrets for happier people, etc… and even those irritated me. But really, one day I just decided to take a more serious role in changing my perspective on everything. After I made that decision it all became easy.

If you want to know what worked for me, this is my list. Feel free to create your own.

Take responsibility
I used to work in a group home and when one of the kids acted out and retaliated against another kid or said or did something mean, they would just say, “I can’t help it, that’s just way I am.” This is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard. In fact, I would argue that the only thing you can control is yourself and your emotions. You can either feel good or feel bad. It’s a choice. If you’re feeling mad or upset or anything, simply choose to feel good. It sounds stupidly easy but it’s hard at first. Keep practicing, soon you’ll get it.

Change your Inner Monologue
I think this was the hardest thing to change. It’s just so easy to hear that kid screaming in the restaurant, or have that horribly bad driver in front of you, or read that guy’s stupid comment on your blog post, and think terrible thoughts about them in a split second. It happens without even thinking. But, you can take a couple of seconds or minutes after that thought and try to realize that maybe there are other things going on in their lives, that they’re not happy, or just take a deep breath, smile and move on.

Take a Deep Breath
That leads me to taking a deep breath. This was the most valuable lesson I ever learned. I taught martial arts for about 6 years and I worked for a guy who made us all take a deep breath as we walked through the door to work. As we exhaled that breath we visualized letting go of everything that happened to us up until that point in time. As we got better at it, we learned to separate what happens at home with what happens at work. Eventually, we started doing it when we went home so we didn’t take work with us. You could basically do this anytime you go anywhere so nothing that bothers you follows you anywhere.

Wear a Reminder
I’ve always had something on my wrist. It’s usually a band of some kind and it has been a variety of things from wristbands to watches to pieces of string or a hemp bracelet. Whatever it is it’s meant to be completely symbolic. It’s just a reminder to be the person I want to be, which is a happier person. I’ve been thinking about getting it as a tattoo.

Love People
I don’t think I need to explain this. But fall in love. Fall in love a hundred times a day.

Change your Routine
My routine was really getting me down once. There were a bunch of things I did that got me irritated throughout the day. I would watch TV and the commercials would irritate me but every night I watched TV anyway. I would read the news online and the comments would irritate me, but I would read the comments anyway. It goes on and on. Anyway, stop doing the crap that makes you mad.

Make a routine
How about a new routine? I started reading things that made me happier, watching movies instead of TV, finding websites that had funnier comments, etc… This is real easy. Things like the interwebs or television or books or whatever are either super funny or they’re super irritating. The good thing is that you can choose which experience you want to have.

Morning Dance Party
Every morning, just dance. I highly recommend the Jackson 5 channel on Pandora. It’s pretty epic.

Music
In the movie Empire Records, Lucas said to Warren (I know his name isn’t Warren) “You know, someone like you needs to diminish their criminal impulses, not magnify them. Maybe some jazz or some classical.” The same holds true for everyone. If you want to diminish your negative impulses, check your music selection. Even Rob in High Fidelity asked the eternal question – “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” Either way, play whatever makes you happy. I know JP Porcarro will tell you to party to some Skrillex but that’s nto for everyone either. Find what makes you happy.

Negativity Begets negativity
It gets real easy to be negative if you’re around negative haters. It’s real easy to fall back into that cycle. If you know some negative folks, drop them like the bad habit they are. This is probably the hardest thing. I was easy for me because I moved, but not everyone can be that lucky but if you need to move that is always a viable option.

Give things to people
About three years ago, Julie Strange sent me a button with a guitar on it. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. It’s strange (no pun intended) how much the little things like that can change your perspective for the whole year. It really made me feel good for no particular reason except that someone somewhere thought about me at some point. I still have that button on my boat. Ever since then, I’ve tried to make it a point to give things to random people for no reason and that makes me happy.

Write some Letters
The old fashioned way like with a pen and paper and some stamps. You could even write a love letter if you want! Writing a letter is a great way to express yourself and the act of actually physically going to put it in the mail forces you to take note of that action. Plus a hand written physical letter means a lot more to a lot of people. They can put it on their desks or walls and think about you. They may even write back and that should make you happy too. If you write me, I might write you back!

Party Hard
Find a group of people that make you happy and party with them. You don’t need drugs or alcohol or anything but a good time. If you need some inspiration for this you need to be following Andrew W.K. and JP Porcaro online. They are always a party and a good time.

Make It Happen
The last and biggest thing that makes me happy is having a bunch of goals. I get really unhappy when I don’t have goals. I need a huge project or something to look forward to in order to keep me going. I do things like the Story Sailboat, or my Guitar Collection, getting my Captain’s License, or the Seed Library to keep me motivated. I highly recommend making some kind of list of things you want to work toward. You can even doing it socially with one of my favorite websites called bucketlist.org. It’s great! Find me there and we can share our goals.

NJLA Preconference Presentation Materials

Posted on by pcsweeney

Here are my materials from the 2012 New Jersey Library Conference Pre-Conference in Atlantic City. I was going to write more about the presentation itself but then I figured you probably should have just gone to if you want it all anyway. Here is the description of the presentation from the Conference Scheduler-

“Join Patrick Sweeney of East Palo Alto California Public Library and the Great Library Roadshow as he presents some of the exciting innovations in librarianship across the country.

He’ll share ideas on topics such as non-traditional library collections, community-oriented programming, team building, and patron-driven local knowledge creation. Employing open-space technology, you’ll then have the opportunity to share your own ideas and gain knowledge from other attendees in a discussion-driven Unconference session.”

We>Me New Jersey Library Association Presentation 2012

View more PowerPoint from Patrick Sweeney

Andrew W.K. Party Hard Video.

I took photos of everyone’s notes from the session and made this video from the collective notes for anyone who wasn’t there. I think this is a cool way to farm the collective knowledge and takeaways of the session from the community of participants.

Advice for Choosing a MLIS Program

Posted on by pcsweeney

A couple of weeks ago, someone asked in the ALA Think Tank about what MLIS program they should enroll in. They wanted to narrow down their search to a school that would allow them to do well in a museums and archives library. It didn’t take long for many people to answer her question in a few different ways and it got me to think about what made my Graduate program as San Jose State so successful for me. I thought I would share a longer post about my thoughts on getting the most out of your MLIS Program for your future career.

Don’t Pay Too Much!
I know a couple of librarians who paid to go to private institutions or otherwise very expensive schools to get their MLIS. I would advise you not to do this. The MLIS that you receive is pretty much the same no matter where you go and the big difference is the dept you have when you’re done. You probably won’t get paid more if you go to a prestigious school and the starting salaries for librarians are pretty sad. However, you might come out feeling well trained or that you got a good education, but most librarians I talk to and many of the ones that paid for those expensive schools said that they learned more in their first week on the job then their entire academic career. I would suggest (as sad as it is) to select your library program on price.

Meet People
So what do the big schools have to offer if they’re so expensive? Well, a lot of those schools have professors or other contacts within the profession that will help you out later in your career. For example, Pratt has John Barry and his words of wisdom and mentoring have helped more than one librarian I know out of that school. But I’ll tell you this, many of these same people go to conferences and other events where librarians gather and you’ll do just as fine meeting them there. So the money you save from not going to those expensive schools can take you to conferences around the country where you get the same perks and the option to meet even more people!

If you can’t afford that then I would suggest joining Twitter, youtube, starting a blog, joining the ALA Think Tank, or another Facebook group, and connect with people there. In the end though, I would always suggest that you back up your online persona with your real one so at some point meet people face to face.

Make It Happen
Still don’t have the money to get to conferences? No problem, start your own meetups and gatherings for librarians in your area. For example, in the Bay Area there are three Meetup Groups for librarians. There is the Bay Area Librarians Group, the Information Amateurs Social Club, and the Information Professionals Social Club that put on events. But beyond just meetups and socials etc… you should just generally try to make it happen wherever you go. If there is something that you think that profession needs, just go ahead a do it! For example, Andy Woodworth created the People for a Ben and Jerry’s Themed Ice Cream Flavor, a bunch of people in SLIS made a Librarians do GaGa video that gained them notice in the profession, and there many other example. Basically, I’m saying make something awesome happen!

Get Involved
Schools typically have a student chapter of the ALA or various other leadership opportunities that you can take part in. These kinds of things look great on your resume and show that you’re taking a serious interest in your profession beyond the day to day job. If they don’t have one of these you can make it happen and start one.

Find an On the Job Opportunity
I know a couple of folks who didn’t work at all during their SLIS program and once they got out where surprised to find that employers want someone with some kind of experience. Please, I’m begging you, if you don’t take any of my advice, at least take this one! If you don’t have library experience prior to enrolling in your SLIS program then you need to volunteer, do an internship, find a library job as a page, or at the very least offer to wash a library’s windows or something! Here is a cool tip BTW – go to your local elementary or highschool districts and offer to volunteer in their libraries. Many of these are closing and you might get some pro-points by voluntarily running one. This is a rocky subject because these libraries SHOULD NOT be run by volunteers, but at least both parties get a little something out of it. If there are school librarians on campus they are usually way over worked, way underpayed, and in some cases they are not even librarians so they are even way undertrained. This place is a goldmine for exciting work that can show how important libraries are to these communities of students (but that’s another blog post)

In end, let me just reiterate what I said at the beginning – It doesn’t really matter what school you go to, but what you do with your time there.

How to Play in the Library

Posted on by pcsweeney

The idea of Play in libraries isn’t a new concept and it was talked about quite a bit in my MLIS program so long ago, but it is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.  There are a few librarians that I can think of that are doing playful things in their library like Justin Hoenke and Kirby McCurtis. But it became even more apparent as a legitimate concept after the visit to the ImaginOn library on the Great Library Roadshow.  I just wish I was in the design phase of a library remodel or construction project since I would love to incorporate these concepts into the facility itself.  Since I’m not in the position to bring embedded play in my library, here is my list of resources for just playing in the library.

http://www.deepfun.com/
This is a blog all about fun.  It could be useful for future programs and the development of programs.  The blogger (Bernie) writes about the ways the people play around the world and about many different games and activities with videos, pictures, and descriptions.  He also talks about the ways that people use play to solve social problems like littering or hack their environments with play to make them better.

http://playfulplace.wordpress.com/
This one takes playing to a very academic level and legitimizes it as a valid social discipline. From the description “Play is the vigorous force that drives children to explore the world around them. It is an instinctive curiosity that motivates them to test their surroundings for their usefulness.”  How is that perfect for libraries?

http://www.streetplay.com/
If you would like to take the library to the streets for some fun and playful activities, this blog is a great resource with many example of street play, rules, concepts, etc…  “The variety of ways we’ve found to amuse ourselves in the streets is amazing. At the drop of a hat, we invent games and through sheer determination make them indispensible and legendary. Using whatever is at hand–bottlecaps, a stick, or the ubiquitous spaldeen–city kids though the ages create games that are the envy of any sportsman or marketeer.”

http://www.ultimatecampresource.com/
This is a serious resource for camp councilors with games, crafts, etc.. but it could be pretty awesome for librarians too.  I was thinking about the concept of a library camp.  I mean, why not?  A lot of the same things are done at both the library and at camp.  We tell stories, sing songs, play games and make crafts just like they do.  What if a library made a summer camp centered around literacy and learning?  Oh wait… We already do that at my library!

ImaginOn
If you want to see some of this in action you can check out this fantastic library in the Charlotte Mecklinburg library system that partnered with a Theatre Company to create a dual space. “From Page to Stage.”  I had the opportunity to explore this concept in person on the Great Library Roadshow and you can see one of the videos on my youtube channel.