Advice

I'm reading a cute book for a fast 200 pages to add to the reading challenge, The Loud Silence of Francine Green by Karen Cushman. This made me laugh for several reasons. It may be too late for me, but maybe you can save yourself.

"She looked at me closely and frowned a little. I could see her thinking.
Thinking was very hard for Dolores. She read somewhere that it led to wrinkles,
so she tried not to do it very often."

Ah, the information available in children's books.

24 Update

You would think that with only 24 hours to save the world, there would be a little more drama lately.

Jack and Chloe did disarm a nuke - but there are three left.

Still looking for the Russian guy and will Jack's dad do the right thing?

We had the obligatory attack on the President's life - I'm guessing this year he'll live.

Let's just hope that those getting a concealed weapons license don't go to the Jack Bauer school.

Jack: "Do you know how to use this?"
Sister-in-law: "No."
Jack: "Just point and shoot."

Previews for next week show potential torture. Now that's what 24 is all about.

And the winner is....

This is the first time in a long time I've seen all the nominated movies before the awards. I don't really do predictions because I'm usually wrong. This year I only have one thing to say - Please, not The Queen. Helen Mirren was wonderful, but I did not enjoy the movie. It was interesting but not at all involving. I think all the other movies are great examples of their individual genre, if you will. That makes it hard to like one over another. If I have a preference, I want the quirky comedy to win. I love the quirky comedies.

Terabithia

Wanted to do something yesterday and ended up at the movies seeing Bridge to Terabithia. It was good. I've seen plenty of kids book adaptations, usually waiting for the DVD, that leave me disappointed, but this is one of the good ones. The movie didn't over dramatize anything but even so, I will admit that there were a few tears.

This was one of the books I had missed in my children's lit education and it has been sitting in my pile of books to get to for a few weeks. So I did what every good librarian does and stayed up to read the book last night. (Not that hard of a feat - it is only 128 pages.) The movie was very faithful to the book and, if anything, the parts added or embellished in the movie added to the story. The movie took the "pretend" in the book and made it into a full blown "fantasy" and spent much more time in Terabithia than the book. This made Jess and Leslie's friendship stronger and so, therefore, the loss. The movie also brought the late '70s setting into the present very successfully.

The movie also had the approval of a group of pre-teen girls apparently there as a birthday party event. They were a little dramatic. It was cute.

A Cycling Post

Because we want all of our cycling friends to be safe, I offer this little video advice from 20/20. It takes on the helmet question and then some. Really.

I will leave the comments to others.

By the way, 20/20 is doing a 2-hour show on Worry in America tonight.

MySpace - Getting Answers

So I asked my YA some of my questions and found some interesting answers, at midnight cuz that's when he is available to talk. So considering the time, the thoughts will be random and disjointed.

We "may" be cool if we are on MySpace. It is all about adding "friends" and the more the better and why not a library. It was more about "why not?" be there.

Individual branches should have their own page cuz it would be best if they saw "their" library. (This is about building relationships after all.) If we do it, it has to have "cred" - updated, even if it is something little "like check out this link" daily. After questioning him, daily may not be necessary, but it should be often. There is something called The Nine on Yahoo, nine new things and we could have something like that. Our top friends could be the other branches.

Have fun stuff on the page. He as a "board" that visitors can move letters onto, like magnetic letters and leave messages. I said there may be issues with, you know "dirty words" We are a public library site. He said, "Mom, dirty words are funny." All I could do was laugh thinking of the Newbery Book.

Funny questions the library staff could answer because (and this is a quote) "Library people are scary. They know answers." Personal questions, like if you were an animal type stuff.

He likes adding bands to his - local bands so he can find out where they are playing and what they are doing, as well as his new emo finds. I said we do a Battle of the Bands, should we somehow include them or links or whatever and that was a definite cool thing.

I asked if it would be better if a teen group designed the page and he said yes. But, keep an eye on their ideas because they can get to be "too much". My thought is, they would also be faster and better at it because they all probably have one or more pages anyway and know all the tricks.

It would be cool to have local activities on the page. Like the plays, concerts or sports of the local schools, not just our programs (as few as there are anymore). See, making connections.

I asked how you find or search for "new friends" and had the tour. You really can't look for organizations, but find out they have pages and add them to your friends. He made a page for the place he works at and showed me some pictures he added with motion from some other site.
So my thought, how about links to places like that where you can jazz up your MySpace. And again we would probably need teen input to keep us informed on what's out there. We would have to tell the YAs we had a page, maybe through school newspapers too? Asked if it made a difference in style or use if you were 13 or 18 and he said not really.

If each branch had their own site, they could have a similar template and even info to make it easy to update them often. Each branch wouldn't have to be creative every day.

Asked about downloading book on MP3s. He said if we had the required high school books available and promoted it, that would be good. (Backstory - he had comprehension issues just reading and we found if he could read and listen at the same time he did great. We were always checking out books on tape for him.) He wasn't sure how many kids actually would just listen to books.

Not having comments left does not necessarily mean no one is paying attention or cares. They may not want to leave comments.

Had a great discussion about MySpace vs. Facebook. We would be wrong to be on Facebook because it is seen as a college thing. He sees MySpace as a crazy coffee shop, informal and chatty. He likes his Facebook cleaner and more "professional" and calls it his "resume" with his politics and issues there. You play on MySpace.

So there it is, at least one YA's opinion.

My opinion - could be fun. Upkeep issues. Wouldn't want to do it and just have the page sit there, it would defeat the purpose. Do think the branch idea is best because we want to make the personal connection the the kids in our area. Would this be a type of "Teen Programming"? We can't seem to get teens to come to programs and this is a way of reaching them and maybe our time could be spent this way instead of planning and preparing for programs with no attendance. Fits the idea of going where they are, instead of just waiting for them to come into the building.

But that isn't the end.

When I asked him if having a MySpace page would make him want to go into the library, he said, no. He said he might, and others might, use the page if it had good information on it.

He uses the library for DVDs. How did he find out that he could get DVDs at the library? He found out from a librarian when he needed to know. That would be me. When he had a need, someone was there to tell him, at the time of the need, that the library could fill that need.

I asked about using the library for music, like would he if we had the music he wanted. He said it is easier to download - no scratches and he can get the uncensored versions.

So I still don't have my answer to the "Is it worth the staff time to do this?" question. He might say the money is better spent on more popular DVDs.

Here We Go Again

The Higher Power Of Lucky not flying so high now. And serious discussions of this book will abound I'm sure, but what I enjoyed about this article is that at the end, we finally have a definition of quality literature. We should start applying it now. It will be a great help when I'm choosing books for the homeschool book club.

Questions

There are several reasons why I am interested in the Five Weeks to a Social Library thing. It's been a long time since I took the Cyber-Six Pack class and there were things I wanted to play with and never did. Lots of reasons why, but that isn't the issue here. I was interested in learning other perspectives and this is an opportunity that is free and I can do what I want and on my time. And I have questions that I am still trying to work out. Like does this stuff really make an impact and is it a big enough impact to justify the time and money involved?

I often see the system I work for as a group of Venn Diagramish circles that seldom interconnect. We all have a high interest in our circle(s) and maybe don't often see the point of view, or even the point, of the other circles. The circles aren't just us vs the tech people, but also the varying needs of the different branches, and the different goals and needs of the staff within each branch.

There is a viewpoint that we have to jump into every technology the YAs are using in order to reach them and appear to be "cool" and the type of organization they want to use. Trust me, as someone who has a daily relationship with a YA, just doing what they do does not make you cool. I can joke about being the cool parent because I introduced the YA in my life to meebo, but this does not allow me to be on his buddy list and interact with his group. That is not cool, for either of us. Sounds silly, but in some ways I was gratified to see this discussion happening elsewhere, such as Alternative Teen Services. We are going to have to be much more creative or learn how to sell ourselves and meet their real needs and not just be a presence on MySpace. Not to mention, the way teens use my branch and library services can be very different than another branch in the system, let alone any other library.

I'm trying to balance this online presence with the fact that a teen needing a book for an assignment has to wait a week for that book to be transferred to our branch from another one in the system even if it is on the shelf at another branch. I can't even tell a kid who comes in on Monday that the book he needs by Friday will be in. I have to send the kid and parent off to drive around town to pick it up. Not because it doesn't arrive in a day or two, but because we don't have the clerk or IS/YS staff to process all the holds that come in on a given day and, yes, it may take 5 or more days to get that book out of a tub and onto the hold shelf. Why would they want to be our friend if the library can't get them a book - for their homework or just a copy of the new popular fiction to read?

Don't get me wrong, I do think our online presence needs to be in a format teens can relate to and give them access to the library information they will want and need. I'm very interested to see what our new teen page is going to look like. But again, even just saying that I'm looking forward to seeing it means there has been a disconnect because I have no idea what it might be and I actually work with teens at the desk. Hmmmmm. (I'm sure there was some input somewhere with branch staff and maybe even teens, just making a point.)

So I want to see what else is out there. My first thoughts are that if the teens are using these technologies and need access to them to be a part of their group, real or virtual, then maybe instead of trying to be a part of their group, we just need to ensure that our computers will allow them to use the technologies they want to use, no excuses. Which, of course, is probably lot more expensive than someone occasionally updating a MySpace page.

And there are other discussions about trying to be on the cutting edge of the new trends for programming when we have to plan 6 months or more in advance and budgets are determined and allocated two years ahead. The 2008 money is being allocated now. Who knows what will be out there in 2008. Not to mention, should we spend taxpayer dollars on unproven trends or technologies?

No easy answers.

Warning

It's snowing again.

If it doesn't warm up next week and if I don't get over this cold and get my voice back and my head unstuffed, I will not be responsible for my actions.

Still Learning

I have been waiting for the Five Weeks to a Social Library course to start. It's a cool concept, all the course content is on the web for anyone to view. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the info as it became available.

Week 1 is about blogs.

I listened to the screencast Using the Tools: How Millenials use the World Wide Web. Some of it I already knew - yeah me! Some of it was presented in a new way, for me anyway. What I did find interesting were her comments on why kids are online. She says it has much to do with equality and freedom. On the web, all are equal, and age, gender, race doesn't really matter. You also have the freedom to speak, interact and be what you want. What does matter is your experience in your "online community." Kids will gain the skills they need to be successful in their online world. How empowering for the kid that doesn't quite fit in the real world. I did know most of this in theory but started to think about how she called it a "community." They are relating to others, just not in the way I traditionally think of relating.

I also realized I was missing one huge aspect of this blogging thing. I have spent no time on creating an individual look for my online space. Apparently, this is a big part of why people do this. They want their space to say who they are and what their interests are. OK, so yes, I know you can have all these links and widgets and stuff, I just didn't understand that it was such an integral part of the whole experience. Makes sense though, it is, after all, about making connections. So am I going to start playing with the rest of the stuff, who knows. After all, this may be expressing my personality type which is about not revealing too much.

Gentle Reminder

So, by now everyone has seen the book video and you have to know I laughed as much as anyone. And I have seen you all work with the public who don't know how to open a book and know you are kind and helpful and the tacky comments are saved for the break room or the blogs. And that I am prone to the tacky comments myself. That being said, I feel I have to speak out for the most annoying generation. (see glossary.)

We didn't grow up with this stuff. We didn't grow up with cutesy little computer games to play so we were slowly introduced to the computer. We, mostly, learned how to use a computer when we were told we had to use it. It became an all or nothing proposition and if we didn't adapt there were dire consequences, including not having a job. For those not in the workplace, with more stuff going on-line, instead of a helpful person to talk to or even yell at, we had to learn how to access a website and fill out online forms. It is scary and we are told this by, oh no, younger people with less life experience. Being defensive is not conducive to learning, but that is part of what you are dealing with.

Also, yes, our brains are slower. On top of that you are asking us to deal with concepts we have never encountered and have no previous reference point to build on. One way people learn is by making connections to what they already know. We know nothing! That's why we may make stupid statements trying to translate what you are telling us into something we already know so we can understand. But there is no comparable knowledge.

When I was working in an elementary school, I was able to observe both children and adult teachers learning how to use the computer and the technology. The kids were more likely to just play with the computer and weren't afraid to hit any key at anytime and learned lots. Many of the adults were afraid they would accidentally hit the key that would crash the system and became afraid to learn. Can you imagine how we felt when in a SIRSI training we were actually told not to select a certain option because it actually would crash the computer?

For me personally, I am generally a person who likes to and learns best by reading. Give me an instruction manual and I can do anything. However, most instructions for using technology are not user friendly. So now when I want to learn something I want someone to show me. It's faster and easier, for me, than trying to figure it out and understand terms I don't know. So, yes, we are going to ask instead of using the help feature. And remember, we are afraid to just try in case we crash the system.

As far as the communication technologies, most of our friends our age don't use them. We are from the generation that went out and found our friends to actually talk to in person. I still call
my sister because she really doesn't like email that much. We need to see what's in it for us. We will come around, slowly, when we find a personal need for them such as communicating with a kid going off to college. As I have noted before, learning this stuff has made me a cool parent.

Again, this isn't a reprimand, just a reminder about what you are up against. Keep those videos coming, I love 'em. Not to mention the tacky comments.

Crafty Weekend

It seems that where I work now, especially in my little department, they do presents. I found this out around Christmas, the embarrassing way. Since I'm not big on the shopping for cute little gifts, I knew it would be time for me to get crafty. There is a birthday coming up this week so I was inspired by an article in Threads magazine. (Being a good library person, giving credit where credit is due.) The article showed some neat "beads" made with tubes of fabric scraps, wrapped with threads and beads and made into necklaces.

So I took some scraps and threads and beads and came up with a pin.

It was fun and I soon may have a bunch of these fabric beads to use for something.

"Set up the interrogation package."

Screams, literally screams, last night as we figured out plot developments seconds before they occurred.

NO! (scream) They are going to kidnap Morris to program the nukes as he leaves CTU to check on his brother in the hospital. It's a set up. They grab Morris in his car and drag him off. Poor Chloe.

OH, NO! (scream) Jack tortures Graem. Graem says he was behind the killing of Jack's buddies (not to mention the President) on day 5. Jack loses it. Jack bonds with dad. Dad goes to see Graem, alone. (The screaming occurs here. It's dad!) Graem says he did it, as planned. Dad says, good, but......
Dad kills Graem.

Next week - 2 hours!

Another Perspective

Sometimes you have interesting conversations with your kid. We both have concerns about the environment and various conservative Christian viewpoints. He recently found this.

February 3 is Tu B'Shvat. More here.

This and this are interesting.

Audio Experiment

Seven CDs into Bartimaeus II, the audio experiment is going well. I think I'm absorbing about 80% of the book now, but I'm going to count all of the pages for the reading challenge.

It has also helped my frustration at having a slightly longer drive to work. My city recently opened a new overpass at the end of the street I need to use to get out of my neighborhood. It is supposed to save people 10 minutes getting across town by reducing the traffic on the two widely used overpass/interchanges. This had added at least 5 minutes to my commute because of the extra traffic on my street. Not to mention, they have left the widening of my access street to 4 lanes until after the bridge was built, adding to the frustration of everyone using the bridge. It will be more fun in the next year or two when they widen the street and probably have to close parts of it with the extra traffic on it. Anyway, since I'm stuck in the mess, having a book to listen to is a nice distraction from the frustration. And, yes, I know this is a minor irritation in the grand scheme of things, but we all know how much I like cars and driving and traffic and all the joys that go with it.

And speaking of which, it was a very interesting conversation in my head the other evening coming home from work in the snow. "Listen to the story, don't freak out." "Go slow, it's not that slippery." "So they are in Prague now?" "Oh, look, it's actually down to pavement here." "Where am I, is this present Kitty or past Kitty?"