Intel's Social Media Policy

David Griner writes on the Social Path blog about Intel's new Social Media Guidelines,

... trust me when I tell you that Intel’s new Social Media Guidelines are barn-burning fare.

Standard business model: No matter how many people work at a company, only a select few employees are allowed to speak to the public. All statements must be approved by the top brass, who will be sure to suck the life out of any comment until it sounds like good-old corporate PR dreck.

The Intel model: Any employee can speak to the public. And the more interesting your perspective, the better.

... there’s no denying that this is an astounding bit of empowerment.

The guidelines, which go on in some detail, would be useful for a library in the process of retooling its website or examining electronic marketing. But they'd be good for any organization trying to get people more involved and reaching out -- encouraging creativity but requiring responsibility. Actually, the guidelines provide a useful perspective for all sorts of uses of the social web.

Great books, great technology: CCBC@APL

We're lucky at our library in many ways. First, here in Wisconsin, we have a great resource in the University of Wisconsin's CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center) -- an authoritative and helpful information source for children's & YA literature.

Second, we have a great library system, OWLS (Outagamie Waupaca Library System), which brought us the CCBC road show as a continuing education program for area libraries. OWLS is also using an LSTA grant to help member libraries develop new technology applications, including vodcasting. Beth Carpenter posted this video of the CCBC presentation on their 'Casting @ OWLS blog. See the episode archive for all the parts. Now even children's and young adult librarians as far away as Virginia can benefit from the CCBC presentation.

WAPL Conference Notes: an index to blog entries

The 2008 Wisconsin Association of Public Libraries Conference was held in Stevens Point on April 30th-May 2nd. Several members of WAPL and the WLA Media and Technology Section (MATS) have blogged the conference, reporting on many individual programs. These included Joy Schwarz, Michael Golrick and myself on the WLA Blog, Tasha Saecker on Sites & Soundbytes, and Nichole Fromm on nichole's auxiliary storage . Michael has also posted on his Thoughts from a Library Administrator.

See also the Post Conference Resources page for handouts, etc. -- includes some great PowerPoints!

Sessions blogged:

• Keynote: The Economic Impact of Wisconsin Public Libraries (Saecker)
• Keynote: The Economic Impact of Wisconsin Public Libraries (Golrick)
• Investment Returns: Using the Public Library Economic Impact Study Results in Your Library (Saecker)
• Investment Returns: Using the Public Library Economic Impact Study Results in Your Library (Golrick)
• Digitization of Local History Materials: LSTA Success Stories (Fromm)
• Imagine That: Intergenerational Storytelling with People with Dementia (Dawson)
  
• Unintended Consequences: Traditional Library Practices as Barriers (Saecker)
• Where Are We Going? Strategic Planning for Results (Golrick)
• "One Book, One Community" Programs: the Do's and Don'ts (Dawson)
• Jay Rath: The Writer's Real Life, or Be Your Own Boss! Work at Home and Pray for Universal Coverage (Saecker)
• Jay Rath: The Writer's Real Life, or Be Your Own Boss! Work at Home and Pray for Universal Coverage (Golrick)
• Continuing Education in Your Pajamas-New Technologies Bring New Opportunities (Golrick)
  
• Continuing Education in Your Pajamas-New Technologies Bring New Opportunities (Dawson)
• MySpace - Don’t Be Intimidated By It! Can It Work For Your Library? (Schwarz)
  
• MySpace - Don’t Be Intimidated By It! Can It Work For Your Library? (Saecker)
• Have You Heard About... (Golrick) & the del.icio.us page of resources
• Have You Heard & Be the Boss of Your Browser (Saecker)
  
• Notable Genre Book Discussion (and bonus Have You Heard...) (Fromm)
• Dick Bennett: "The Rule Rather Than the Exception" (Golrick)
  

Cybils

This week the Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards announced their 2007 finalists. As an open process for awards, it provides a good cross-section of titles. Just going through the list has made me check a bunch of things in our catalog and add to my hold queue.

Kudos to all the organizers and judges -- just reviewing the list of contributors and following some of their blog links is an education in itself.

About the Cybils:

...The Newbery Awards seemed too elitist and the Quills, well, not enough so. Was there a middle ground, an annual award that would recognize both a book's merits and popularity?

The Cybils found that middle ground. The public nominates their favorite children's books from 2007 in seven categories: Picture Books; Non-fiction Picture Books; Middle Grade fiction; Poetry; Young Adult fiction; Non-fiction (YA/MG); and Graphic Novels. Nominations open on October 1.

When we say "the public," we mean it. Anyone with an e-mail address may nominate one book per category. Then groups of bloggers get to work. First, a nominating committee reads ALL the titles in a given category. After nearly two arduous months, this committee winnows the nominees to five finalists. A second committee of bloggers considers the shortlist and, after much debate, chooses the best of the best for 2007.

Because The Cybils is a blogger-run, blogger-inspired awards process, we operate with the expectation of openness and transparency.

Blogs in Plain English

Found this one on the Project Play blog -- it's a great intro to the whys & wherefores of blogging!

1 conference, 4 blogs, 8 bloggers, 36 posts

We had a great Wisconsin Library Association Conference in Green Bay last week, thanks to a lot of good work by many people. I put a post in the blog partway through the week, but there are a lot of postings in four different blogs that I know of. If I'm missing some, please post a comment / link! Thanks to all the bloggers for sharing their experiences:

Michael Golrick / Thoughts of a Library Administrator:

• The 411 on Mashups
• Wisconsin Public Library Standards and Certification
• Non-Profit Marketing
• Flash! The Future of the talking book
• Learning Games and Simulations
• Applying Survey Methodology in the Real World
• Keynote by David Maraniss
  

Tasha Saecker / Sites & Soundbytes:

• Poets as Peacemakers, Poets as Healers
• Palm Program
• The New Media Ecology
• Leadership and Resilience
• Tasha's Library 2.0 Presentation Slides
• Podcasting as a Library Tool
• Intellectual Freedom Issues with Judith Krug of ALA
• Preconference - Living Your Life on Purpose with Joan Gilman

Leslie Farrell / Posterhead

• New Media Ecology presentation by Lee Rainie
• Managing Your Library for Great Customer Service with Jefferey Russell

The WLA Blog - with bloggers Beth Carpenter, Joy Schwarz, Pete Gilbert, Nanette Bulebosh, & Amanda Werhane

• The 411 on Mashups (Joy)
• The 411 on Mashups (Beth)
• Tracing Your Ancestors Through Genealogy Tips and Tricks (Joy)
• WisconsinEye.com (Amanda)
• Non-Profit Marketing: What I Should Know about Marketing That My Mother Wouldn't Tell Me (Amanda)
• Taking the "Non" Out of Non-User (Beth)
• UW-Madison Libraries/Google Partnership (Joy)
• The New Media Ecology (Joy)
• The New Media Ecology (Beth)
• Those Who Can, Teach: Becoming a More Effective "One Shot" Trainer (and Explainer) (Joy)
• Tasha explains Library 2.0 for you (Nanette)
• Library Conference Planning 101: Backs to the WAAL (Amanda)
• David Maraniss keynote (Amanda)
• Real World RSS: Developing a Current Awareness Service for Your Patrons (Joy)
• Web 2.0 (Beth)
• Podcasting as a Library Tool (Beth)
• Lutie Stearns and Her Library Legacy - Stuart Stotts (Pete)
• Putting Library Services Where Our Users Live and Work: Future of the OPAC (Joy)
• Applying Survey Methodology in the Real World (Joy)

Thank you all --Wisconsin library folks rock!

Ranganathan's Five Pieces of Really Good Advice

Michael Stephens Tame the Web has a post on Would you rewrite Ranganathan's Five Laws for the 21st Century? One of the responses Michael quotes is:

1. Collections are for use.
2. Every collection its user.
3. Every user his collection.
4. Save time & energy of user.
5. The library is a growing organism.

Of course, this is a question that has been tackled numerous times. Some of my other favorites:

1. Information is for use.
2. Every bit of information, its user.
3. Every user, his/her bit of information.
4. Save the time of the user.
5. A network is a growing organism.
- Jean Armour Polly

1. Libraries serve humanity.
2. Respect all forms by which knowledge is communicated.
3. Use technology intelligently to enhance service.
4. Protect free access to knowledge.
5. Honor the past and create the future.
- Walt Crawford & Michael Gorman

0. Nothing comes before something.
1. Information wants to be free, but TANSTAAFL!
2. Share knowledge, seek wisdom
3. Build connections, grow community.
- me

This last was pronounced by our friend Karen Schneider as most appropriate for public libraries. I can see what she means -- I guess I've been out of academic libraries too long. :)

And another study suggests keeping Ranganathan's five just as they are, but adding two supplementary laws: ‘Every reader his library’; and ‘Every writer his contribution to the library.’ Although the article was written in 1999, it seems to predict many of the impacts of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0.

But another question is: why are these "laws"? I know a little bit about scientific law, and these seems more like... principles. There's debate and various schools of thought about scientific laws in the social sciences. More on that in a future post.

Censorship and teachable moments

At an intellectual freedom luncheon some years ago, the speaker encouraged us to develop public library collections that included something to offend everyone. She felt it our duty to build collections such that we personally found at least 25% of the material offensive. That's hard for me as I'm not easily offended, but I try to be an equal-opportunity offender.

In a recent post The Caged Bird Sings a Song of Civil Discourse, in a local political blog FoxPolitics.net, writer (and former library board member) Jo Egelhoff discussed a recent controversy in a nearby school district over Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. What seems noteworthy in this case is that there was a good dialog between the schools and concerned parents, resulting in an apparently satisfactory solution for all parties.

I appreciate that before she wrote about the incident in her blog, Jo took the time to contact her local public library (us) and ask about materials selection policies and complaint procedures. Hey, there's nothing like media scrutiny to help you review the ol' procedure manual. Fortunately, we were in pretty good shape and Jo said some very kind things about our public library in her blog entry.

This nonetheless prompted me to stick my oar in and write a comment noting some of the differences between schools and public libraries in matters of selection and de-selection. I was able to discuss the whole thing with my favorite Young Adult librarian, and she had her own interesting story to recount.

It seems that in recommending a book to a teen, she inadvertently recommended one that was a bit more sophisticated than either she or the teen knew at the time. She soon heard about it from the parent, who actually thanked her for the opportunity to have a difficult discussion with the the teen. Would that it were always so. We're never all going to agree on what's appropriate, but exploring those differences can be enlightening. And between children and parents, it's essential.

An excerpt from my comment on FoxPolitics:

...communicating is key. Parents have to shelter young children, but give them strong wings to fly when they leave the nest. Parents cannot leave the teaching to the schools nor the ideas to the libraries. We cannot always protect children from books or ideas we find disagreeable or distasteful, but we can give them our values to hold and teach them to judge with discernment. Talk to your kids. Talk to your kids' teacher, talk to your librarian ... and then talk to your kids some more.

May librarians never shy away from having materials which challenge us, and may we always seek to promote conversations about books -- especially within families.

Year in Review

Michael Stephens on Tame the Web, has posted one of the best "year in review" entries that I've seen. He highlights not only some of his own favorite posts but some real gems from around the biblioblogosphere (say that three times fast) of 2006. He includes a nice one about "Why don't library directors blog?"...working on it!

There's a number of things there I will encourage colleagues at my library to read. Good job, Michael -- thanks!

2006 Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards

Tangognat notes that the finalists for the Cybils have been posted. This is a great example of a 2.0 project. The lists of nominees and finalists are worth reading, and I'm looking forward to checking out several of the titles -- though I join Tangognat in mourning the absence of manga in the graphic novel finalists.

Overall, a good source of both collection development and just good reading!

New Tech du Jour

OK - this is an interesting development (at least it's new and interesting to me). Blogger makes it easy to post updates right from a cell phone. The ability to upload a photo or text message right from the phone makes blogging, particularly photo blogging much easier to do.

More importantly, this creates new possibilities for dynamic content and quick updating of websites and RSS feeds.

Another reason to love my Treo