Tame The Web

On Encouraging the Heart: Wondrous Artwork at the Library

Michael — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:56:22 +0000

You may have seen “Wondrous” on ALA TechSource.

Tad Beckwith wrote about it to me: He said:

Although this is not “in library” or “virtual library” tech it is “near library” tech that is inspiring visitors to check out a brand new library in Marana, Arizona. When I was reading your About Page I felt appreciative when I read your comments about making a library welcoming in a variety of ways because I too want to bring back more commons spaces. I think this sculpture is an example of one library investing in visually welcoming art that seems to inspire and beckon to visitors. So I guess I’m telling you all this because I appreciated what you wrote and I wanted to share our work with your readers and was wondering if you would post something about it for them?

It is called…Wondrous

It is a galvanized metal, accordion shaped sculpture of words that is backlit by state-of-the-art, powerful colored LED lights at night which then cast cool word shadows onto the library. We would love to help contribute to the visual beauty and welcoming appeal of more libraries and help entice new visitors to their local libraries.

This is a great example of a library encouraging the heart, something I think we can do very well. I emailed Tad and asked him a bit about this. He graciously answered.

MS: You describe yourself as a lifelong library lover in email to me, what has created that feeling for you? What have YOUR libraries done to encourage your heart?

TB: My first warm memory was enjoying story-time as a pre-school child and now smiling at the fact that I can still go back to that library in McMinnville, Oregon and the librarian who read to us, Dee, is still at the reference desk helping folks. My family and one other family, for some good reason I was oblivious to at the time, started a “library night” tradition. Every other wednesday night we would go out to eat and then to the library for an hour. I still can remember where I sat on the floor and poured over newfound books, where the nearly forbidden, tip-toe only zones were, and where the stuffed animals I could read to were waiting for me.

Lots between these two memories, but… More recently, as an adult, I remember the overwhelm of coming to a brand-new city of Tucson, AZ and then feeling a sense of personal support from the librarians who would search as persistently as I was, for leads or clues, as I was looking for a new job. I didn’t have an internet connection at the time, didn’t know my way around the town, and yet the library was a safe place to venture out from, a good launch pad to return to again and again, with many new projects.

The main Tucson library is located on about half of a central block with the other half being open for community events, many co-sponsored by the library. The staff would help project family friendly halloween movies on one outside wall of the library or support farmers’ market booths organized near the entrance to the library each wednesday. I have observed in many “customer service moments” that the librarians at that library believe in building a stronger community and work to serve everyone who walks in the door, even if there only for the shade, some water, and a quiet place to read the day’s paper.

MS: How do you think art can encourage the hearts of library users?

One library I know is right next to a playground park for kids another has a huge, red, swirling metal sculpture in front of it. Both situations seem to create an atmosphere of play, discovery, and a curiosity for what might be next, just inside the library. When I see kids explore art, they do it with their whole bodies. They may trace the silhouette of a word they recognize or give a corner piece a “thunk” with their fist to see if it makes a funny sound. Adults are given an excuse to pause for a moment mentally and have a momentary, exploratory detour, maybe following an unpredictable line to its end out of the corner of their eye. When art like this is next to a library or thematically connected to the library I see visitors get a chance to practice moments of discovery, looking at something complex and noticing something new each time. This same skill of noticing and exploring and then noticing something new seems to be in the DNA of most library lovers I know but I really think it is in the DNA of all of us and just needs a little artful coaxing from time to time.

Thanks to Tad for sharing and kudos to Pima County Public Library for encouraging the heart through artwork.

Watch for more “Encouraging the Heart” Stories here at TTW.

See You In Pittsburgh!

Michael — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 20:48:04 +0000

I have just one more presentation this year before school ends and I start my holiday break.

Next Saturday, I’ll be in Pittsburgh for ACLA’s Future of Libraries speaking with futurist Thomas Frey.

If you are attending, please say hi.

The Networked Student

Michael — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:36:07 +0000

Via Lone Wolf Librarian:

The Networked Student was inspired by CCK08, a Connectivism course offered by George Siemens and Stephen Downes during fall 2008. It depicts an actual project completed by Wendy Drexler’s high school students. The Networked Student concept map was inspired by Alec Couros’ Networked Teacher. I hope that teachers will use it to help their colleagues, parents, and students understand networked learning in the 21st century.

Anyone is free to use this video for educational purposes. You may download, translate, or use as part of another presentation. Please share.

I’ll be sharing this with my classes and the Dominican faculty. This so speaks to how educators should be moving forward as well as the fact that librarians should offer access to these “emerging synchronous tools” to help guide the way.

I like this model. Maybe this is what LIS768 should become. I’ve already seen these things play out in the classroom: responses from authors, blog comments from big names in Social Media and a sense of empowerment in the students themselves.

Gaming in Libraries

Michael — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:38:10 +0000

Gaming in Libraries, originally uploaded by Shanachietour.

Librarian, Library and Catalog Tweets Revealed!

Michael — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 20:34:04 +0000

I’m always on the lookout for innovative uses of social tools in libraries. This weekend I got an email from John Wohlers, Library Technology Assistant, Waubonsee Community College, detailing his experiences using Twitter at his library. John writes:

I thought you might like to know yesterday at the request of one of our librarians, I added a link to his twitter account on our library’s staff information page. Nothing big there of course… But then I decided that just the link was a big boring… So, I took a look at the API for twitter, and using it I then embedded the librarians twitter feed into the page.

A funny thing happened when I embedded the feed, other staff members felt left out, and a bunch (including myself) went and signed up for their own twitter accounts. Encouraged by their enthusiasm, I began to think a bit more. I then went out and created a twitter feed for the library itself. Now that we had a feed, I needed to tweet.

With staff often to busy to handle things themselves, and me having a basic understanding of the API, it occurred to me that I could actually make the library itself tweet on its own. An hour or so later, I had created a custom report for our SIRSI Unicorn system that automatically tweets once an hour if a book on our new book shelf gets checked out. (I figured check in would be pretty hit or miss as we are an academic library and most things stay out until the end of the semester anyway…)

Once that was working, I brain stormed some more, and decided to link twitter to our wordpress blog, a simple process. From there I tied it into our room scheduling program, so that now a tweet is automatically posted when a Library instruction is coming up. After that, I decided it needed something a bit more, and now every night at closing the library will automatically tweet about how much paper was used in our electronic research area. (I modified it a bit so it will now mention how many miles of paper were consumed too…) I hope that in the weeks to come I will be able to add on some more automated tweets.

This is ingenious - especially the automated part that sends message to the library’s Twitter account! What else could be automated? Links to new blog posts for all the library blogs? Notifications for new posts to Flickr? What would you add?

John continues:

During the wait for all the updates to download, I added another twitter feature. There is now a “Tweet This!” feature on each record in our online catalog. Click the link, and it presents you with a login box for twitter, fill in your username and password, and click “tweet” and the current item you are viewing is automatically tweeted complete with short url to link to the catalog record. I can personally see this working well for a reading list, or even a quick and dirty method for making a list of items for a bibliography.

The catalog can be linked to at: http://library.waubonsee.edu/catalog/ and our main website is at: http://library.waubonsee.edu/

Thanks for writing John! Keep us informed when you update or add new innovations!

Take a look at the sidebar below for Marley & Me for the “Tweeet This” link.