With four tricked [...]]]> This is a guest post I asked Lian, a volunteer in the Skokie Library Digital Media Lab, to write.  What is life like for DML volunteers and workers is a common question from people interested in DMLs, I hope Lian’s post will help explain what her volunteering looks like.  – Mick Jacobsen

With four tricked out Macs, a chroma key green wall, Blue Yeti microphones, a drawing tablet, scanners, various electronic instruments and more, the Skokie Public Library Digital Media Lab is the place to be if you’re looking to create.  Each of the four Macs at the DML is considered a station, and each station has unique software that appeal to different patrons depending on the type of project they are working on.

As a volunteer at the Skokie DML, I had no idea what types of patrons I was going to encounter or what kind of help I would be able to offer.  Much to my relief, a lot of the questions that I get asked are often basic computer questions that anyone familiar with a Mac can usually answer.  However, I do get asked questions on some of our more advanced software, such as Final Cut Pro or Adobe InDesign, questions that I am only able to answer with a little bit of research online or in the books that we have in the DML.

What I love the most about patrons at the DML is that they are always willing to help each other out, so even if I can’t answer something I can always ask another patron to see if they know the answer.  The sense of solidarity comes from the fact everyone is working in this shared space together, a place where there is so much equipment and so much software that no one person can claim to be an expert at everything.  Skokie Public Library also attracts a culturally diverse patron base, so it’s not unusual to see someone editing a video on an Albanian wedding alongside another who is editing photos from her childhood growing up in Europe.

The skill levels of the patrons vary, from those who are very technologically savvy to those who can barely use a computer.  There are often high school or college kids who come into the lab and know exactly what they need to do, whether it’s video editing or remixing that song that they love so much (NO PROFANITY, PLEASE!).  But we also have a lot of older patrons who may need help scanning photos, others who just want to watch a Lynda.com video and some who might just want to learn how to use a Mac.

Even though some of the older patrons seem to have more difficulty with the software programs, it never seems to deter their determination to get their projects done.  One lady was using Dreamweaver to edit her church’s website, while another man was using Adobe InDesign to edit a brochure that explained his recent world travels, and both of them told me that they were just beginning to learn how to use these software programs.

The most excited patrons are always musicians.  When they see all the equipment we have here, you can almost see their minds reel at how they can use the DML for their upcoming music projects.  They often comment on how expensive the equipment and the software are and how many of them would not be able to afford it on their own.

Whenever I see someone poke their head into the DML, I always explain to them what the DML is for and how they can sign up for a station.  You may never be able to predict why someone will sign up for one of the stations at the DML, but you can be sure if you don’t tell them about it they may never know that these resources are available.

“Lian Sze is a MLIS student at Dominican University and will graduate in May 2012.  She is also an intern for the Public Library Association and Northwestern University.  In her spare time, she is a bike enthusiast, gardener, traveler, yogi and foodie. Despite her love of technology, she still writes snail mail.  She is currently living in Chicago.”

TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen

If you can be in charge/start your/be part of a Digital Media Lab (DML) I highly recommend it… for you.

Now, I think all the community building, etc. aspects of a DML are awesome and one of the futures of libraries – see a Library Journal article I [...]]]>

From the Skokie Public Library http://www.flickr.com/photos/skokiepl/5553081244/

If you can be in charge/start your/be part of a Digital Media Lab (DML) I highly recommend it… for you.

Now, I think all the community building, etc. aspects of a DML are awesome and one of the futures of libraries – see a Library Journal article I co-authored for that all important aspect.  However, this post is for those of you who are considering starting a DML and wondering if you will enjoy it as an aspect of your job.

This is what my work life looks like being in charge of the Skokie DML ( I have other duties besides the DML, but you aren’t interested in that). Training, training and more training.  Training myself, colleagues, and library members. Oh, and also making sure everything runs smoothly and is positioned for the future.

• The Software

I am always training myself on software.  I mean always!  In the last 1.5 yrs I have taught myself the rudiments of Photoshop Elements, Motion, Adobe Flash, Adobe Illustrator, Dreamwearver, iWeb, Adobe InDesign, Adobe Fireworks, Screenflow, and Adobe Premier Pro (ongoing – I think I may try to become more of an expert on this as it is really useful and videos and libraries blah, blah, blah).  I have taught myself to be a relatively advanced user of iMovie and Garageband.   My next ones to study are everything Final Cut X, Adobe AfterEffects, Adobe Soundbooth, and Adobe Photoshop. I try to give myself 4 hours a week for self training, but that normally becomes 1-3 as other stuff moves up the to-do list. http://blogs.skokielibrary.info/medialab/software/

• The Hardware

I prefer learning the software more than the hardware, but maybe you a musician or an engineer type and the hardware will be more fun for you? However, hardware doesn’t really change and I can usually have something down well enough in relatively short time in comparison to software. I have had to learn microphones (gain, patterns, etc.), flat-bed scanners, slide scanners,  Flips (terribly difficult, I know), relatively inexpensive still cameras, tripods, MP3 Recorders, portable hard drives (which need fixing as members often hurt the file structure when ejecting the devices incorrectly on Macs),  digital convertors, midi keyboards, midi recorders, electric drums, and electric guitars (my next week’s project).  Am I awesome with any of these, not really, but I know how to get them to work in our environment, I certainly am not a drummer or guitarist or any type of a musician. http://blogs.skokielibrary.info/medialab/equipment-available/

• Administration

This eats lots of time (it should) as we are figuring out the best way for this space to grow and function, the most important part of the gig.  Being sure we are offering enough training (internal and external), reaching out to local organizations (non and for-profit) for partnerships, presenting, hiring, managing, and training incredibly talented individuals, recruiting amazing volunteers (your normal library volunteer is not going to be useful in a DML), selecting hardware and software, building for the future, dealing with problematic users, running the website, blogging and making sure others are blogging, and all that other leadership stuff.

Does this seem kind of fun? If so, maybe you should be in charge of a DML. No, then I seriously recommend passing on this responsibility. We are constantly getting interns and LIS student volunteers interested in working in the DML, hire them – contact me if you want some names.

I am hoping some other DML manager types will post in the comments or elsewhere explaining what they do.

TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen

I have been given an incredible opportunity as a librarian.  Earlier this year, I was accepted in the ILEAD U (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply and Discover: The 21st [...]]]> I wanted to point to this great post about ILEAD U from Alicia Hammond, the Corporate and Small Business Liaison Librarian at the Schaumburg Township Library, IL.

I have been given an incredible opportunity as a librarian.  Earlier this year, I was accepted in the ILEAD U (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply and Discover: The 21^st Century Technology Tools Institute).  This program is operated by the Illinois State Library and funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  And it is really cool!  Basically there are two things going on with this program.  They bring a bunch of librarians together to form groups and create projects that utilize technology to support and engage the community.  But the underlying goal is even better.  While creating this project is great, the real reason we are doing this is to get used to being bold and putting new, awesome, fun projects into practice.  This isn’t the kind of program where failure is going to get you into trouble.  (Not that we want to fail!) But we are allowed to dream big and then go for it.

Read the rest of the post on her blog Librarian Unafraid.

This year State Libraries from all over the country have sent representatives to discover whether they want to try and bring it back, some seem enthusiastic and others worried about funding (staff hours, etc.) . I would recommend putting a little pressure on your state library to bring this to your area, a grant is being written at this very moment.

You can learn more about Alicia’s ILEAD U team’s Library Events Mobile App project soon on Facebook at facebook.com/MyLibMobileApp (the page doesn’t seem to be up yet). You can learn about the other groups at http://il.webjunction.org/ileadu-teams-y2.

TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen

You know, there’s something to be said to working with people who come up with fun ideas.  Furthermore, there is many things to be said about working under leadership that allows/encourages [...]]]> A few of my coworkers (Ruth, Erika, and Matt) had some fun this April Fool’s Day.  Check out the entire run of images here.

You know, there’s something to be said to working with people who come up with fun ideas.  Furthermore, there is many things to be said about working under leadership that allows/encourages this sort of fun creativity. Patrons/members/customers can sense when people like what they are doing, it makes a difference.

TTW Contributor: Mick Jacobsen

Team Pandora was comprised of three libraries in the Springfield area- the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library (Jan Perone), Illinois State Library (Debra Aggertt, Sandra Fritz and Beth Paoli) and University [...]]]> This is the third installment from the ILEAD U Project.  Click here or on the category hyperlink to read more about it. – Mick Jacobsen

Team Pandora was comprised of three libraries in the Springfield area- the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library (Jan Perone), Illinois State Library (Debra Aggertt, Sandra Fritz and Beth Paoli) and University of Illinois Springfield-Brookens Library (Pamela Salela).

After a few meetings a final decision was reached by the group to try to improve services to Illinois State government agencies particularly those that had lost or did not have an agency library.

Team Pandora had a major obstacle to overcome by having to get information through state government’s somewhat limiting restrictions.  With the participation of the University of Illinois Springfield, the major issues of who could pay and order the grant material and possibly host any web products we came up with could be solved.

With Jan’s connections, a survey created by Team Pandora was sent out to a small group of central Illinois librarians and was eventually allowed to be sent to Deb’s connections at the Illinois Department of Transportation.

The three libraries came up with resources in their respective libraries that would best suit state employees’ needs.  UIS- Central Illinois Non-Profit Resource Center, ALPL- newspapers& historical resources and ISL- state and federal documents.

The team eventually used the resources purchased through the grant to create a web portal (content management system) and video for the site.  Team Pandora was divided into two sub-committees that worked on the portal called LRISA (Library Resources for Illinois State Agencies) and the other worked on writing, filming and editing a video.

The in-session ILEADU classes assisted in learning about Content Management Products.  It was also essential in learning about the possibilities for video use and the tools needed.

Most members of Team Pandora had little or no experience with any of the technologies used so it is safe to say, the learning curve was great and the information learned was immense.  Technologies learned include Adobe Connect Pro, Survey Monkey, WordPress and Camtasia.

The challenge for the future will be if the site can become a reality.  As mentioned previously, the hurdles placed by State Government can be difficult but we hope to preserver.

This is the second installment from the ILEAD U Project.  Click here or on the category hyperlink to read more about it. – Mick Jacobsen

Team Springfield Big Read includes Amanda Binder and Janelle Gurnsey from University of Illinois Springfield, Brookens Library; Julie Wullner from Lincoln Library, The Public Library of Springfield, Illinois; Amy [...]]]>

This is the second installment from the ILEAD U Project.  Click here or on the category hyperlink to read more about it. – Mick Jacobsen

Team Springfield Big Read includes Amanda Binder and Janelle Gurnsey from University of Illinois Springfield, Brookens Library; Julie Wullner from Lincoln Library, The Public Library of Springfield, Illinois; Amy Ihnen from Chatham Public Library District; and Sarah Garley from Rochester Public Library.  Together we represent four of the 14 partners of The Big Read in Central Illinois.  The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest that promotes literary reading among Americans by having communities read and discuss a single book.  The Big Read in Central Illinois selected Carson McCullers’ The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.

Big Read Contest

The goal of the Springfield Big Read team was to use participatory technology to engage individuals ages 18-24 in The Big Read in Central Illinois.  We thought that a contest about music, central to the life of one of the main characters in the book, would appeal both to our targeted audience, and to people of all ages.  Under the Influence: Music that Inspires allows people to express how music inspires them through writing, video, audio or artwork.  All entries will be featured and voted on by the public on the contest website: http://www.influencecontest.org/.  Winners will be awarded prizes at the kickoff event for The Big Read in Central Illinois on February 15, 2011.

ILEAD U provided us with access to a team of experts and our own personal mentor, Genna Buhr, to support us as we experimented with finding the best technologies to create our project.  We decided to design a website to centralize all activities associated with the contest.  One of the challenges we encountered through this process was choosing a platform that supported all of the elements of the contest, such as the online entry forms and voting and communication tools.  We originally selected Ning as our platform but eventually chose WordPress because it better served our needs.

Join Us!

Under the Influence: Music that Inspires is already helping to build awareness about the upcoming Big Read program: http://www.rochesterlibrary.org/ileadu/2010/11/publicity/.  Since the website was launched in early November, we have been pouring our efforts into promoting the contest.  Team libraries are now lending Flip cameras and will be using iPads purchased through the grant to promote participation in the contest both in our libraries and throughout our communities.  To keep people connected to activity on the website, and informed of deadlines for the contest, we created accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

We are excited for the contest to build momentum over the next few months.  Entries are accepted through January 7, 2011 and you do not need to live in the Springfield area to participate!  If you are interested in promoting the Under the Influence: Music that Inspires Expression Contest at your location feel free to download print materials from our website.

How has music inspired you?

Who are the Lincoln Lawgers?

Team Lincoln Lawgs – Maribel Nash from Chicago-Kent College of Law, Jamie Sommer & Jessica de Perio Wittman from John Marshall Law School, Patricia Scott from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and Valerie Krasnoff from Northwestern University School of Law, along with supermentor Pat Boze  — began [...]]]>

Who are the Lincoln Lawgers?

Team Lincoln Lawgs – Maribel Nash from Chicago-Kent College of Law, Jamie Sommer & Jessica de Perio Wittman from John Marshall Law School, Patricia Scott from Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and Valerie Krasnoff from Northwestern University School of Law, along with supermentor Pat Boze  — began the ILEAD U process by forming a team to collaborate to create an online legal research community specifically for Illinois law students.  In sad news, we learned in July that Valerie had accepted a new position at Northwestern outside of the library and that she would no longer be able to participate in ILEAD U.  The remaining four Chicagoans and Pat soldiered on to make our Lincoln Lawgs dreams come true.

What is Lincoln Lawgs?

Although most law school students learn the same things, and encounter the same questions and problems when they enter the legal community for the first time, we realized that there is not much opportunity for Chicago law students to share their experiences. We wondered what we could do to change that, and the result is Lincoln Lawgs.

Lincoln Lawgs is an online community geared to Illinois law students.  The research portions of the site are geared to students working on assignments, either at work or in school, and features scenarios based on actual questions they might be asked to research.  Our tutorials are posted in multiple formats—video, text, links to helpful library resources—so students can learn the information using their preferred method.

Lincoln Lawgs also features virtual meeting spaces (“Cabins”) that students can reserve to hold group meetings online.  We have our “Campfire Chat,” or message boards, where students can post research questions they encounter and start conversations with other law students who perhaps have the same problems.  We have news feeds to popular local and national law blogs, where students can keep up with the latest goings-on through popular legal blogs.

Lincoln Lawgs also includes some fun features to help build our community of local law students.  Anyone can like us on Facebook, where we’ve posted some bonus pictures and discussion from our community.  Community members can even submit research questions to us on Facebook.  We also have Abe’s Photo Album, where you can submit photos of yourself with Abe (statue, bust, impersonator) and be featured on Lincoln Lawgs’ front page!

Why Abe?

Legal research can usually be pretty boring, and we hope that adding a touch of whimsy and kitsch might make Lincoln Lawgs more appealing to law students.  Not that Abe isn’t completely relevant…after all, Abe Lincoln is Illinois’ most famous attorney!

We hope that you take a look at Lincoln Lawgs and let us know what you think!

ILEAD U (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply, and Discover… not sure what the U stands for) is an ongoing program developed by the super-cool Illinois State Library funded by a grant from the Laura Bush Foundation. [...]]]> Over the next couple months I will proudly be presenting the ILEAD U (hear I lead you) Class of 2010.

ILEAD U (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply, and Discover… not sure what the U stands for) is an ongoing program developed by the super-cool Illinois State Library funded by a grant from the Laura Bush Foundation.  Its main stated goal is “To help library staff develop leadership skills necessary to address local community needs (e.g., job creation, education) through innovative applications of participatory technology tools”  Or “create awesome librarians” (my version).  This took place over 3 3 days sessions in lovely Springfield, IL.

Pretty cool, huh?

The participants formed groups (from at least 3 libraries) and applied.  I won’t speak for the teams as I will be putting up posts by each team in the near future.  Suffice to say that they all blew me away with their creativity, work ethic, and embracing of the new, difficult path that I think libraries need to take in order to create thriving communities.

What was looked for in each team member was:

• “Each ILEADer must be innovative and interested in learning new technologies. A master’s degree in library science is NOT required, nor is expertise in Web technologies.
• Each ILEADer must be motivated to connect with their user populations in virtual spaces.”

The teams were assigned a mentor to be an outside perspective and help facilitate the process.  Probably the hardest job of all.

I was part of the instructor corp Our job was to come up with a curriculum designed for the needs of the groups.  I taught Intro to Drupal, Screencasting for Beginners, Online Reputation Management, and Thinking Like a Website Architect.  Other classes were on Social Media, Knowing When to Kill Projects, WordPress, an Intro to LAMP, Plinket, Copyright, and many, many more.  The instructor corp was lead by the amazing David Lankes of Syracuse University.

In addition to the instructor corp were a few keynote speakers.  One was Beck Tench (who I had never met nor even heard of before… but do consider bringing her in for whatever she wants to talk about – if only for cool slides) and the always understated Eli Neiburger waxing poetic on How Libraries are Screwed.  And, of course, Lankes keynoted/brought together everything beautifully at will.

A new and interesting group has been invited to the next cohort.  This group is comprised of employees from other state libraries who are considering bringing it back to their states.   If this sounds interesting perhaps it is time to ask the powers that be if your state library could be involved?

I am proud to have been involved in the first year of ILEAD U and am sad that I will not be able to continue – but do want to highly recommend it to all.  This is something practical and awesome that is being created in Libraryland for and with our communities.  This is the future of librarians.

The first post written by one of the groups will be the Lincoln Lawgs…. in a few days.

The scheduled presentations are:

Instead of bemoaning my fate I am looking at [...]]]> I have been trying to figure out how to best describe the awesomeness that is content management systems to an audience whose technological knowledge will range from using email/Word to a little more advanced.  By the way, I have less than an hour to do so.

Instead of bemoaning my fate I am looking at this as an opportunity. I get to think about the “elevator speech” for content management systems.

After much thought I identified the two most important aspects, content types and permission levels.  These two aspects of CMSs are counter intuitive to organizations and individuals used to traditional websites.

Content Types
Separate the content from the presentation and let the content creators create the content. Content can be a blog entry, an image, a page, an advertisement for an event, a description of a database, a video, a link to a helpful website, anything really. The type of content doesn’t matter.  What does matter is that the content is easy to put on the website for the content creator.

For example, I want my youth librarians to be able to add upcoming programs. The “youth program” content type will need to display the title of the program, a description, an image to draw the eye, the date, time, the age group the program is intended for, and how to sign up.
For the sake of uniformity, I want:

• the title to be in the Arial font, grey, and to be defined as a header
• the image to float to the right of the description and be sized to 75px by 75px
• the description to also be in Arial, colored black, and the font to be sized to .9em, and be below the title
• the date to be formatted to short hand (01/30/10) and be bold as will be the time
• the age group to be in bold
• the youth program to automatically be placed in the youth programs list (sorted by date), be put on a calendar of events, and move to a place of high contact as the program’s date comes closer

An example of  a content type,  input form on the left, output on the right.

To ask a non web designer to try to figure out the necessary HTML/CSS or follow lengthy step-by-step instructions to keep this uniform format is crazy and a complete waste of time on many levels.  To have a single person format and position all the content is also wasteful.  Any CMS designer will be able to make what I described happen fairly easily.

Permission Levels

The idea of permission levels takes some time to understand for those used to one or two people being the funnel to getting content on a website, but should never be overlooked or underestimated.  Permission levels allows assigning particular users differing abilities.

For example, a youth librarian may be assigned the permission level/role “youth” and be able to add content such as youth programs, blog entries to the Youth Services Blog, databases to the youth research area, images to youth photo gallery, and administer comments on the youth blog.  An anonymous user could be allowed to add certain types of content (pending approval or not), comment without permission, or anything else.   The admin roll would be able to do everything.  The best CMSs allow the creation of roles to suit any organization’s needs.

The ability to think in terms of permission levels is hugely important.  It also completely revolutionizes websites which are meant to have community generated content, be that community: library employees, patrons in a town, or interested parties all over the world.

How are you selling content management systems?  If you are not using a CMS, why not?

Full disclosure:  I work with Toby at the Skokie Public Library.