ONE: Describe a project or activity that you have worked on that was outside your comfort zone. Why was it uncomfortable? How did you adapt? Were you glad you took on the project or activity? Would you do it again?

While studying at the University of California at Santa Cruz, I worked on a project called Iron Video Challenge (previously "Iron VideoMaker"), which took me out of my comfort zone. The independent study project was inspired by my interest in how constraints and play can foster experimentation with video. Within the time-span of one academic term, I tried to achieve the following goals:

* to encourage people to produce digital video work
* to force people to act on their feet by producing work in 48 hours or less
* to inspire play and risk taking through the implementation of constraints and deadlines
* to create a relatively well-known website that would solicit the participation of my classmates, as well as strangers online
* to use to the Internet as a platform for interaction and information distribution

The project became uncomfortable because once I considered my goals, I realized that I would need to build something that I didn't have the tools for. The skills I would need to acquire to complete the project appeared to be both time consuming and hard to understand. I had to learn about programming and databases and decide how to best distribute and collect the information I was interested in working with. Since this was unfamiliar territory, I had to adapt by finding information that could help me learn about these systems. I decided to learn some of the programming language PERL to build my web page. I had to ask for consultation from a programming student, and learned about how to extract different kinds of information in one area and then plug it into new places.

I was glad I took on this project because it laid the groundwork for me to think in different ways. It made me think about how web pages are arranged to evoke different responses from visitors and encourage participation. It also made me think about the architecture of information and how as a designer of that space, I could choose how to guide people to different things. It was exciting to see the range of results. I learned that if I plan it, I can pretty much do anything. I inspired myself by working through these challenges and now feel even more confident when working on projects that depend on stepping out of my comfort zone and learning something new. I would most definitely work on a project like this again.

I think projects that take me out of my comfort zone are projects that force me to grow and work under constraints that I am not acquainted with. Usually, I force myself into these situations, so I am not sure if I would categorize them as uncomfortable. I enjoy challenges, and think that life-long learning and stepping out of "comfort zones" is a necessary part of improving myself and the world around me.

TWO: If you were going to design a new house, what are the key elements that you would consider? Why?

The key elements of my new house would depend most on who would be living in it.

I would firstly make sure the house considered Universal Design, so that as many people as possible, with their varying abilities, could enjoy it.

In addition to the architecture, interior design elements such as paint colors, textures, and furniture arrangements, would influence how inhabitants experience the space, so I would consider those as well.

The structural integrity of the house, how it would stand up to the elements as well as natural disasters (such as earthquakes), is something I would prioritize so that it would protect its inhabitants and stay strong over time.

I would consider how to best use renewable energy forms and build the house with as much reused material as possible in order to enhance sustainability.

Depending on the nature of the architecture, there would be deferred maintenance issues that come up over time, such as needing to repaint or cleaning the heating vents. In designing the house, I would consider how to build better systems to perhaps replace heating ducts, therefore eliminating their need to be cleaned. If the aesthetic appeal of wood shingles really made sense and was cost effective, I would consider what new technologies might mimic this look, while staying within my budget and preventing future maintenance expenditures.

In designing this new house, I would consider how people's lifestyles, technology, available resources, and other external factors such as climate might shift over time and would create a house that had built in tools to adapt to these changes.

I would say that location is a most important consideration for the architect designing the house. When thinking about a house, or a library, as a destination, I would think about how the location should influence the architecture. If the house is to be built in a noisy area, there should be appropriate sound proofing designs if the inhabitants do not want to hear the noise from the outside. Or, if it is by the beach and the inhabitants enjoy looking at the ocean, then I would make sure to put windows facing towards the water. I would design the house to exploit and work with the strengths of the location. By designing south-facing windows, the house could be naturally warmed during the day.

THREE: What concerns about the future of libraries keep you up at night? Why?

I work with young people who are growing up using technology like computers and the Internet to assist them with school reports. I worry about their relationships to well-known web resources such as Google, Ask, and Wikipedia. Often the databases we have in our library are underutilized and patron training in how these databases work is limited. While someone might find well-rounded and credible information on a person they are researching through a database like Biography Online efficiently, I worry they may instead spend more time following link after link from their Google search, only to end up with a mediocre result.

I worry that the public image of the library as a useful or necessary resource is declining as people think they can access anything they want online. I worry that their misunderstanding of the ways in which the library operates will keep them from using it. And often, it only takes one misunderstanding to lead a library user out the door. I worry that the reliance on private systems of information distribution will eventually lead to influencing the ways in which people think, and the things people think they want, being led by the groups with the most amount of money.

I worry that people will have a need that the library can fulfill, but they will not be aware of this and their need will go unmet. Or, they will know that the library can help, but maybe the library doesn't accommodate their needs in some way, such as not being open during a person's free time or not having information available in an accessible format. I worry that varied communities will not be able to access the information in the format or on the terms that the library has established.

I worry that the ways in which libraries do outreach and advertise their vast resources are ineffective in reaching communities who would benefit from library tools the most. I also worry that the consistent library users will miss out on things that might interest them because they are using the library within limited pathways. As such, they will not know the other things around them exist, even if they are within the library user's established interest groups.

FOUR: What is the one 21st Century tool you cannot live without? Why?

I could not live without the benefits that Web 2.0 has brought to the Internet for many reasons. It helps me stay in touch but on my own terms. Sometimes I only find out about local music shows if I am hanging around local musicians, when I am busy and not in that scene, I might miss out. Now, if someone I know, or even a stranger (who's music I know I enjoy), is a "friend" of mine on a site like MySpace, I can find out about their next show via bulletins they may post or by a calendar they may choose to update. I can also sample music unknown to me for free by visiting different music profiles. If I choose to look at who my friends are friends with, I can begin to explore music and other organizations within their network, with some degree of trust that I will enjoy also appreciate these groups.

I could also not live without Web 2.0 for the reasons of folksonomy. I love exploring people's del.icio.us bookmarks to see the other interests of people who have tagged the same things (interests) as me. It leads me to discover new websites, which can lead to all sorts of new discoveries. I have yet to master search terms like "cookery" when searching for cook books while working at the library, and doubt that many of the library users have this awareness. When using sites like del.ico.us, the ability to tag information with my own language that makes sense to me and suites my needs seems revolutionary.

The potential to combine other Web 2.0 innovations like Twitter and Jott, also allows me to connect with people with access to a range of technologies. Non-Internet users can follow a Twitter feed of mine using Jott and their telephone to stay updated. And by using their phone and Jott, they can create content to be added to a Twitter feed.

In considering my answer this question, I was inspired by Geoff Hing and his presentation at the 2008 Allied Media Conference. His Web 2.0 resources tagged for the conference on del.icio.us led me to this insightful article.

Everyone is invited to a free performance at the library this Saturday, July 19!  Local teens will be performing "Danny and the Fableworld" an original play that they've written and rehearsed over the past five weeks.  The show begins at 2:00 pm in the large meeting room, and will last approximately 30 minutes.

We hope to see you there!

Fascinating article by Jill Lepore, which begins:

Anne Carroll Moore was born long ago but not so far away, in Limerick, Maine, in 1871. She had a horse named Pocahontas, a father who read to her from Aesop's Fables, and a grandmother with no small fondness for "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Annie, whose taste ran to "Little Women," was a reader and a runt. Her seven older brothers called her Shrimp. In 1895, when she was twenty-four, she moved to New York, where she more or less invented the children's library.

At the time, you had to be fourteen, and a boy, to get into the Astor Library, which opened in 1854, the same year as the Boston Public Library, the country's first publicly funded city library, where you had to be sixteen. Even if you got inside, the librarians would shush you, carping about how the "young fry" read nothing but "the trashy": Scott, Cooper, and Dickens (one century's garbage being, as ever, another century's Great Books). Samuel Tilden, who left $2.4 million to establish a free library in New York, nearly changed his mind when he found out that ninety per cent of the books checked out of the Boston Public Library were fiction. Meanwhile, libraries were popping up in American cities and towns like crocuses at first melt. Between 1881 and 1917, Andrew Carnegie underwrote the construction of more than sixteen hundred public libraries in the United States, buildings from which children were routinely turned away, because they needed to be protected from morally corrupting books, especially novels. In 1894, at the annual meeting of the American Library Association, the Milwaukee Public Library's Lutie Stearns read a "Report on the Reading of the Young." What if libraries were to set aside special books for children, Stearns wondered, shelved in separate rooms for children, staffed by librarians who actually liked children?

Read the rest of this entry »

I'm interested in finding out what kind of programming skills are to be found among library workers, so I've created a quick survey. Take the survey here!

Why is this interesting? Well, as librarians, we need to empower users, and I think that this is often done online. Empowering librarians as programmers may be a way of helping create better services for users, but what do librarians know?

Après deux semaines, quelques infos sur le compte flickr de la Bib' de Toulouse.

• Certaines photos ont été récupérées sur wikicommons. On nous le notifie par commentaires et la fiche sur wikicommons est très explicite et 'fair'. Exemple . (Et je trouve ca vraiment très bien!)
• On nous a invité à partager nos photos sur des groupes thématiques flickr. J'avoue que j'ai pas encore trop eu le temps de m'y pencher... Exemple
• Une moyenne de 1.700 vues par jour
• Un éditeur a pris des contacts pour, peut-etre, réaliser un livre sur ce fonds
• Qq articles, qq coups de fil... demain, je passe sur TLT : il faut q j'aille chez le coiffeur !!!  :-)
• Un article sur wikipedia a été créé dans la foulée sur Eugène Trutat. C'est marrant, avant le projet je me disais : "c'est un fonds pas forcément super vendeur : Trutat n'a même pas d'article sur wikipedia" : en 24 h, il en avait un !!!
• Une prise de contact avec d'autres institutions culturelles de la région : ca peut agacer, mais ca ne laisse pas indifférent.

"Miss Tricia, what's your favorite song?" I was asked this at my weekly lunch bunch program this past Tuesday and looked up to see several preteen female faces looking at me with intense curiosity. Would I mention a musician they knew? Was I too a fan of the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, or one of the post-Kelly Clarkson American Idol winners? I was dumbstruck and couldn't think of a cohesive answer. The next logical question followed: "If you don't have a favorite song, then what singers do you like?" I told the girls that I liked a performer named David Bowie (blank stares) and that I loved Motown (a glimmer of recognition). I finally got a reaction when asked about the first concert I went to:

me: "I went to see Beck when I was in 10th grade."

young lady #1: "Really?! My mom loves him!"

It was then that the room got a little quiet...It was official, Miss Tricia liked the same music as their parents and there went my street cred with the 10-14 set at the library.

After this wonderfully sweet conversation with my lunch bunchers I kept thinking about the power of music. The girls were exclaiming over their favorite songs and musicians with so much passion and excitement! I distinctly remember being that age and buying my first (gulp) cassettes at the mall. It was at this time that I started exploring music that I liked instead of passively listening to the music my parents played at home and in the car. I was in middle school when Seattle grunge was at its peak--Nirvana, Soundgarden, and my personal favorite--Pearl Jam. This was my first musical renaissance.

It was after college that I experienced my second musical rebirth. It was at this time that I stopped questioning and apologizing for my music tastes. I didn't care what was or wasn't cool--most hipsters would accept and encourage my interest in the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but they would be horribly disappointed that I own not one but two Leann Rimes CDs. However, it was around the age of 23 that I embraced all of my musical choices and quirks. I no longer find it strange that Pearl Jam, Elvis Presley, and Puccini arias occupy the same page in my CD binder (yes, I alphabetize my CDs, don't be so surprised I am a librarian after all).

I love music and what I'm listening to at any given moment has to do with my mood, the weather, my current task, and the company I'm with. Here are some of my summer favorites that can be found here at OWL:

Mexican Spaghetti Western performed by Chingon. Director Robert Rodriguez and members of the Austin music community play fun mariachi inspired rock and roll featured in Rob-Rod's films. My favorite song on the album is Malaguena Salerosa. CD ROCK CHI

During the summer months I love listening to anything & everything by the Cure. Their CDs can be found in the rock and alternative sections. CD ROCK CUR / CD ALTERNATIVE CUR

Leela James debut album, A Change is Gonna Come is wonderful! Her voice is smooth and sultry and the songs are great for a hot summer night. CD R&B JAM (In this same vein I also want to highly recommend my favorite Erykah Badu album Baduizm -- it's fantastic. CD JAZZ BAD)

As I've previously mentioned I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, especially their first album Fever to Tell. Their lead singer Karen O is the most awesome rock chick I've ever seen (or heard). CD ALTERNATIVE YEA

One last summer recommendation is to check out any project of Jack White's, whether it be a White Stripes album (these can be found in CD ROCK WHI & CD ALTERNATIVE WHI), Broken Boy Soldiers by the Raconteurs (CD ALTERNATIVE RAC), or Van Lear Rose (his collaboration with Loretta Lynn found in CD COUNTRY LYN). I love Jack White and think he is one of the most talented musician/singer/songwriter/performer/producers in contemporary music.

What do you like to listen to in the summer?

~Tricia is the youth librarian at OWL and can't help but add one more recommendation: Junior Senior's latest offering Hey Hey My My Yo Yo --it's pure fun and I DARE you to listen to it and NOT smile and dance. CD DANCE JUN

[REPOST from A Fresh Squeeze - Seattle]

Green Walls
Keeping You Cool All Around

With energy costs rising and the threat of global warming looming, everyone is looking for ways to cut energy use, reduce their environmental footprint and still maintain their standard of living. A green roof uses a living layer of plants to keep a building well insulated and provide green space for urban wildlife. A good example of this is the Ballard Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Recently, a new green innovation has been becoming popular: green walls.

Green walls are very similar to green roofs in that they are a layer of living plants that have been built into the walls of new buildings, or added to existing ones to improve looks, environmental footprint and building maintenance costs. The difference between the green roofs and walls is just a matter of direction.

"We estimate that the temperature behind the green wall will be reduced, in the summer, by roughly 10 degrees Fahrenheit," said Chad Sichello, President of G-Sky, a company that installs green walls.

Green walls are generally modular in nature, and consist of a metal framework where square panels are attached. The panels consist of smaller blocks of specially formulated soil with irrigation lines that keep the soil moist. Green walls can support a variety of plants and can be purchased with pre-grown plants or as blank panels. It's even possible to use green walls to grow a garden on the side of your house.

If you're looking to install a green wall on your own, Green Living Technologies sell these prefab green wall components. Companies such as G-Sky can also install custom interior or exterior green wall to your specifications.

If you are interested in green building or finding a contractor that specializes in green building, you'll want to check out the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild or Built Green. Both of these organizations promote environmentally building practices.

It's not the direction of growth that matters--it's all in the color.

info@afreshsqueeze.com
213 N Racine Ave, Suite 201, Chicago IL 60607

Nancy Pearl has not hooked me up yet.  I may have to do this action figure thing on my own.

http://www.be-a-doll.com/ may be a resource I utilize in accomplishing my goal of having my own librarian action figure.

Today is my birthday, so I'll tell you a little about something close to my heart. I was going through our new bin this morning at the library and came across an interesting book called "A Romance on Three Legs : Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano" by Katie Hafner and it struck a note with me, so to speak.

Before I started working at the library, I was actually a musician. I suppose I will always be one, although I must admit that as of late, I haven't even touched an instrument, so I'm a rusty musician. My whole life revolved around music from the time I was a little girl. My mother is a singer, so as children, we sang in the car everywhere we went, there was always music playing in the house and my sister and I just naturally gravitated towards doing musical things. (My sister would argue with you and say that she isn't musical, but ask her about learning to play the piano in three weeks for a Christmas concert when she was about 12 and you'd have a hard time believing she'd never played before.)

I owned a tiny plastic keyboard when I was young that had coloured keys and made a loud hissing sound every time you turned it on, but that's where I learned to play songs by ear, eventually plunking out so many that my parents decided to send me to a piano teacher. We didn't even own a piano for the first year or so of my lessons. I'd play on the one at school and wherever I could find one, and my piano teacher allowed me to visit his house and practice once a week before each lesson. My small world at the age of twelve was all about the piano and music.

Eventually, we got an organ, which helped immensely, but I still needed to learn the touch of a real piano, so when I was about 14, a family friend gave me hers, as she had stopped playing altogether. I'm sure my family grew tired of my endless playing, but to me, the piano was my little slice of heaven and an object that I understood better than anything else. It was my place of solace, frustration, bliss and excitement and I grew to know every little squeak of the pedals and every funny "twing" of the strings inside.

My practice and love of music allowed me to pursue my passion, and I went off to university to study music. There, I learned the meaning of real practice, spending upwards of 6 hours a day at the piano, just working and re-working pieces until I could see each mark on the music even when I closed my eyes. I earned my music degree and came back to Carleton Place and taught music for 10 years before needing a bit of a change. You can take the girl out of the music etc., etc........

Glenn Gould was one of Canada's most gifted musicians that ever lived, and probably one of the most interesting musicians due to his crazy habits both on and off the stage. If you've ever listened to one of his recordings or watched him play on television, you'll have no doubt heard him humming along while he played, although in some secret musical language understood only by himself, as you could never quite figure out just exactly what part of the music he was humming. The great one often do this sort of thing, though, hearing some inside melody or harmony that guides them along.

The whole premise of this book is his search for the perfect piano. Every piano has its own touch, its own pedal stiffness and its own sound. The wood, strings and craftsmanship put into each instrument makes it unique, similar to all instruments which are made by hand. You only need to play on a "bad" piano to know the difference. Gould searched for years to find the perfect instrument that suited his needs and finally found a Steinway CD 318 grand piano. You can watch Glenn Gould playing here:

Author Katie Hafner delves into the search for the prized piano, as well as the maintenance and construction of the instrument. You can find more on her website here.

I am going to take this book home tonight and spend a few hours just lost in music again. What a nice little find today!

LibGig is "a new professional networking website dedicated to bringing together everyon who accesses, organizes, creates, manages, produces or distributes information for a living."  Their marketing kit goes on to say, "LibGig (http://libgig.com) is a new professional networking, career development and job listing weibsite created by and for the Library and Information Industry...We will alert our readership to top career opportunities and projects while helping them improve career skills through a variety of resources and services. Yet our greater goal is to establish a common, human link, within the enormous and multi-faceted information industry, through dialog, interaction, and sharing of interesting stories, as well as dynamic and exclusive content that encourages interaction, feedback, and debate..."