My birthday was a good day. 34 is a boring birthday. I went with Kris to see my grandmother on Sunday to celebrate–they fell in love and we had a great shopping trip. It’s her favorite thing to do at 89. I should be so lucky.

However, back at work I’m overwhelmed, so I’m going to make a catalog of what’s sitting on my desk in an effort to straighten out my brain.

I’m surrounded by print outs on:
implementing IM, how to engage 2.0 learners
Ellen Wagner’s talk on Learning in the Era of Web 2.0,
danah boyd’s list of people doing research on social networking sites and her presentation at NMC’s Online Conference on the Impact of Digital Media,
blogs from Library 2.0 on “Twenty things I want to ask our users” and “What they should teach in Library Science school,”
the NMC’s Horizon Report 2006
“Coffee’s on, dusty books are out at UMass library” article from the Boston Globe
Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk’s article from Library Journal on Library 2.0
David Ward and M. Kathleen Kern’s article on “Combining IM and Vendor-based Chat: A Report from the Frontlines of an Integrated Service.”
An Educause article from Roberth H. McDonald and Chuck Thomas on “Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values.”
Another Educause article from Carol R. Holder on “New Media and New Literacies: Perspectives on Change.”

Other random things on my desk that I’m working on:
Resumes from a search for a Digital Project Coordinator
An evaluation of the core reference titles for my subject area (agriculture/forestry) and suggestions from my OCLC Evaluation for my departments from this summer.
My committee member folder from the Templeton Ragtime Music Festival.
IM Class for library staff for January
CHAT training class for Reference Staff for January
Myspace class for our MegaResources workshop (mostly k-12 teachers)
Statistical reports on the declining reference desk statistics
Research guide materials for my department
Articles on JCR and Education and tenure for an article I’m writing with an ed faculty member
A printout reminding me that I can set up an Ask-a-Librarian link on EBSCOhost, which is an email reference function.
ASERL Conference Call Minutes for our collaborative Ask-a-Librarian program.

Plus fat folders on Virtual Reference and three on Library 2.0 full of other articles, some read and some not.

Now, the question is, where are my priorities? I was nominated to be the Treasurer of the Mississippi Library Association today. It’s a “level 1″ service activity in my P&T document.

I also need to send the wiki to my department liaison, but I’m not certain it’s in the right format so I’ve gotten a bit stuck. Then I’m writing a podcast script for our Undergraduate Research Center by the end of January.

I’m just going to have to stop. I’m listening to the Sirsi/Dynix Institute’s program from last month on 25 technologies in 50 minutes while I write this blog.

I’m trying to finish my application for 5 weeks. It would be a great opportunity–and just the gentle jumpstart I need to keep things cranked up here. My Dean is on board now–he’s now sending me articles! It looks like consensus is really building around adding IM to our Virtual Reference offerings. Which thrills me beyond measure. It looks like I’m going to do a class on IM for the faculty and staff in January.

More “viral 2.0″ fun at MML today:
Wiki’s are catching on at MML! I just got asked by one of my colleagues to help her with her pbwiki bibliography. Also, I’ve been tasked with finding a speaker for our regional Library 2.0 conference this spring–it looks like it’s really going to happen! Then, another colleague told me she is publishing on the Longtail after hearing my excitement about it from ALA. And finally my supervisor just asked me to discuss an article I sent her on making libraries more accessible (or how UMass has made their library more accessible) in tomorrow’s Reference Dept. meeting (see it at Boston.com).

I feel the urgency of being left behind, but we are moving forward–even if it’s just baby steps. I wish I had more people to talk to about this work–I should really just comment on some of the blogs I read. Maybe that would be a way to get into a discussion, but everyone seems to be light years ahead of me. Reading other blogs, I’m mostly just keeping my head above water to absorb the blogs themselves. Who knows what I’d even say in a comment. Ha! This blog is helping though…it’s good to just lay it all out on paper and think other people might be reading it. People who might speak up if I was hurtling down the wrong path. I’d love to be hurtling right now.

I’ve been working on the research guide wiki for my liaison department, but I’ve gotten stuck on how much information to give them about the resources I’m suggesting (“seeding it”). I’m worried that if I put too much, it will intimidate them and keep them from adding their own stuff. Or keep them from telling me what I’ve put up isn’t worthwhile. I’ve gotten a little stuck. I may just send it to the library rep and see what he thinks.

I’m back in the saddle again after the break–leftover turkey and dressing in Louisville after an adventure taking Gran to the Golden Corral for lunch in Jackson. The classic comment from my hard-of-hearing, Delta-bred, small-town grandmother with (very) discerning tastes: “Amanda (imagine the accent if you can)–I nevah knew there were places like this… These people, they just eat and eat, and they’re already so fat!” I was mortified and tickled at the same time. I guess you can say whatever you want when you are 89.

Nicole Engard just reported about the latest SirsiDynix Institute in her blog, What I learned today…. The new session, which I missed yesterday was 25 Technologies in 50 minutes. These are apparently free seminars sponsored by SirsiDynix to bring experts from industry to talk to Librarians. I’ve gone into iTunes and downloaded the last years’ worth of monthly seminars, and I am listening to last month’s event, Meredith Farkas’s talk “Wiki’s: The Ultimate Tool for Online Collaboration.” This discovery comes, of course, at the perfect moment, as I am creating a research guide wiki today for the PSS dept’s grad students and faculty. All I’ve got is the audio, but it’s still very cool. “Wikis are good for collecting knowledge from a diverse group of people.” I’m trying to figure out how to get a wiki that has multiple levels of permissions without paying for it. Pbwiki appears to want me to pay for this additional level.

Much of the talk is very similar to what I heard in the ACRL Fall Virtual Institute, but it’s so nice to have someone coaching me along as I’m working on this. Organization seems to be the bear for this wiki–our library is very rigid about how our research guides are organized. I don’t think that organization is going to be the best for collaborative work. So I’m making a wiki at www.pssresearch.pbwiki.com. I’m working on the organization of it now. I’ve been reading about OPML making your wikis/blogs more dynamic with information feeds, but I have no idea if I can do that here. I’d like to put a link to our podcast in the News page, as well as update it with news from the department and from me.

I put a picture in, putting a face on the technology again. I hope I might talk the rest of them into identifying themselves online, but we’ll see. I think I need to do the groundwork on keeping it organized, fleshed out, linked up, etc. for now. So I don’t want to make them think I’m giving them too much responsibility. I don’t know. More to come.

Tomorrow is our deadline for turning in half of our orders for our departmental allocations. This means I am putting in orders for several thousand dollars worth of books over the next 24 hours for the first time since I’ve been a librarian. (With Katrina and The Serials Crisis, we didn’t have book money last FY.) Why the last minute crunch? I am just having trouble communicating with one of my departments, actually. And that matters because our system is set up to “give” them the money and authority over it (unless they don’t respond, and then I spend it for them). In this present climate, I just wonder why they feel so disconnected from this process. How I could have applied my “Library 2.0″ kung fu to the situation to avoid this last minute crunch? How could I have gotten more buy-in? What communication tools are they using that I could have tapped into? Why won’t they answer my emails? How could I find out “where they are”? That seems so basic, really, yet somehow impenetrable right now. Really, the question is–what do I have to offer them? There must be some way for me to think outside the box in this process that could have made it more successful. Is there a wiki or blog-shaped killer ap here? Maybe everything in librarianship can’t be made better with Library 2.0 tools…

On other fronts, another department (who has actually had lots of input in their collection decisions) has agreed to let me set up a wiki to start working on a research guide with them. And I had lunch with their newest faculty member, who is coming out of industry and back into academia after a long break, and she was very excited about hearing about the new ways the library is trying to be involved in their research lives. So that’s actually a major victory. Now I just have to set up the wiki (seed it!), make documentation, and then market it through training them in some way, (thank you Meredith Farkas!) and then see what happens. I’ll be thinking about this when I’m ordering all those “unwanted” books today! Any advice is always welcome. This is my first real experiment with my departments and socical networking tools, and I’m feeling a bit like I’m about to jump out into the void of space without any protective outer gear…. A product of last night’s 2am chicken wings with my roommate, along with too much Battlestar Galactica in general, I’m afraid. (But isn’t that cat wonderful? I laughed so hard I cried a little when I found it on boing boing yesterday… And can you really have too much Battlestar Galactica???)

Postmortem continues for five more nights! Thomas is brilliant, of course.

Today I’m attending this institute (?) at my desk. I’ve heard about wikis, mashups, 2nd life, and some pedagogy stuff about instruction. Even though I teach workshops and bibliographic instruction, I don’t have any training as a teacher. Not one class. I’m sure that would horrify some of the faculty who’s classes I teach–except I don’t think many of them have either. We’ve just started a Center for Teaching and Learning here at MSU, and I’m on the Faculty Advisory Board, which turns out to mean relatively little. We’re supposed to be focused on training the faculty about teaching–so I’ll hope for that. But Jeffrey Trzeciak’s discussion about ADDIE and the Nine Events Instruction was very informative. Right now, I’m not really attached to a class in a way that most of it would be relevant. We do have librarians who do a section a week of some classes (English, largely). So, my “lesson plans” are relatively limited–an hour and fifteen minutes normally. However, I am starting to develop these classes for the staff that are going to introduce them to these social networking ideas, and it may be that I could apply what I’ve learned today to that series of workshops. I’m thinking about it.

So–I got some stuff about wikis today that I didn’t know. Good ideas about starting a wiki with my graduate students–seeding it, providing documentation, doing marketing via training programs, etc. (this came from Meredith Farkas, who was excellent). So I’m going to go ahead and set up the wiki I want us to work on as a group and put in all of the research guide stuff I have already. Then I’m going to try to visit them and do some training on wikis. We’ll see… Big ideas. Also plug-ins for spam protection–I don’t have that on mine right now, but I’m going to get it. I never got an answer about free wikis that have levels of permissions/passwords. Pbwiki wants money for that. And I learned that you can calendar and blog on some wikis. Not sure that I want to, but it’s good to know.

I’m against Second Life altogether now. I’m sure of it. There are too many other things I need to focus on–I’ll leave that to people with more energy for it. I can’t see its benefit for my students, and that’s all I’ve really got energy for right now. I can see real and immediate use for wikis and social bookmarking and even myspace and facebook stuff. Some of the mashups I heard about look really interesting, too. I haven’t used the LibraryLookup from Jon Udell yet, but I love the idea of being on Amazon and then looking for the book in our library using a booklet.

I’d heard of LibraryThing, but I saw it for the first time today and I’m considering buying a barcode reader so I can scan in all my books. That’s definitely sort of a fantasy of mine to have my own catalog. Sigh.