What's up, shout-out?!

I've been thinking a LOT about your question regarding how we can allow adults the same kind of ownership.

This is a great post and you're asking a lot of important questions. I'm glad that there are librarians out there who are forcing us to think about these things.

Great post with some very valid thoughts. Too often, I see libraries starting to use a tool because they think they should. The "slap a wiki on it" mentality that you describe. We have to have a service we want to provide and then choose the best tool. Before implementing the tool, we should understand how it works, the culture behind it, and how to maintain a level of control to keep it useful (reduce spam, etc.). I see so many libraries jumping into new tools, like MySpace, Wikis, or blogs, without considering any of these things and then when it fails, they think it was the technology not their lack of planning.

It was so great seeing you at Midwinter!

And yes, your paraphrase is spot on. I've been speaking on this point, and I think it's really starting to make sense to the librarians I present to. And while you've paraphrased it quite astutely, it requires *so much more* discussion within our profession.

As a matter of fact, I think the only real way is to start bringing in new media folks as well as users of different flavors to help librarians really understand what's going on. User-centric design and use of social networking isn't just about *being* in Rome, but also doing as the Romans do, even if it's different from what we do.

I was actually just working on a draft of a post about user understanding and professional vs. personal social networking person that meshes with a Boston new media discussion of how "nice" is messing with social media culture when I saw your tweet about this post. :)

Too often librarians "doing" 2.0 is too much like one's uncle in the green plaid jacket doing the Frug at the Xmas party...

Terrific post. You're asking some really important questions here. While I'm a big booster for social software, I don't think these technologies are useful in every library, and I think we need to consider our very unique population (and sub-populations) when we consider any of these tools. I'm a big fan of libraries having student workers or teens staff their MySpace and Facebook presence, but honestly, I think patron level of comfort with librarians in social networking software differ library-by-library.

I think we can frequently develop tunnel vision when working in libraries, and that's why it's so critical to TALK to our patrons, to get out of the library, and to visit other libraries to remember what it's like to be a patron. We hear these stories about libraries implementing blogs and wikis and all this cool stuff, and we start to think that it's the blogs and wikis that are cool, not how they are used and what need they are fulfilling. It's not the tool that matters; it's what we do with it and how it meets patron needs.

We use a blog and wiki at our library, but they don't look like blogs and wikis and they're more about making it easy for us to keep content up-to-date than about collaboration or starting a conversation. Not too sexy, but hugely useful at our library. I don't think every population necessarily wants to collaborate online or wants to read blogs from their library. Ann Arbor? Yes. They are a very civic-minded and "involved" population. At my library? Probably not (with one major exception: our military history grad students are happily adding content to a resource-sharing wiki I created for them). We can't even get feedback when we beg for it. And that's fine. It's all about providing the best services to the population you have.

I'm glad these questions are being asked. We need to be critical of our role in the "2.0" world. We want to do right by our patrons, not force ourselves on them, invade their spaces, or create tools they don't want to use. And sometimes it's difficult to know if what we're doing is helping, hurting or is just plain getting ignored.

I believe that the technology cheerleading that librarian bloggers sometimes do for technology -- the "just do/try it @ your library" mentality, followed by the "we may not be doing it just right, but we're making progress, honest" line of thinking -- makes it worse. Librarians who blog are of a certain level of savvy, but still not always the level of savvy necessary to really get this stuff, and they are essentially sending their readers out into the social software world blind and ignorant, but really, really enthusiastic. It's a serious problem.

Librarians really need to start out as *users*, and set aside the library paradigm of thought from the very beginning. Once they've interacted with a certain culture for a while, they can see what use it has to an Average User, then perhaps they can think about applications that would work with their users.

Wow, this is quite the response!

Andrea, yes yes yes. We have to be users first, but it's so hard for us to do that well- my last post is about trying to look at your own library with a newcomer's eyes. Meredith's encouragement to talk to our patrons and visit other libraries is wonderful.

Michelle's point about failure being blamed on the tool is so right and so frustrating for forward-pushing librarians. Sometimes, we're going to make mistakes and new ideas aren't going to work, but we can't ditch the tool because our initial implementation didn't work.

It's cheesy, but we have to fail toward success. And, stealing Karen's hilarious imagery, try really hard not to do it like we're Frugging (can I verb that word?) after too much egg nog!

Sarah, it seems like this question is really different for teens and adults. We remember to stop and think about teen culture because it's not our own, but tend to think that because we're adults, we know what to do in that arena.

With teens, it seems that there's the additional grown-up factor. We can know the culture inside and out, but never really be of it, since we're the grown-up. Which doesn't mean the library can't engage kids, but it seems that to some extent we'll always be an outsider, at least with groups of kids. The usual caveats about me talking outside of my day-to-day experience apply here, of course!

Pump Up The Volume

Yes librarians need to get out of their world and make sure that they are providing the information and support that their clients need. Technology can be an aid and improve our effectiveness.

Great Blog.

kate what do you think of curb side library service? imagine a patron calling up asking for a book and then being able to pick it up at the library window. best bruce

Hello Kate

I hope all is well and you are enjoying your new job. everything is great at dpl. i am enjoying working with mary. i thought this artilce from the nyt very good. i like the idea of having a video war day for teens.

best

bruce miller


The New York Times
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March 22, 2008
Taking Play Seriously at the Public Library With Young Video Gamers
By SETH SCHIESEL

And you thought libraries were supposed to be quiet. Not on Friday.

Under the Beaux-Arts arches of Astor Hall at the New York Public Library’s flagship building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, thumping hard-rock beats mixed with tennis-ball thwacks and the screech of burning tires late Friday afternoon, as the library showed off the latest addition to its collections of books, films, music and maps: video games.

Beneath the engraved names of august benefactors like John Jacob Astor and Simon Guggenheim, several hundred children, young adults and the people who love them virtually jumped, drove, battled and rocked out as the library celebrated its burgeoning “Game On @ the Library!” initiative.

The library first offered games at a single Midtown branch in 2006. Now the library system offers both organized play sessions and games for circulation at 18 branches across the Bronx, Manhattan and Staten Island. (Brooklyn and Queens operate their own separate, library systems.) The library now owns about 2,500 copies of 92 different games available for circulation in one-week intervals. Overdue fine: $1 a day.

Standing a few yards from boisterous teenagers playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Nintendo’s Wii and driving through Burnout 2 on Microsoft’s Xbox 360, David Ferriero, the Andrew W. Mellon director of the New York Public Libraries, referred to the system’s planned $1 billion expansion — to be kick-started by a $100 million gift from the financier Stephen A. Schwarzman — as he explained what video games were doing in such unfamiliar surroundings.

“Especially at this pivotal moment in our history, it is so great to have so many people of this age group here in the library, because it foreshadows what life is going to be like around here when we have transformed this building,” he said. “We want to do a better job of integrating the circulation and research collections, and part of that is becoming more relevant for a younger audience.”

Jack Martin, the library’s assistant coordinator for young adult services and the mastermind of the “Game On” project, said the library was in some ways only catching up with libraries in Ann Arbor, Mich., Los Angeles and parts of New England in making video games part of its programs and collections.

“What we’re seeing is that in addition to simply helping bring kids into the library in the first place, games are having a broader effect on players, and they have the potential to be a great teaching tool,” Mr. Martin said. “If a kid takes a test and fails, that’s it. But in a game, if you fail you get to take what you’ve learned and try again.

“In a lot of these games you have to understand the rules, you have to understand the game’s world, its story. For some games you have to understand its history and the characters in order to play effectively.”

The program now includes games for the Wii, Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation families of game systems. Mr. Martin said he hoped to expand soon to include online PC games like World of Warcraft. He said the library system had spent about $61,000 to provide hands-on game spaces in the 18 branches. The 2,500 circulating games appear to have cost at least $100,000.

In Astor Hall (also known as the lobby), a procession of tourists stopped in their tracks as they passed through security, alternately stunned and thrilled by the juxtaposition of the venerable hall with the three big screens and throngs of exuberant players.

“This is pretty cool, and it definitely expands the audience of the library,” said Garrett Lynn, 15, a ninth grader at Rockhurst High School in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s good because you don’t see too many kids my age in a place like this to check out a book.”

Donna Roth, 50, a makeup artist from nearby Prairie Village, Kan., and a chaperon for Mr. Lynn’s visit to New York with her son Donald, answered, “But you should!”

Across the hall, Radhames Saldivar, 16, a 10th grader from upper Manhattan, ripped through a blistering rendition of Heart’s “Barracuda” on Guitar Hero III. Afterward he said: “I never thought I’d see this happen. I might have to check out the library some more.”

A few feet away, Carlos Rivera, 16, said he helped organize the regular Friday afternoon game sessions at the Jefferson Market library branch in Greenwich Village.

“I thought a library was just for books, just for studying, just for a lot of things I don’t normally do,” he said. “But when I found out the library was starting to have games it was great, because it’s really good to hear that the library is paying more attention to the youth and what we’re into.”

He paused. “And it’s also good because I can just say to my parents, ‘I’m going to the library.’”

I don't think it's fair to expect the users /out there/ to accept us stepping into their turf, if we the libraries remain protectionist and don't allow them to step into ours. This is even more obnoxious than staying in our own ivory towers and cathedrals and expect the users will come to us automatically.

"...and are we as mindful as we should be of the culture of the online communities we’re trying to leverage to promote library services?"

Maybe 'leveraging' is the problem. My experience with social networks is that they are about sharing and showing and when they are used for leveraging and marketing it feels like a incursion. If you're trying to get something out of the deal it will show and feel out of place to most users.