Alaska Bush Library Service

Wow,

It is hard to believe that the 2007-08 school year is upon us already.  Today is the first day of the year.  I didn’t get my list of things that I wanted to before school started, so I am starting tonight to finish consolidating the MARC records before we reload them to Koha.

I need to order Harry Potter #7 for all schools and Battle Books for schools that wanted them.  Cleaning the desk was the first job and it is done for the most part.  I still have a lot of books that need to be set up and ready to go, but I can see the top of my desk which is a plus over this morning.  Here is a list of the upcoming events that I need to finish.

1. KOHA record integration.
2. Battle Book orders.
3. Harry Potter orders.
4. RIF distribution box up.

I also need to set up for the AASL conference that will be done before the week is out.  Boy, I hope this all gets done.

I had a lot of plans of what to finish this summer.  I need to get a list started and put a few hours a day into working on it.  I want all my MARC records to be combined into a union catalog, I want to run Linux on a computer and start my own programming, and I want to digest all the information that I received at the NECC 2007 conference.

I know that it shouldn’t be hard to have a program compare ISBNs of books and combine the records.  That will probably be the next step.

Koha version 2.2.9 was released today.  I will try to upload it to a machine that is running Linux Ubunto today.  I hope that all goes well and that I can see what the Opac looks like before I send off records or updates to Dan to upload, only to find that I don’t like the changes.

Book Expo 07 is shaping up nicely.  They have a scheduler in which you can check off the sessions that you want to attend and print out a schedule to follow.  I say print off, because I feel that I will have enough books to gather that I won’t be carrying my computers with me.  That in itself will be a different experience.  I don’t think I have attended a conference without a laptop in eight years.  I wonder if I can still take notes in the normal way.

A new website that I found today through the ACRLog post about how to keep up with technology.  I want to Web 2.0 applications  has listings of new Web 2.0 technologies that we may want to know how to use.  They are categorized by what they do.  I will use this site a lot over the summer to teach myself some of these technologies.

If I can get to all I want to this summer, I will be busy and productive.  That will be a lot of fun.

I am attempting to gain admission to University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa School of Library Information. This has required me to step out of my box to some extent. I took the Miller’s Analogies Test. The results came back today. I was expecting to be in the 60th percentile based on my raw score. I am in the 89th. I am hoping that helps me to get in. I have gathered my transcripts, letters of recommendation, written my purpose statement, and sent it all in. Now, comes the waiting time. This is new to me. I have not had to apply for admission to college before. I hope the wait doesn’t seem too interminable.

Next week I am starting to travel again. I will spend a week in Brevig Mission. They finished some new construction there. During the construction period a class moved into the library. I know there will be maintenance to take care of. I will work with the library aide and build some training modules for Koha based on what we find difficult.

I gave a presentation at the Alaska Library Association conference last weekend. This week I will give another one today for the Alaska Society for Technology Education.  One of the interesting aspects of the two presentations is finding out who wants to know more about this program.

One colleague ask me to make sure that I mentioned how much time this has taken for me.  She wanted to make sure that I had talked about both sides of instituting Koha.  I did mention it because I know thatI need to rein in my enthusiasm for this program.  Five people attended the session at the library conference.  It will be fun to see how many people are at the session today.

I did have one librarian let me know that she was driving up to Anchorage a day early for a meeting so that she can be here this afternoon.  She wasn’t at the session in Juneau because she knew I would be here.  That gets logged as on of the biggest ego boosters I have had in this process.

Monday starts the training sessions with library aides.  They make a normal group of people when it comes to technology.  Some are raring to go with the program, some are willing to get into it, and some aren’t interested in it at all.

Today was a great day in the training arena.  Maggie, the library assistant in my office, was asked to check out some books.  I had already checked the books out in Koha and wanted her to check them out in LibraryPro.  The first step she took was to check them out in Koha.  She quickly realized that the page I had handed her was a print out from Koha, but I was thrilled that her first step was to look at the new program that she isn’t as comfortable with.

The library aide that lives on Diomede Island, three miles from Russia, has Skyped me a few times over the last couple of days asking for clarification.  She loves the new program and sees the improvements over Library Pro.  Even the library aide in Savoonga has emailed me to ask a question or two.  While I knew he would like the new program, the fact that he is attempting to use it and understand it really makes me proud.

Now back to checking out materials from Library Pro and reprogramming the bar code reader.

The problem was a directory that hadn’t been installed. I posted my problem to the listserv for Koha today and found that information. Tonight Dan looked at the file and uploaded the necessary file and we are uploading MARC records.

SirsiDynix put on a great webcast this morning entitled 25 technologies in 50 minutes. This was very well done. I am happy that 90% of the technologies I have used. Now I just need to learn the other 10%. One of the best ideas I got from the class was to just spend 15 minutes a day learning the new technologies. With that we should be able to keep up.

As I have now been at work for 13 hours, I think it is time to go home. I can guarantee that I will be back here at 7 am tomorrow for the fun of uploading the records to Koha. It feels so good to have made progress.

I read the article Disconnects Between Library Culture and Millennial Generation Values  in the new issue of Educause.  A checklist is mentioned that would be good for libraries at all levels to ask themselves:

What is your library doing to:

• Support the user’s affinity for self-paced, independent, trial-and-error methods of learning? - Are we putting up online tutorials for students to look at when they need to?  I have seen some libraries that have iPod guides for library tours. Currently, I have built some online tutorials for using the Alaska Statewide Databases.
• Create opportunities to make library information look and behave like information that exists in online entertainment venues?  This may be the best place and time to install Worldcat buttons and the new search features of Google for each of our libraries.  Websites that interact with the students rather than sit there and wait for student to search and the OPAC to distribute information.  Why haven’t we added the ability for students to leave their book reviews in our OPACs?  I think a lot of this has to do with the software we have at our disposal.  I am hoping that this is something that will be able to the added to Koha down the road.
• Explore alternative options for delivering information literacy skills to users in online environments and alternate spaces?  I return to the online tutorials for students to gain information.  In my position, I am usually not at the student’s side when they need the information.  I am connected through three different IM programs for students to get a hold of me when they need to.  The problem I am finding is how do I advertise this so it is there when students need it.
• Apply the typical user’s desire for instant gratification to the ways that libraries could be using technology for streamlined services? I am not sure how we can meet these needs.  I do know what I do which is offer inter library loan so that users know that their needs are met, even if it will take a week to get the book.  I have added downloads to my district’s wiki of sites that give students the information they need to meet different standards.
• Redefine administrative, security, and policy restrictions to permit online users an online library experience that rivals that of a library site visit? I think we need more audiobooks that are downloadable and a better way to provide this service.  Copyright stipulations need to be met, but I would love to figure a way that students have access to the electronic resources, electronically rather than having to visit the library.
• Preserve born-digital information?  This is a matter of who is willing to stand up and pay for the storage medium.  It is easy to be in charge of the digital medium as long as you are willing to ensure that the materials are always accessible through current technology.  I think we have seen enough errors in this by now that we know how to keep abreast of changing technologies that we can revisit our ability to preserve materials on a yearly basis. — or am I the only one who lost all my MARC records by using an antiquated back up method?

I hope this gets us thinking to how we can provide the millennials the best library experience they can get.  We have moved a long way with technology.

My high school librarian was so afraid that the computer would make her unnecessary to the research process that she actually removed subjects, ISBNs, authors, and other parts of the MARC records so that students would have to come to her for the information.  I only know this because I became a library aide there before getting my own school library.  I spent the year adding full records and deleting a LOT of books that wouldn’t ever be used.

We need to embrace the technologies that our students are embracing and make sure that our libraries will always be the place that our students can gain more access to information.