EKU Reads: Selecting a Book for 2008

I've been reading non-stop since winter break began for Eastern Kentucky University. I'm a member of the EKU Reads Committee, the group responsible for selecting a title for a shared reading experience for new students in 2008. The purpose of the program is to select a high interest book for incoming students that will be a spring board for discussion in the fall. The challenge is finding a book that will appeal to male and female students, that rises to the literary standards of the faculty and that promises an engaging and well-attended culminating author lecture for the campus community. Most importantly, we want to choose a book that students will take home from summer orientation and read. I'm experimenting with my blog as a strategy for working with the committee and gathering the collective thoughts of our group.

Puttin' My Wiki to Work

I've taken a short break from my learning 2.0 lessons due to a lack of time. But, I'm back in the game as of today. Instead of starting where I stopped, I jumped ahead to the Wiki lessons. In mid-July I offered to investigate how a Wiki might help a new state wide task force. It should be a perfect application of my new found knowledge.

Discovery #1: Developing a Wiki is not brain surgery! In about one hour, I developed a Wiki for the task force complete with a front page and two additional pages (with movie clips and documents). Very fun! Now let's see how it works to facilitate our process of developing a collaborative proposal to eventually share with librarian colleagues across the state.

Cheeseburger at the Reference Desk

I got a lot of mileage out of the Mercedes Benz commercial this fall. If you haven't seen the blond co-ed try to order a cheeseburger and french fries at the reference desk, you have to watch and laugh. I showed the clip to new faculty at Eastern Kentucky University just after introducing myself during their day-long orientation. They laughed and it seemed to wake them up just in time to hear me brag about the library: our collections, our people and our services. The clip was a perfect segway into the generalizations we make about the Millenial student. Students today often choose to search the free web rather than ask for research help at the reference desk. And, doesn't the desk look like the perfect place to put in an order for a late night snack?

Mercedes Benz Commercial: The Library Blonde Girl Disturbs !

Flickr Fun in Cumberland Falls

I'm sitting in my room at Cumberland Falls State Park working on my EKU Libraries Learning 2.0 lesson for week #3. My afternoon was spent attending The Kentucky Academic Library Summit. Tommorow,we'll continue our discussion and prioritize the pressing issues for our state. Then, SAALCK (state assisted academic library council of Kentucky) will meet for their montly meeting. I am shocked to learn that our state has never before invited academic librarians to gather for a retreat or meeting like the one we're having today. I expect positive outcomes.

Back to flickr- I am having FUN! My experience with uploading photographs has been with shutterfly and kodak. While these tools have been helpful by allowing me to share photograhs with family and friends, I can see advantages to flickr. I like the idea of sharing my photographs outside of my usual confined group of contacts. I also love the tagging capabilities. Unknowingly, I jumped into an option that allows users to post photographs on a map. This would be a fun way to geographically organize images.

Next week Cindi Trainor will take the EKU Library staff on a visual fieldtrip of academic libraries. She had the unique opportunity to accompany her former Dean and a group of architects on a trip to Duke, Emory, Harvard, Rice and Dartmouth. Not many of us have the time or money to travel and see the creative ways institutions of higher learning are designing and recreating spaces for learning. However, flickr is a tool that makes it possible for the academic library community to post pictures of our facilities. The Studio for Academic Creativity promisses to be a flexible and inspiring space for EKU Students. I think it will help our staff to visualize some of the creative spaces we've been imagining and discussing for a very long time.

Elsie Pritchard, the Library Dean at Morehead State University, said something at today's summit that caused me to reconsider our audience for next week's presentation. Many people throughout higher education face similar challenges and discuss the same trends, regardless of the discipline. Student Affairs, Career Counseling and IT departments are all faced with the task of recreating old spaces and thoughtfully designing new ones. I know people across campus would benefit from the pictures that Cindi will share next week. Flickr will allow us to share best practices with our colleagues. Perhaps some will even join us in the library for the presentation.

Face Book and Libraries

As a library administrator, I always consider ways we utilize our human resources. The question is, "Is creating a library Facebook account time well-spent?" If the point of social software is connect people, then why would someone want to be friends with a library? I'd much rather add a librarian or person to my friend list. Obviously, there are people behind the library account, but you get my drift.

I also can't imagine all librarians wanting to define or expose themselves as the "Eastern Kentucky" network librarian. Perhaps this is the rational behind a library organization's presence instead of a personal presence? It seems to me that an organizational presence would limit the scope of the account and in some ways limit the human component that makes facebook appealing to so many.

Facebook can be considered just another strategy for outreach. Most people don't understand what we do. If we can put search boxes, book recommendations, and upcoming library events on our personal profiles, and it leads to increased exposure and use of our resources, why shouldn't we consider it a useful way to spend our time?

As you can see, I'm all over the place in my thinking. I will continue to contemplate the issue.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Watch and learn.