Barbara – Page 5 – Stopped by the Train

Library is heart of Monowi

Watching CBS Sunday Morning today, my ears perked up when I heard the word “library.” In this case, the library is in Monowi, a small town in Nebraska, about 100 miles west of Sioux City on route 12. Monowi has one resident. According to its Wikipedia entry, Monowi had 130 residents in its peak years in the 1930s. The CBS story originally aired last year.

The town’s sole resident, Elsie Eiler, founded the 5,000 book library with the collection of her husband, Rudy, who died in 2004. There are pictures of the town and its library in the February 2005 Cave News blog piece.

Three things struck me about this little human interest piece: (1) The news story – whose inclusion of the library seems to validate the town’s existence. In other words, that the concepts town and library are mutually dependent. (2) Comments following the Cave News piece contain offers from numerous people who want to donate books to the library, a common problem in all libraries – the dropping off of unwanted books. (hope Elsie has a good collection policy.) (3) Additionally, comments in the blog piece express an interest in moving to Monowi, as an idealic place to live. Interesting that no one seems to have carried through and expanded the town’s population.

Leadership as musical enablement

While playing organ for a worship service this morning, I carried the analogy begun in my previous post even further.

Whenever I play organ in a church, I hear my German Lutheran Grandpa Walter’s voice — indeed his spirit often is near me. He used to complain mightily about the organist in his church (who, incidentally, was my beginning piano teacher.) He said she played too loudly, “only for herself,” he claimed.

As I’ve thought about his critical comments, I now know that the duty of the organist is as accompanist to guide the worshippers through their experience, and lead them in song. They are not there to put on a concert, there are other venues for that. The organist introduces the song, sets the tempo, outlines the melody, undergirds the dynamics, and then gets out of the way to let the people sing. One of my favorite things to do (in a congregation of good singers when the hymn is well-known) is to drop down to a whisper or maybe even drop out altogether for a verse or a section of a capella singing. The organ, with its myriad of hidden orchestra components, frames the entire program. With a prelude, the organ centers the attention; in soft, hushed tones it underlies the prayers; through modulation of keys, provides bridges between progressive elements of the liturgy, with trumpets, it soars with joy; all the while providing the infrastructure upon which community worship and singing happens.

Aha — organizational leadership! Good leaders set the tone, provide the accompaniment, and get out of the way so that others can accomplish their purpose. And, if the leader is a good one, does it all not for their own glory.

So to wrap this analogy to a beneficial conclusion, and not go on ad nauseum ;^)
A good library leader:
1. Builds a staff with diverse skills
2. Brings the staff together in teams
3. Blends some teams together as appropriate for tasks
4. Selects compositions/programs for appropriate times/places/audiences
5. Guides teams through the composition of projects
6. Determines planning and pace of programs
7. Enables others to be all they can be (darn, there’s that military influence in my background coming out again)
8. Does not detract from purpose through self-aggrandization

I know a number of library leaders who share my passion for music, specifically organ — Lars, Judy, Fran, Jane, Linda, are a few that come quickly to mind. Bet they already know this.

Leadership as a harmonious blending

Avocation: a subordinate occupation pursued in addition to one’s vocation especially for enjoyment : Hobby Merriam-Webster online dictionary

My first career in music became my avocation quite a while ago — which was the best thing that ever happened for me, since now I find therapy in making music. But when I quit music as a career field, I missed the rush of conducting a performing organization and the feeling of satisfaction in bringing the best interpretation forward through my conductor’s baton. I would point at one group, and they would add their voices; gesture to another section and they would whisper their accompaniment; while I lifted the soloist to bring out the melody.

I recouped some of that feeling through playing the organ. At my fingertips, I had the instruments of the orchestra at my beck and call. What fun, to mold a composition to my individual style. My right brain was challenged, and balanced the left brain logic and analytical thinking I was doing at work.

Somehow, while practicing today, “work me” invaded “personal me” when I realized that playing the organ is a microcosm of organizational leadership. Just as I set up various instrument combinations on each manual, with complementing voices and timbres, I look for complementing skills and attributes in staff teams. Where I use couplers to bring various voicings on the organ into other settings, I bring additional resources into various work projects that I’m leading. Adding a higher pitched stop adds a brilliance, and adding more bass to the pedal gives a stronger foundation.

It’s raining!

After a long period of no rain, and with 40% of Minnesota in drought, you can see why this is a great picture – it’s been raining all day. You can just see everything greening up — along with the puddles all over.

Minnesota history made today

8-1-07 — the date the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis went down. I can’t remember the last time I drove across the bridge, but I’ll sure remember the day it fell. I’m praying for everyone, and wondering if friends or family were on the bridge when it went down.

It’s been over 4 hours, and except for a short outing with my dog Lucky, who doesn’t let me miss our evening walk, I haven’t strayed far from the TV. Recently we’ve had news conferences and everyone has been saying “check our website” — for emergency information, for traffic routes to get downtown now that a major route has disappeared, for victim contact information. It strikes me that this is yet another example of the Digital Divide between those of us who have computers and Internet accounts and those who don’t.

Offered websites:
KARE-11
City of Minneapolis Website
WCCO

Day of the American Cowboy

Today, July 28th, is National Day of the American Cowboy, introduced into the Senate by Wyoming Senator Thomas Craig* on March 21, 2007 and passed by the Senate May 25, 2007. S. Res. 130 .

The Cowboy is not only an American tradition, but a very real part of western life, which I grew to appreciate while living in South Dakota. The opening lines of the resolution relate the importance of the American Cowboy very well:

Whereas pioneering men and women, recognized as cowboys, helped establish the American West;
Whereas that cowboy spirit continues to infuse this country with its solid character, sound family values, and good common sense;
Whereas the cowboy embodies honesty, integrity, courage, compassion, respect, a strong work ethic, and patriotism;
Whereas the cowboy loves, lives off of, and depends on the land and its creatures, and is an excellent steward, protecting and enhancing the environment;
Whereas the cowboy continues to play a significant role in the culture and economy of the United States;
Whereas approximately 800,000 ranchers are conducting business in all 50 States and are contributing to the economic well being of nearly every county in the Nation;
resolution continues

Some of the best library programs we sponsored in South Dakota featured cowboy poets. There’s a great cowboy poetry site Cowboy Music and Poetry from the Western Folklife Center in Elko Nevada. For a modern poet, I especially like Linda Hasselstrom. Read or listen to her Carolyn, Miranda, and Me.

*Senator Thomas served in the Senate for 12 years, and died June 4, 2007 of complications of leukemia following treatment. (Wikipedia)

Can’t use American Express for Beebopareebop

updated July 30th added photos – thanks, Ruth

Just a few steps off the Lake Wobegon Trail is the Fisher’s Club – A Fairly Good Place for Quite Some Time. If it sounds like something off the Prairie Home Companion, you’re almost right – Garrison Keillor is part owner – has been since 2005. However, Fisher’s Club has been there since 1932, when George “Showboat” Fisher opened it. Showboat, who loved hunting and fishing, had just retired from ten years of major league baseball, playing for the Washington Senators and the St. Louis Cardinals, and didn’t want to get tied down with a year-round job so he opened Fisher’s Club on the northeast shore of Middle Spunk Lake.

I had a wonderful evening there last week with a group of librarian friends. Driving through the small town of Avon to the outskirts, where you park on the grass surrounding the crushed rock parking lot, it felt like coming home to the heart of America. The Club sits back from a public swimming beach. The service was a little laid back, the un-conditioned air was Minnesota warm and humid. You can eat inside (why would you do that?) or on the porch. The food was good; I had the half order Fisher’s Famous Walleye Fillet – couldn’t imagine the full order.

And then the best part – Beebopareebop Rhubarb Pie with a scoop of ice cream (for only 50 cents extra). I even hummed the song under my breath. Wished I had room for the Powdermilk Biscuits Strawberry Shortcake, which looked just as good.

So, if you’re driving up I-94 north of St Cloud, make the stop. Wear cool clothes and bring cash, Visa, or Mastercard. Just don’t bring American Express – they don’t take it.

National Hot Dog Month

How did I miss it? And it’s almost over! July is National Hot Dog Month, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. (librarians always cite the source of their information). While everyone else at the cookout oohs and ahs over the burgers and steaks and kabobs, just give me an all American hot dog, the more charcoaled the better. In fact, while the rest of my family is eagerly anticipating an August trip to Miller Park to see the Brewers, I’m going for the hot dogs.

After 2 days at a top notch WiLSWorld conference, talking about open source, research and development, net neutrality, and online communities, (see previous 6 posts) it will be good to think summer, cookouts, and hot dogs.

WiLSWorld #6

continue live blogging

Net Neutrality: What Is It, and Why Should Libraries Care?
Bob Bocher, Wisconsin State Library Division
Technology Consultant
WI Dept of Public Instruction

visual – Hawaiian shirt

how long has Bob been doing it? “he used to keypunch”

http://dpi.wi.gov/pld/ppt/netneutral.ppt

issue didn’t exist before 2-3 years ago
we are in present state because of regularions FCC chose not to enforce or disbanded

Net neutrality ensures that all users can access the content or run the applications and devices of their choice. with net neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data – not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service. (Benton Foundation)

issue predates Internet
based on common carrieage
telecom: no one is refused service; all calls are connected regardkess of location or content

Major legal difference between:
Telecommunication service (Title II)- strong common carrier language
Information service (Title I) – weak language
transport of data goes back to late 60s and early 70s when IBM wanted to send data. AT&T initially didn’t want to allow them to do it. FCC said that ATT could not prevent or prohibit data any more than voice.

1990s: most consumers had dial-up
More than 7,500 dial-up ISPs
Most telecom/cable companies were ISPs
2000s: more consumers moving to broadband
More telecom/cable companies providing BB
Eroding line between telecom providers and ISPs

See home broadband adoption chart from Pew
FCC defines broadband as 200K (low threshold)

U.S. is 15th or 20th in residential broadband
In other countries, government took an initiative to supply broadband
U.S. is at 47% range
Republicans want to base more BB access on competition
2002 FCC said local cable not subject to common carrier language
2005 FCC deregulates broadband
FCC issues “bradband access to the Internet” principles (feel good principles
2007: FCC issues “Broadband Notice of Inquiry”

need to keep watchful eye to make sure ISPs don’t become Internet gatekeepers

Netrality supported by:
Consumer organizations
1st Amendment supporters
Content providers
Education & library community

Netrality opposed by:
Telecom/cable companies
ISPs
Orgs that oppose government regulation

Net Neutrality Supporters
End users lose control
Stifle innovation and new services/applications
Concerns with evolving vertical market where telecom/cable providers control: the underlying circuit, actual Internet access itself, increasing share of content
Little competition for voice/video/data services

Net Neutrality Opponents
Must be able to manage network
Telecom/cable need return infrastructure investments
Cannot control legislative outcome
No cases of abuse or distrimination
Market is better mechanism to address issue

Impact on Libraries
Libraries are acess providers
Libraries are content providers
Libraries don’t have deep pockets
Could make ISP selection difficult
Libraries concerned with digital divide and equity of access, First amendment issues, diversity opinions

WiLSWorld #5

live blogging at WiLSWorld

a few notes before the morning session starts: Back at the Pyle Center in Madison Wisconsin. I (as well as the other Minnesota librarians here) didn’t go to the membership meeting. Went to the bookstore – stocked up on Bucky Badger T-shirts (Wisconsin native that I am).
Lots of energy here. Still lots of Hawaiian shirts (wonder if they washed them? – or have 2?)
Restaurant recommendation – Porto Bella last night was one of the best Italian restaurants I’ve ever been to.

Brave New Online Worlds: Social Networks, Online Communities, and Multi-User Virtual Environments
Tom Peters, TAP Information Services

a visual – Tom: no Hawaiian shirt, pretty green lei. An LJ Mover and Shaker

Second Life avatar – Maxido Ricardo (sp????)

Newsflash — it’s raining in Madison!!!!!!

Last night was leading a book discussion in Second Life.
No snappy title, title like a dissertation
Going to be predicting the future

Living in volatile times for libraries. What about relevance of librarianship.

www.tapinformation.com/WiLSWorld200707.htm (slides will be posted)

Rule #1 – don’t try to predict the future because you usually will be proven wrong

Behooves us to notice what changes are happening in world of our users

fairy tales to get at basic human tendancies
“hare” is human imagination. when confronted with a new technology we often race ahead in our minds to what seems to be plausible conclusions and outcomes.

“tortoise” is human lived experience.
it often takes years for reality to catch up to human imagination

unrealized vision of paperless society
nearly all information is now created in digital format
Standford study – 95% of information being created is being created digitally

Henny Penny Syndrome
sky is falling
some new technology is going to kill libraries and librarianship
HPS is caused by the Hare and Tortoise phenomenon
example – E-mail lists did not kill conference attendance

needed: a henny penny meter
henpenomemter or HPM for short
measures the henny penniness of our collective response to technological development
web initially had a low HPM score, but it has risen since
Google Mass Digitation had a high HPM score, but falling

thesis: many don’t see an important relationship between libraries & social networks, online communities, and virtual worlds (example Marshall Breeding)
nevertheless, TP thinks they could have a significant effect

(asked if anyone is twittering him – makes him nervous if people are twittering or blogging him)

Individuals, communities, libraries

Communities
lots of things get called communities
shared environment, interests, needs
communities often support “public goods” – libraries, schools, parks
Our social response to public goods has been changing (not the same as it was in the ’50s)
eg – charging an entry fee to a national park
Libraries serve communities
any library has potential user population, as well as user populations
some innovative libraries create communities
are we capable of creating communities in online environments?

talking about twittering – examples about how people might be having a twittering conversation about what speaker is saying
TP not sure what friendship means online. It’s a different kind.
not an either-or situation (online versus earthly communities)
see Castronova’s 2005 book, Synthetic Worlds
we ignore, at our peril, the economies of virtual worlds (Castronova)
impact on funding for libraries could really affect us

communities summarized:
earthly: general, localized population
Virtual: specialized, global population

Social Networks
basic concepts: nodes and ties
he says Illinois takes the cake for overlapping consortia

Online Social Networks
Facebook
MySpace
LibraryThing
Flickr
Flirtomatic
Twitter
Second Life

LibraryThing community sprang out of nothing
Online communities spring up because of something else someone is trying to do
TP is a reference librarian in Second Life (Monday nights)
Flickr has evolved into a community
not used Flirtomatic

had dinner with someone who got 20 Twitters during dinner. she demonstrated that there’s a lot of value in it for her.

What’s happening to the individual
***coming struggle between the individual and the group
smart mobs
wisdom of crowds – disturbing to TP. infers that even an expert is not as smart as the average of the crowd
online communities

Attemts to tap into group power
Communism (political, economic, social)
Trade Unions (economic, polical, social)
Wisdom of Crowd (informational, economic, social)

An aside: blogs vs. wikis
Blogs about individual mind. accumulate and present knowledge sequentially.
Wikis are about collective intelligence. present knowledge communially.
wikis leave out the distillation of process of looking up 5 sources (eg)

Future of the indivual
Individuals already operate in several communities (work, home, professiona., avocational, etc.)
Individual self will span severalenvironments (earth, web, virtual worlds). People will draw information from varying sources in several environments.
Indivudal may become subserviant in new ways to groups.

what does all have to do with libraries
libraries serve communities by supporting individuals
support geographically constrained communities
libraries funded locally

end of romantic library?
relationship between indivual and group
romantics put individual on a pedestal
all creativity comes from individual
western culture had a romantic movement.
can’t get our minds around balance of power between society and indivual
frontier spirit has a lot to do with romantic (indivualistic) spirit

romantic library
focuses on indivuals
quiet place for silent & reflection
do not directly foster community
diffuses knowledge
foster indivual exptertise

Rustication of Expertise
rusticated – sent away from university to think about it
in future experts associated with universities may decline

importance of indivual expertise to the advancement of humanity may actually decline in the near future
cites Michael Gorman – may believe romantic view of library right for past and future

want to be unsettled? David Weinberger, Everything is Miscellaneous

knowing and knowledge may become group process
knowledge through conversation
library as conversation

usage/funding disconnect
library patrons don’t care about geographic boundaries. in usage patterns, they’re already there
USAGE GLOBAL, FUNDING LOCAL
have to deal with

Virtual Worlds
3-D worlds
populated by avatars
like & unlike the Real World
second life
teen second life
Whyville
ActiveWorlds

Max his dog is inspiration for his avatar

real world libraries: detente between people and paper (% of humidity)
most info interaction has been 2-dimensional
Virtual libraries are 3D. makes senses for people. Will eventually be for information.

emphasis on digital objects persisted through the transition from print to digital
in virtual worlds, events and exhibits seem more than than collections.
all about the experience
what kind of library will it be if it’s more about events and exhibits than collections??????????

What is King?
content?
Community?
Conversation?
Experience? (Steven Abram)

what should li
braries do?
address the usage/funding disconnect
embrace library 2.0 tools and concepts as if no tomorrow
build and test prototype information experiences (about experience and not objects)

Brave new world?
from multi-tasking to multi-worlding
from romantic libraries to communal knowledge repositories

task
apply trends and affordances of online communal networks to the enduring mission of libraries
avoid henny pennyishness

social mores very different in vertual worlds

Reference in 2nd Life, replicating the reference service in physical
very expensive, labor intensive

average age of people with 2nd life avatars are 33
this is the way of people getting out (don’t need babysitter for small children)

We don’t understand browsing as a behavior. In an area of rich browsing environment, you slow down. Browsing in an ambient information environment, interacting with it.