Preconference Day 2 – Open Source CMS Playroom

Amanda Hollister and Karen Coombs teamed up to deliver an afternoon packed full of good information on choosing an open source Content Management System for our libraries.  Starting with defining a CMS – a system for creating, organizing and publishing web content – they then went on to give us the purpose for using such a system.  A CMS can  give other librarians the ability to update their own subject content on a web page rather than depending on the web developer to perform these tasks.  The web developer then focuses on site management rather than content management.

Three different open source solutions were discussed during the afternoon - WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal.  Each had their own strengths and issues.  This is a very brief summary of what I learned:
WordPress: (Based on PHP and MySQL) - 
Strengths:
Easy to use
Lots of plugins available
Easy to create new themes or modify existing themes
Large user base. – VERY active community with a wide range of users.
Won’t handle program registrations, but will handle forms – plugin for emailed forms.
Content to handle javascript if on your own server. 
WordPress Issues
Can’t easily create custom content types
Lacks flexibility to deal with complex types of objects with different types of fields out of the box.
Customizing display of group of page/posts requires knowledge of PHP.

Joomla - (Needs PHP 5.2, MySQL & Apache)
Strengths
Exceptional flexibility
After a few hurdles, Joomla is easy to use.
Good community support
 At least 3 front-end and 3 back-end levels of access
Joomla Issues
 High learning curve
Many extensions are not updated to 1.5X
 Many templates are not updated to 1.5X

Drupal as CMS – powerful in its ability to do so much stuff. (PHP and MySQL backend)
Strongly recommended using PHP5
Drupal Strengths:
Exceptional flexibility
Easy to create new content types
Substantial user base particularly in libraries
Drupal Issues
Some modules are buggy and problematic
 High learning curve
Not as many modules and filters developed as one would like.
Library-related modules in particular missing in some areas.

BOTTOM LINE:
WordPress best for small sites.
Joomla is best for medium sites, average complexity, relatively easy user interface.
Drupal can handle multiple, large, complex sites

Lessons Learned:
Learning a CMS takes time.
Important to map out your site’s content to know what modules, widgets need to be installed.
Need to decide how you want your site to look in order to choose an appropriate theme
Understand each CMS’s strengths and limitations.

I’m still not sure which CMS I’ll recommend for our Library’s web content, but this workshop certainly gave me lots of food for thought and a clearer vision of the issues involved in the process of selecting a system.

IL2009 – Digital Photographer Boot Camp

I had been looking forward to this preconference for over a year, and it lived up to my expectations!  Our three presenters (Michael Porter, Amanda Hollister and Michael Sauers) introduced themselves by discussing their ten favorite photographs.  It was an effective tool to not only see a bit of their personalities, but also the kinds of photographs they liked to take. 
Michael Porter started his part of the presentation with the who, why and how of  marketing our library events through photographs.  Normally, we are the who – although it can be anyone on the staff who actually enjoys taking photographs.  The why is also pretty obvious.  Photographs are a great tool to communicate what our library is about – to our local patrons as well as the world at large.  The how is a bit more difficult.  Michael showed us several slides listing the seven principles of design  and the seven main elements of design.   Michael and Amanda both discussed the Rule of Thirds, which I should have known about, but I need to obviously research in a bit more detail.  One of the really interesting things Michael stressed is to plan to reuse your library photos.  Don’t take a photo to use just once – while you’re planning the shoot, be thinking of later ways to use it again

Watching our breakfast being made this morning.

Amanda Hollister was next to give us her great Tips for Taking Great Snaps.  Amanda gave us some great technical info regarding sensor size (yes, size does matter !), exposure and using our histogram, shutter speed and aperture.  She also showed us how to use a piece of white paper to “bounce” a flash off the ceiling to avoid red eye.  She then discussed some basics of composition in taking photos.  But her final message was to practice, practice, practice.  Don’t take just one picture of a subject, but many.  From the many, you may come up with one good one that you’ll want to use.  Post processing was a term I had never heard before, but a practice I normally love to do.  This involves cropping, changing color or exposure levels to make your photos even better.  Software to use can be sophisticated – such as Photoshop – or free, like Gimp.   Just remember, when saving your images for the web, keep them under 100kb in size, with a resolution of 72-96 dpi.
Michael Sauers brought up the whole topic of sharing and using photos online.  He answered many of my personal questions regarding Creative Commons – give credit to creator and not for commercial use.  (Default with Flickr is “All Rights Reserved.”)  Michael showed us several groups for libraries and libraians on Flickr and suggested that we join them.
I came away from this session with renewed energy to resume documenting our Library’s life in photographs.  I also found the answer to the question “Which is the best camera.”  The answer is ”the one you have with you!”  Thus, the photo in this posting was taken with my “point and shoot” Canon this morning as I watched the skilled chef at Monterey Crepe Compay make my crepe.  It’s not a great shot, but it certainly captured his work!!  Did I pass the class, guys??

October is National ***** Month

As a genealogist, I’m well aware that October is National Family History Month.  As a librarian, I was sadly unaware that October is also National Cyber Security Awareness Month.  With the advent of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, sometimes the joy and excitement of connecting with old friends and making new friends online blind us to the hidden dangers to our security lurking on these pages.  It’s so easy to get caught up in taking one more quiz, or participating in one more poll that your friends have taken and then posted.  But have you ever really read the fine print associated with some of these applications – I mean REALLY read it?  The word “Share” is prominent in all that I’ve read lately, and I’m just not that much of a sharing kind of person.

For years I’ve cautioned my sons about divulging too much personal information to strangers online.  Recently, my oldest son took me to task for my Facebook profile.  He works for the State Department (If he told me what he did, he’d have to silence me) and the first thing he was required to do was to “scrub” all social networking sites associated with his name.  He removed all personal, educational, social and work-related information from each of his profiles.  He then strongly advised me to do the same for mine.  While I haven’t followed his instructions completely, I have taken a second look at the information I’ve given out for the world to view.  Much of it I’ve removed and some I’ve changed.  I’ve stopped blissfully taking every new survey or quiz that pops up in a friend’s posting.  In other words, I’ve become much more cyber-security conscious.  Celebrate National Cyber Security Awareness Month by reviewing the personal information that you’ve posted for friends and others to see, and make sure you’re comfortable with your choices.

The Joys of Shelf Reading

One of our annual events each year is the shelf reading blitz that happens after summer reading is over and before school starts.  Librarians take this task in stride and rush to claim their own subject areas to put into order prior to moving on to other collections.  Not only do we put the materials in correct Dewey order, but many of us take this opportunity to weed our area as well.  Since I purchase materials in the 004 – 006 area of computers, my books and DVDs tend to need frequent updating and discarding.  Last week I finally got rid of my Windows 95 and 98 books as well as the DOS books.  Wouldn’t you know it – - the minute I weed these items, we have requests for them!!  That DOS for Dummies book hadn’t circulated in several years.  Now I was forced to interloan it thought Michigan eLibrary.  If I had waited to shelf read just one more week, we would have had this book in stock. 

Thankfully,  another area of my collection duties is genealogy & local history.  Since many of these books deal with historic topics, they tend not to go out of date.  I’m familiar with my dedicated genealogy patrons and know better than to discard their cherished favorite books!  Other than slipping thin volumes of local cemetery records back into order, my patrons keep close watch on the order of the books they use for their research. 

It’s a joy to have such diverse collections, including my new favorite – the video games for adults.  There is no shelf reading there since 90% of them are constantly out in circulation.  My six Nintendo DS game systems have never remained on the shelf for more than an hour at a time, so this is a mute point.

Summer is ending and my shelf reading / weeding is done.  Now we anxiously await the happy pitter-patter of middle schoolers’ gym shoes and cell phone ringtones and will know that another school year has started.  This is our last week of peace and quiet for many months to come!

Saying Farewell to old ways

Today we’ll be having a farewell party for our Adult Services Coordinator as she enters retirement.  This good friend welcomed me to the Library staff when I started my career over 23 years ago – and tomorrow I bid her goodbye professionally.  I see her retirement as also an end to a style and model of library service.  This is neither a good nor bad thing — just a recognition of the changing face of librarianship.  Many (myself included) who received MLS degrees 20 or more years ago didn’t have technology classes as part of our training.  We had traditional subject area courses as well as collection development and cataloging.  As computers and the Internet emerged on the scene, those of us who naturally gravitated to those areas made it a point to educate ourselves through additional classes or hands on practice.  For other librarians, they preferred to stick to the time-honored duties of traditional reference service. 

Today’s graduates must find it very frustrating to hear about card catalogs, tickler files, original cataloging and other practices that we still refer to with nostalgia.  Older librarians may find social networking applications, video game programming and instant reference chat either confusing or not really library appropriate things.  Change is always difficult for us – yet we do it.  Our retiring Coordinator worked hard to help bring these changes to our staff, even though it was difficult for her to understand at times.  Whoever replaces her will most likely be part of the new generation of librarians who grew up using computers and accepted them as an integral part of library service.  I anticipate new practices and innovative ways of helping our patrons being introduced to the staff.  While I will dearly miss my friend and mentor, I also look forward to working with whoever replaces her.

Past Projects Now Bearing Fruit

Although I started at the PDLibrary as a children’s librarian, I was always the designated genealogy specialist and local history librarian.  One of my first LSTA grants was to fund creating an index to our local newspaper.  Work continues on this project, now over 20 years old, and I’ve often wondered if it is worth the time and effort of the volunteers.  Last week, I got my answer!  An author from Florida spent seven days in our library researching the histories of the families that started the various air rifle factories in Plymouth.  He is writing a book on the topic and used our index to speed along his work.  Over and over again he thanked me for this wonderful tool.  I also showed him our photographs of the various gun factories, businessmen involved, and the homes in which they lived.  These historic photos were yet another one of those projects I spent a lot of time and energy developing.  I learned how to scan glass plate negatives and then digitally restore them before sending them to the Making of Modern Michigan project.  I had bemoaned how little they were viewed and questioned the wisdom of adding yet a second collection online.  My author used both collections while here in town and told me how much he appreciated being able to view them on the web from his home state.

When his book is published (due out in December) I’m hoping that he will send the Library a copy.  When I see references to our unique index and photo collections in print, it will be truly exciting!

Social Networking in my life

I thought that having a blog and five different email addresses was enough social networking in my very busy life.  I then added four newsreaders for my RSS subscriptions and went into overload.  No more, I swore to myself!!  My Flickr page has well over a thousand photos and videos on it, and my del.icio.us page has hundreds of tags.  I follow over 50 folks on Twitter.  I was determined not to take on any more. 

 Then I discovered that I was required to create an account on Facebook if I wanted to put up a page for the Library.  What harm could one little personal page do?  Facebook has slowly sucked me into its pages just like Dove chocolate beckons to me.  I couldn’t imagine what appeal it would have to a “mature” librarian.  At first, I think the student pages at work felt sorry for me and added me as friends.  Then I found myself connecting with a younger generation of librarians that I either currently work with or have had as professional interns when they were working on their degrees.  So far, so good.  Slowly but surely, older friends from church and past classmates asked to be part of my network.  Suddenly it was becoming very addictive to check every day to see what was happening online. 

Today, I totally hit the Facebook jackpot!  I’ve always wished I had a larger family.  Both my mother and brother are gone and my father is my only remaining blood relative.  I have a few cousins close to me in age, but none are in the state.  Most I haven’t seen in many years.  Wonder of wonders, each time I checked Facebook today, another cousin had asked to be my friend.  I have now ended up with five cousins – from both sides of my family -  in touch with me through social networking on Facebook.  Two of them I’ve never met in person and two I haven’t seen in almost ten years.  The 5th one I saw over two years ago for only a few hours at my son’s wedding in San Diego.  I feel like Facebook has given me a chance to establish new relationships with my extended family members.  Each of them was able to see photos of my sons’ weddings, my beloved granddaughter and the recent med school graduation.  I have no idea how much additional time I’ll be spending on this site, but I suspect it will be well worth it.  For those who say social networking is only for young people, I’d beg to differ with them.  To me, it’s a way to stay in touch with old and new friends & family as we enter a stage in our lives when financial or physical limitations may keep us from visiting each other in person.  I can’t wait to see who will show up next, asking if I will be their friend!

Power Surge Woes

In today’s world, we go about our jobs taking for granted the technology tools that allow us to perform our duties and make life easier for both us and our patrons.  Then “mother nature” – or in this case, downed power lines due to an accident – remind us of what life used to be like before computers.  Our power started surging about 11:30am this past Friday.  The lights in the building were flashing like neon signs on marquees, and we could hear the blowers on the AC and fans turning on and off constantly.  The computers went down, rebooted automatically, and then went back down again in endless cycles.  We finally got stuff unplugged, servers taken down, and even the staff lounge fridge and microwave taken off the grid.  By 1pm we kicked the remaining patrons out and closed the library to the public.  As staff, we had to stay either until closing or until it got too dark or too hot to work.  So what did we do – - well, I got a lot of professional journals read.  I shelved every DVD in the public area.  Other staff members straightened up the youth area and cut out stickers for Summer Reading.  Our student pages shifted books and shelf-read.  In short, we did a lot that we rarely get a chance to do when our computers are up and running.  We had no telephones to distract us and no instant chat or email to answer.  We were planning to leave by 3pm if power didn’t come back on.  At 2:53pm we came back up – what awful luck!!  We spent the next hour plugging stuff back in, bringing up servers and computers, and assessing the damage done by the brown-outs.  We lost several scaners and barcode readers but no servers.  We were very lucky!  But this day served as a reminder of how we used to work before the advent of the Internet.  Not a bad thing, in retrospect.

Job Posting Thoughts

I just sent out postings to several listservs and put a notice on our web page about a job opening for the Coordinator of Adult Services here at the Library.  The current head is retiring after being here for over 25 years.  She’s a good friend of mine, and with her departure I’ll become the senior functioning librarian on the staff in terms of years here.  (This doesn’t count administration.)  Several friends and co-workers have asked me if I intend to apply for this vacancy.  I certainly have the qualifications and knowledge to do a good job in this position.  Then reality hits and I come to the conclusion that I’m simply too old to compete when I’m already old enough to draw early Social Security.  Would I have filled out an application ten years ago – certainly.  Even five years ago I might have considered it.  Now it seems foolhardy.  I can’t tell you how sad it makes me to openly acknowledge  that there are challenges I can’t accept and jobs I can no longer hope to obtain.  What remains is being the very best, up-to-date electronic resources librarian that I can be.  There are still productive years left in my career.  I still want to leave a mark on my profession, no matter how small.  But today, I know that I’ll never take over the office of my retiring friend.

Wedding and Graduation Time

May and June have been extremely busy times for me this year.  My youngest son, Patrick, married his girlfriend of almost 5 years, Brandy, on May 23rd.  This was the wedding that almost didn’t happen!  Two days prior to the big event, Brandy broke both her tibia and fibula when she missed a step and took a bad tumble.  They were due to close on their new house that afternoon and this ended up taking place in the Emergency Room rather than at the bank as planned.  The scheduled “bachelor’s party” turned out to be a dedicated bunch of friends helping Patrick move furniture into the house until the wee, small hours of the morn.  The wedding itself involved the groom’s father finding a medical transport van a mere 45 minutes prior to the Wedding Mass – and he did it, even over Memorial Day weekend!  The bride was wheeled down the isle by her father and the ceremony was conducted on the main floor of St. Valentine rather than on the altar as planned.  But they were formally married and were able to go to their reception as planned.  Unfortunately, the honeymoon was cancelled since the bride had surgery on her leg the week following the wedding.

Yesterday was Patrick’s graduation ceremony from medical school.  We loaded Brandy in our van, along with her wheelchair, pillows and walker and made the drive to Ohio.  I was so proud of my youngest son as he received the hood of a Doctor of Medicine.  To top it all off, he won an award as the outstanding student in psychiatry in his class.  What a day !! (See photos at the bottom right on this page.)

I’m now back at work, ready to start learning about Joomla.  It’s been a stressful few months, but I wouldn’t have traded them for the world!