Banned Books Week Workshop at WLA

Though Banned Books Week is a few months off, the WLA workshop offered some insight on how our library could embrace Banned Books Week. The panel, which consisted of bookstore owners and librarians, shared interesting ideas for promoting intellectual freedom:

~ Have a Freedom of the Press discussion led by an author of challenged books or by librarians to discuss the topic of the freedom to read with the community.
~ Have movie night - show a movie based on a challenged book.
~ Some librarians have had storytime that highlighted banned books, such as King Kong.
~ Put several challenged books in brown paper bags with the reasons why they were banned listed on the outside. Patrons are curious and take the time to read the "charges" and try to figure out the title.
~ Put banned books in a case covered in black, with just a "peek-a-boo" hole for the patrons to look in at the titles.
~ Have a community place, such as a wall covered in blank paper, where people can list which banned books are their favorites and why.
~ Have a mix and match handout with "why this book was banned" in one column and the banned books in another, and the patrons have to match up the reason with the book.
~ Of course, have the usual bookmarks and posters promoting banned books week

The workshop made me excited to contribute to our library's Banned Book Week program.

Privacy/Confidentiality Workshop

This workshop helped clarify what type of information is confidential and what is not from a legal perspective. I hadn't realized that if asked by anyone, we can tell them if a certain person is in the library and if they are using the Internet. Because the library is a public place, we can give out that information. We cannot, however, tell them what the person is viewing. The presentation was well organized and there was plenty of time to ask questions.

INCOL

I attended the INCOL workshop on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 at the MAC Museum. Presenters included Janet Hauck from Whitworth University and Trevor James Bond from WSU. The topic was the Northwest Digital Archives (NWDA); its purpose, origin, development and future.

The Northwest Digital Archives, http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu/, provides access to descriptions of primary historical resources in the Northwestern United States, including correspondence, diaries, maps, pamphlets, photographs, and other ephemera. These primary sources reside in any of 21 different college or university libraries, historical societies and archives in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Montana.

The “descriptions” provided by NWDA lead a reseacher to primary material in the subject s/he is seeking. As most of this material is stored in boxes and files, the need for accurate and descriptive indexing is critical. If, when searching, there is a document you wish to see, you may then contact the institution that holds it and an image scan can be sent to you via email. In some instances, a link to the image will be on the record itself. There are very few images already linked and the purpose of the site is primarily for finding documents, but as scans are done, links are retained.

So, how does this work? Janet Hauck from Whitworth related a recent request that was filled by this service. Someone, who knew that Father’s Day was founded in Spokane in the early part of the 20th century had some related questions. Who was the founder, what local church was involved in its founding and why was the third Sunday of June selected? Consulting the database, she discovered the founder of the holiday was a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd who was associated with Knox Presbyterian Church (then named Centenary Church) in 1910. As for the reason for the date, Janet found the answer in a letter from Sonora Dodd in the Whitworth Archives relating that she wanted it to be June 4 in honor of her father’s birthday anniversary, but the Church Board was late in approving her request, so she picked the nearest Sunday, which happened to be the third of the month! So it was because of a slow moving Church Board that Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June. Very fun.

The Papal Bull that Trevor brought from WSU was a big hit as well!

This was a great workshop and showcased a resource we all should be aware of.

INCOL training

Just came back from an INCOL session at the MAC : Northwest Digital Archives. I find it astounding how much material is becoming available for public viewing via the Internet and pleased that search tools are included. Check out this: http://nwda.wsulibs.wsu.edu/. And did you kn0w that WSU has a papal bull? And if you aren't a coug, would you care? I do now & can actually "see" it online. Neat.

Thoughts on WLA 2009

1. Captivating and Communicating with one year olds: Tried and True by Dr. James Thomas (aka Mr. Jim)
I was hoping this presentation would be useful for my baby lapsit storytime, and while there were lots of great ideas, I found them to be more suited to toddlers. He was very specific about finding "baby" storytimes that combined six month olds with 18 month olds to be a waste of time. I'd be curious to know if there is a storytime at his library for kids under 12 months. His focus is 12 to 24 months only. He uses a lot of sign language (in songs, and when talking about colors etc, he teaches the kids the sign too). Mr. Jim's wiki (http://toddlericon.pbworks.com) is chock full of great resources. One aspect of his presentation that I liked was his homemade book. He makes large, simple accordian style books. The one he showed was for five little ducks- and with each page there was another duck that they could see. Loved it. Will be making those soon. There are several ideas that we can incorperate into the play and learn storytimes too. He's worked a lot with Nancy Stewart and he uses her "let's go to the market" song. Listen to it here: http://www.nancymusic.com/Market.htm. There's a link at the bottom for activites which is cool- I had forgotten about her website- lots there to use.
2. Storytime showcase by various youth librarians
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. There were a TON of good ideas at the showcase. My second favorite part was how well it was organized. They had an official timer who gave each presenter a two minute warning and then cut them off when their time was up. I really appreciated this because they all had good ideas to share. Cindy's done such a fantastic job of reflecting on this panel, so I won't rehash. Lots of great stuff for both my normal storytime, and my new play and learns.
3. Looking at picture books by Thom Barthelmess
Good stuff. You could really tell that Thom's in academia now because his presentation felt just like I was in a classroom, taking notes that might be on next week's quiz. There wasn't a ton of relevent material for me, but it was very interesting. I also had a horrible headache, and probably wasn't all there. His presentation is here: http://www.nwcentral.org/files/Looking%20at%20Picture%20Books.pdf
CAYAS breakfast with Ellen Wittlinger
Definitely the highlight for me. I got to be an honorary CAYAS member for the morning and be her driver (because they all live on the west side and flew). She was *wonderful*. Her presentation about writing for teens was spectacular, I cried several times. She was so spot on. I loved her description of books giving teens the opportunity to "meet" and "know" people they might not otherwise meet in their real life. Writing books with gay characters isn't just for gay teens, it's for straight teens too- one had written Ellen and said that after reading Hard Love, she now "knows" a gay teen (Marisol- one of the main characters). How powerful. I bought several of her books and her inscription in "Hard Love" was perfect: "May all your loves be easy ones."
4. Public Libraries: Strategic Community Partners for Family Health
Wonderful presentation- The presenter was Sue Waldin from Within Reach. Information I gathered from the presentation:
a. There are more people now than ever before who (for the first time) are struggling with food needs
b. There strongest focus is on health insurance and food assistance
c. They run five toll-free call centers with staff who are cross-trained so you can the same help no matter what number you call. They have a much lower call volume that DHSH so the wait time is short
d. They have access to the AT&T language line so they have free interpreters in almost any language
e. They have had 11,000 online applications submitted- 4,000 of those after 09/08 so it's growing.
The website (www.parenthelp123.com) is amazing!! I really encourage everyone to check it out- extremely easy to use and very, very helpful. My favorite is the resource finder which helps you find services in your area such as breastfeeding support, child care, food banks, and family planning. Check it out here: http://resources.parenthelp123.org/. If anyone has any questions, I had an extensive tutorial in the website during Sue's presentation and I'm happy to share more. I love this resource. They will be putting up a library link somewhere on the site soon(that was part of our discussion).
5. Teen program showcase by various (many no-show) librarians
Again, I'll echo Cindy and say that this presentation (if we can even call it that) was extremely disappointing. I didn't get any good ideas- they were all for high budget libraries and they seemed to snuff at anything that wasn't super techy. I'm sorry, but lots of teens like to craft and play games. In addition to not thinking about the rest of the state, I didn't get the feeling that any of the presenters wanted to be there. I'm serious about proposing a "teen programs for the rest of us" showcase for next year.
6. Booktalking the Best by various iSchool students
I went to this program with some trepedation, considering the last two WLA booktalking sessions were really bad. This year, thankfully, the students actually knew how to booktalk. They had a nice variety of books and had clearly prepared.

Overall, I'm very glad I could attend this year's conference (and it was pretty cool to be a local!) I discovered many great ideas for my children's programming and was inspired to do something about the teen showcase for next year.

The Fabulous: Storytime Showcase

Storytime Showcase on Thursday was absolutely terrific. 6 presenters from the west side demonstrated a few of their storytime staples, one after the other. Each uses song, storytelling, and creative dramatics and relies on lots of audience participation. I wish we'd hade more time for this one--it could easily have been a double session. There was SOOOOO much in this one that we can be incorporating into preschool storytime and play and learn! I wish each presenter had had more time. Consider me extremely excited & enthused.

Angela Nolet has a neat imagination game that she uses to get kids settled and ready to “play” that she calls “What shall we be today?” She also does terrifically hammed up tellings of the “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears” and “The 3 Billy Goats Gruff” (with extreme voices, naturally) using “my words, your listening skills, and your imaginations.” “Can you stir the porridge?” (Stir.) “Do we go inside other peoples’ houses without asking?” (Exaggerated head shaking.) “Can you take a big bite?” (Bite.) “Too hot.” (Fan self,) “Too cold.” (Shiver…Brrr.!) “Does Goldilocks have good manners or bad manners?” “ Bad manners!” “ She SLURPS the porridge.” “She sinks into Mama Bear’s chair.” (Sink, arms in the air.) “She rocks (everyone rock forward and back) in Baby Bear’s chair ‘til she BREAKS it!” And so on.

Angela also tells “5 Little Monkeys” using the Folkmanis crocodile and Eileen Christelow’s 5 Little Monkey puppets. I’ve never tried this with PUPPETS before, but I’ve got the crocodile and monkeys… Angela’s handout is here: http://nwcentral.org/?q=node/1547

Mr. Jim’s presentation (while not appropriate for baby lapsit in either Sonia’s or my estimation) was fabulous for preschoolers—he does a great “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” in ASL. Which he follows with the “no words” version.

Jennifer Fenton from the Washington State Library is a big fan of storytelling and performed a lovely scarf story from one of Anne Pellowski’s collections and used a set of nesting dolls to retell “The Turnip.” I simply MUST find a set of matrushki to do this with. Her handout is here: http://nwcentral.org/?q=node/1578

Jenn Sullivan from Snohomish did a neat version of our heart/star song:
Put your heart on your chest, on your chest.
Put your heart on your chest, on your chest.
Put your heart on your chest, that’s where it fits the best.
Put your heart on your chest, on your chest.
On your knee…that’s a silly place to be.
On your elbow/calf/thigh. etc.
I can’t wait to start using this one—it’s got so many more body parts. It’s a great vocabulary builder. I’m thinking it might fit into our upcoming STARS Flannel Board workshop.

Using die cuts which she gives to each child, Jennifer also does a variation of the Hokey Pokey—“You put your turtle in, you put your turtle out… you put your turtle high/low…to & fro…

To the tune of “Row, Row, Row your Boat” she sings “Pass, Pass, Pass the Pail, all around the ring, when the pail stops by you, do a special thing” and the child draws an action from the pail (to be read by parent or storyteller) like “pat your head & rub your tummy.” Each child gets a turn. This could be adapted for afterschool specials…or even teen programs.

Jenn also did an amazing feltboard for “Flip Flap Jack” (this one’s similar to Aiken Drum, but uses foods more familiar to children). She has everyone clap on each syllable of the chorus “Flip Flap Jack” so you’re using song, rhythm, and movement.

Jenn’s handout is here: http://nwcentral.org/?q=node/1548

Josephine from Ellensburg did a really neat re-telling of Ellen Walsh’s MOUSE COUNT using a clear jar, pom-pom mice, and a snake sock puppet. When the mice count themselves out, she tosses them to various members of the audience. She finishes with the snake saying “I can’t eat mice? I’ll have to eat little children instead” to much delighted shrieking and giggling. She also does Audrey Wood’s PIGGIES as a terrific fingerplay. Her handout is here: http://nwcentral.org/files/WLA%202009%20Storytime%20Showcase.txt

Jan from Sno-Isle reads MEAN SOUP by Betsy Everett (one of Ruth’s and my favorites) with a kettle and passes the pot around for kids to scream into, stick out their tongue into it, and bang on it with a spoon.

Jan also has kids act out THE GIANT HUG and has the kids play post office afterwards. They have different stations where they “cancel stamps” (we all know how much preschoolers love stamping), “sort the mail” into the appropriate box based on color, and “deliver” to the appropriate house based on color and or letter and or shape. This would be a terrific activity for our play & learn…

Jan also has the kids “go fishing.” She places fabric on the floor for the fish pond, has the kids color & decorate fish shapes (craft!), then attach a large paperclip to the shapes (this IS a skill), and then they fish for their own fish in the pond using a fishing pole made out of a bamboo rod with a magnet tied to it with a piece of brightly colored yarn.

Jan also does a very interactive version of “I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” which she conducts with a fly swatter… Each child is given a laminated clip art picture of an animal and has to “act” (or make the appropriate noise) like that animal when it comes up in the song. Everyone joins in on the “perhaps she’ll die” chorus.

Can't wait to try some of these in my storytimes & play & learns!

Still More of the Good! Beyond Books: Using Flannel Boards & Music at Preschool Storytime

Beyond Books: Using Flannel Boards & Music at Preschool Storytime was presented by the very musically talented Lorraine Burdick from Sno-Isle. She spices up all of her storytimes with music and feltboard stories (usually musical stories) and likes to add twists to old favorites. She did a terrific overview of where to get ideas for feltboard stories. Lorraine bucked the paperless trend and actually provided attendees with a handout. Unfortunately, she never posted it to the conference site, so if anyone would like a copy, drop me an email. It's worth it...

Things I learned from this session:

•Why should we be using feltboard stories? Feltboards help with early literacy (sequencing—moving across the board as you move across a page) & incorporate all 3 learning styles (visual, auditory, & kinesthetic). And they’re fun, too. But you knew that.

•Do tweak “old” favorites like “The Greenwood Tree” or “When Ducks Get Up in the Morning” to incorporate exotic farm animals like monkeys, T-Rexes, and lions.

•Use felt, pellon, photocopied images, & store bought to make something familiar new again. For example, use a purchased set of “transportation” pictures to transform “She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain” into: "She’ll be riding in a school bus/dump truck/police car/mini-van and flying in an airplane when she comes."

•Go heavy on the audience participation, not just with supplying noises & singing along but in bringing pieces to the feltboard. Just make sure you’ve got enough to go around...

•Use apple “faces” to tweak “Way Up High in the Apple Tree”:
Happy smiled at me
Quiet whispered
Sad cried
Sleepy yawned
Angry was angry (growled?) at me

•Twinkle Twinkle Little Star can be more than just a fingerplay!
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
How I wonder what you are.
Twinkle, twinkle little star,
I wonder who has a (color) star. (Kids bring appropriate color to felt board.)

•Sing “Who has a Shape Today” to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”: “Who has a (color) square/star/triangle/rectangle today?”

•Try Non-Holiday seasonal favorites to work around "we don't do holidays" objections:
“Turkey Feathers” (to the tune of “Do You Know the Muffin Man”)
“Oh do you have a (color) feather , a (color) feather, do you have a (color) feather, hang it up right now.” (Kids decorate turkey outline with scads of colored feathers.

“Counting Pumpkins” (an original tune, Lorraine will email the mp3) an alternative to “5 Little Jack O’Lanterns sitting on a fence”.

Discussion & schmoozing afterwards also turned up the following tip--try using foam-core poster board for your travel feltboard—it’s much lighter than say, masonite. I’m building one at this very moment to demo in our STARS flannel board workshop as a cheap and easy alternative to a purchased feltboard.

I'm very excited about some of the ideas presented here. Some of her tweaks emphasizing shapes, colors, and emotions are going to be terrific in our play & learn sessions. And yes, I did email Lorraine for an mp3 of the Counting Pumpkins song.

More of the Good: Autism Awareness in Libraries

Autism Awareness in the Library was presented by Julie Ashmun from UW and Jennifer Fenton from the WA State Library. Sponsored by CAYAS, it focused on autistic children. Julie's powerpoint is here: http://nwcentral.org/?q=node/1576

What I learned:
1 in 150 children (1 in 100 in some areas)is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Autism is more prevalent in boys than girls (4:1). No child with autism looks (or acts) the same.

To help your autistic customers:
(1) Make sure parents & caregivers know you’re available to offer special assistance and are willing to work with them. That means signage & verbage along the lines of: “If your child has special needs, please stop by the service desk to see how staff can better assist you.”

(2) Use lots & lots of picture clues. (Again, more signage. Admittedly, libraries are moving AWAY from this to make the library a more “welcoming” place, but your autistic customers NEED this.)

See do2learn.org’s picture cards for examples. These are all available free for the taking...






Stop and go (red light, green light) are also extremely effective…

Our JNF pathfinders (picture, word & dewey #) are perfect! Use them for the adult area, too!

Use return book buckets.

Use bright colors to draw attention.

Use carpet squares or shapes (find a frog) in storytime. Use tracks, shapes, etc. on the floor (or the wall a la Valley’s summer reading stairs) to direct children to the storytime area.

(3) Use cheat sheets with simple, numbered rules that can be given to each customer. (How to check out, no running, no yelling, etc.)

(4) Give warnings to allow for transition time—“You’ve got one more minute on the computer, then we need to leave.” “Storytime starts in 5 minutes. We’ll be heading to the story room.”

(5) Ignore most behavior unless it looks to be dangerous to the child or others.

And now for the good stuff! Schmoozing with Vendors & Colleagues

While there were very few vendors in attendance, a few were outstanding and plugged products that are of definite interest (and use!) to our customers.

•Did you know that The National Library of Medicine’s Medline Plus makes a tremendous amount of material available in languages other than English, including Spanish and Russian? http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/languages/languages.html

Their “Go Local” feature (soon to be available here in WA!) lets you find local resources concerning special topics such as breast cancer or autism. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/golocal/index.html

And yes, Medline Plus IS one of SCLD’s very own Web Picks! Health & Medicine, Government Sites. Go check it out these features now!

•And speaking of checking it out now (What are you waiting for? Do it!) http://www.parenthelp123.org/ is amazing! It’s one stop shopping for families to find health insurance, food assistance, unemployment benefits, and community resources for all their needs. The website is designed for CUSTOMERS (not professionals) and is exceedingly easy to use. I was especially intrigued by the childcare resources section, as our customers regularly ask us for recommendations. Gina (Sonia too?) attended the session they offered and got more details. Several of us picked up their display racks & brochures, too, so we should have enough for each branch. We promoted this one at SV's open house and it was very popular with customers. This is definitely a site to keep on our radar.

•I spoke with Baker & Taylor in the hopes of finding a source for Russian language youth materials. We could really use some Russian board books and picture books. Unfortunately, B&T’s “business model” doesn’t work in a way that’s allowed them to do much with Russian. They like to buy a publishing house/book jobber in the country and then use them for supply. They’ve only been able to find individual bookstores in Russia (ditto for us) but boy oh boy check out B&T’s new Chinese selection! The rep really, really, really wanted me to get on board with their Chinese standing order, despite my repeated protestations that we didn’t have much of a Chinese readership.

Talking with other librarians between sessions and during meals was interesting. I learned that being a union shop, King County uses their (extremely few) teen volunteers to dust shelves. That’s right, you read that correctly—to dust shelves. They’re not allowed to do anything a paid staff member might do, so no sorting, shelving, cleaning, etc. Every now and then they’re allowed to assist with Friends’ booksales but that’s about it. So much for my hopes of picking brains about what to do with teen volunteers…

I also learned over lunch why I’ve been unable to access my files from home through Outlook, despite the fact that our very own Aaron did my setup. Said my new friend from Sno-Isle with a sad and knowing look on her face: “You’re using Mozilla Firefox at home, aren’t you? Outlook doesn’t play nice with Firefox. Try it in Internet Explorer instead.” What do you know, she was right. She also suggested I ditch Outlook's calendar and go with Google’s instead… Dessert, good conversation and tech support--who new conference meals could be so much fun?

Teen Program Showcase

The Teen Program Showcase on Friday was also largely a waste of time and extremely disappointing as I’d been looking forward to it. I refuse to link to the handout as the only one posted has NOTHING to do with what was actually “presented” during the session.

I hated the format of this session. I’d been expecting a series of short presentations highlighting the best of the best and what worked and what didn’t followed by a Q&A session. Instead, reps of the various programs were scattered around the room and attendees were expected to travel from station to station. Several of the stations were unmanned, as their representatives were “double-booked.” Since attendees were constantly on the move, the reps at the stations were constantly repeating the basics of the program over and over again to newcomers and there was very little opportunity to ask questions.

When I did ask questions, I was extremely disappointed with the answers. “We don’t do CRAFTS” was my favorite response. When I asked about the SAT Prep series one library had offered, the librarian enthused that it normally costs a student over $500 to attend. Noticing my horrified expression, she hastened to explain that they had gotten a small discount from the company…and that they have a very large programming budget and an extremely supportive (and wealthy) friends group.

At another station showcasing Seattle Public’s Art Night at the Library I was told “It’s easy to put on an operation like this. Anyone can do it. Local teen theater/spoken word/visual art/dance/musicians performed for free and we partnered with over 50 community agencies who shared the publicity and refreshment costs.”

I was really intrigued by a book trailer/book review video contest. When I asked how they’d done the filming and editing at the library and what equipment they’d used my question was met with blank incomprehension. Why would they do it at the library? This was all done by the teens at home with their own video cameras, computers, and editing software. All the library did was announce the contest, provide a site to post the videos to, judge the entries, and give the winner a Flip. My explanation that many of my teen users don’t have internet access or computers of their own, let alone video cameras et al. surprised and shocked the librarian. For the record, I think this program has a lot of potential—it looked like a lot of fun but we’d need to tweak it to meet the needs of our communities. We’d need to supply a camera and the mobile computing lab and offer kids who needed it time to film in the meeting room and then edit their films. Maybe we could do a teen info lit class on making movies and the joys of YouTube? Sno-Isle Regional Library has run a similar contest the last several years--check out some of the teen's entries over here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=snoisleteens under "Book Trailer Contest." Doesn't that look like fun?

What the Teen Showcase brought home to me is that there’s a profound lack of understanding of the economic realities of rural libraries and rural communities. And that things are done very differently on opposite sides of the state. We don’t have the resources that say, Seattle, is drawing on. What’s a library to do in St. John, for example, where they are THE community organization? We need programming options that don’t rely on a huge population, a massive community network, and deep pockets. (Sonia and I would be willing to showcase some of these programming alternatives at the next WLA meeting. Anyone else care to join us? Sonia’s even come up with a name: “Teen Programs for the Rest of Us.”)

The East/West disparity was further illustrated during the Awards Luncheon when one of the Friends Groups from Whidbey Island compared their fundraising efforts to St. John’s building of a BRAND NEW LIBRARY. The West Side effort was laudable, too, but we’re talking apples and oranges. Totally different customer base in terms of population, economy, education, interests, you name it. (If anyone’s interested, BTW I think a road trip to St. John is definitely in order…sounds like their librarian has accomplished feats wondrous strange. Drop me a line and we'll set a date!)

Podcasts and Videocasts

Podcasts and Videocasts, presented by Doris Munson from EWU, on Thursday was largely a waste of time. I’d hoped to learn how libraries were actually USING podcasting with their customers. Unfortunately, the presenter isn’t actually using them with her students. She was experimenting with podcasting and vidcasting (Yes, to me they’re vids, not videos. My fannish roots are showing. Live with it.) because she felt they were technologies she should be familiar with. (I’ve been experimenting too, for that very reason. 23 Things, anyone? I’ve got Audacity loaded on my new laptop and everything. But I want to know how experienced institutions are using podcasts & vidcasts, not amateurs.) Based on her samples, Doris started experimenting a mere two weeks prior to the presentation. When questioned about equipment specifics, she waffled and refused to make recommendations. Audience members contributed much more useful information. (Invest in a Flip, people. They're at http://www.theflip.com/. They retail for ~$ 150 and up and got rave reviews from the audience. The audience also suggested that if you don’t have a webcam or vidcam, save powerpoint frames as .jpegs and import them and scanned photos into moviemaker and make a movie of slides.) Doris really had no clear idea how these technologies would be used in a library setting and seemed to focus more on their social use.

She did demonstrate two sound recording programs, RecordPad (http://www.nch.com.au/recordpad/index.html) that retails for ~$50 (she quoted under $30 but the website disagrees) and Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) that anyone can download for free. She implied that Audacity was more difficult to use as it required downloading a separate plug-in in order to save files as mp3s. C’mon people—yes, it DOES need the extra plug-in. But the download site clearly identifies the plug in, explains why you want it, explains they can’t package it with Audacity for licensing reasons, and links you directly to the site where you can download the plug-in for FREE. It’s not rocket science.

She also demonstrated Debut Video Capture (available for free at http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html) and Windows Movie Maker which comes preloaded these days with Windows. I now have both on my new laptop, but haven’t yet had the chance to closely compare the two. (For the record, I HATE, HATE, HATE how I look on video and I look worse from the embedded webcam in my laptop. But I digress.)

My impression is that the presenter was largely unfamiliar with social networking tools in general. She spent over 15 minutes discussing and enthusing about how you could change the templates and fonts on PodBean (http://www.podbean.com/) a 3rd party hosting & subscription site. (It looks like they’re using Blogger templates, BTW.) FIFTEEN MINUTES of “look at the pretty colors.” Yes, you want the site where you’re hosting your materials to be attractive. And easy to use. But for our purposes, I doubt we’d bother to use a 3rd party site. If we’re creating podcasts, surely we’d be hosting them at our organization’s site? Sure, there are storage and bandwidth limitations to take into consideration. But I suspect we’ve got more space on our server than the free hosts…and if we go with a 3rd party site we lose our branding. Is it worth it to host elsewhere in the hopes of picking up subscribers who aren’t necessarily part of your customer base? In bandwidth savings? It all depends on what you’re using the podcasts and vidcasts for, and unfortunately, the presenter didn’t have a clear goal in mind.

Doris didn’t have a handout, naturally. She did recommend Voices.com for a sample script of how to script your podcast, but I couldn’t find one there. Weirdly enough, I later found the Voices podcasting guide through an ad on Podbean. (That’s probably how Doris found it, too.) It’s here, and it’s free for the downloading. It’s not bad, but for anyone who’d like to know more about podcasting, I’d suggest checking out ALA’s Teen Tech Guide “Teens Podcasting @ Your Library”, found here: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/yalsa/teentechweek/ttw08/resourcesabcd/techguide_podcast.pdf. It provides a more thorough, technical, and practical overview of podcasting than this session.

WLA 2009: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Actually, this was one of the better conferences I’ve attended over the years. I just couldn’t resist titling my post that. The bad and ugly were really more along the lines of disappointing and frustrating. While some sessions were very much the let down, there was at least one outstanding session each day that left me enthused and energized. I picked up some extremely useful tidbits from colleagues around the state and learned about some amazing new products and new features of old products from vendors. I’m going to post about the sessions individually so you can skip what doesn’t appeal to you.

But first I have to make an observation about this year’s “paperless conference.” While I applaud the effort to go green, for the majority of the sessions I attended, “paperless” seems to mean “I’ll get around to posting the handout and supplementary materials to the conference site whenever I feel like it…or possibly never.” I think that’s a shame as I like having materials to share with the folks back home who didn’t attend. Handouts also help you to remember the finer details of the session. I’ve posted links for all available handouts for those of you who weren’t able to attend and added some links of my own to sites and products mentioned in the sessions.

Green Libraries

Jason Johnson was also at this one. I think the most important thing to pass on from this session was- did you know that Avista offers free energy audits for businesses? If you know someone who is interested, direct them to Avista where they can find the account executive for their area and set something up. Also, Spokane Public has a green section with books and DVD's. Any thoughts on labeling environmental material with a flashy, bright green, sticker so it stands out in the non-fiction?

Are We Getting Along?

“Are we getting along?” did not live up to its blurb. I admit, I left before it ended and Kris Barnes will have to tell you if it got any better in the second half. Two speakers, one shared some history on Suzzallo library and the management there and the other speaker was a union representative who discussed listening to everyone who works at the library because if we did not, they would organize and make themselves heard. So I caught the tail end of the “Storytime Showcase” which both CIndy Benson and Sonia Gustafson were at.

Banned Books!

I was at WLA for Thursday, April 16th. The first session I attended was the Banned Book Weeks presentation. I saw Diane Brown there and Jackie Parker of former North Spokane fame. There were four people on the panel: the owner of Aunties downtown, her niece who is a librarian at Gonzaga, Sweet Pea who owns Kings Books in Tacoma and a public librarian from Puyallup shared ideas. There were some great ideas, but here at Valley not so many of them transfer over- so if you have a window, or a large open wall in your teen area, or space for a large table to go up, I’ve got ideas for you!

I do want to say- it seems we never do much for Banned Book Week because it falls in October when we're using most of our displays for "Spokane is Reading", perhaps we can use September for banned books?

WLA revisited

Of course the hilite for me was Paula Poundstone. I went to the UW program on creating a google search engine. Interesting - and is there a good way to use that in conjuntion with our web picks, or instead of them? Also went to the AskWa - would like to see us add the quidget to our web page - the use of 24/7 reference services increased dramatically. And now that we're staffing the state queques more hours, we're more likely to get to help our own customers. And I am very fond of virtual ref - I treasure my 4-5 hour on QuestionPoint.