Wow! Have you heard of this thing called "The Internet"?

I'm not so jazzed about the next of the 23 Things--IMing. Are people still doing that? It seems IM reference services were what everyone (if everyone is a librarian) was talking about three years ago. To my jaundiced eye it appears that--obviously--we need to offer IM reference along with all the other ways we need to offer reference assistance. Which is to say, if people are out there using [blank] as a way to communicate, then we need to be figuring it out. Any resistance is soooo 2003.

Does anyone else remember the very first time they accessed the Internet? I sure do. It was through the Gopher service run by the University of Minnesota, way back in 1994. And it wasn't even "the Internet" as we now know it, that's for sure. The first thing I saw was, I believe, a precursor to a Word doc, and it was some government communication (looked like a text file) out of Israel. And it Blew. My. Mind.

Nowadays, everything in the online world is so pliable, and the interface is so friendly. I'm fascinated, for example, by the layout capabilities of this blog. There are so many bells and whistles available and--most amazing--they can be utilized by a person like me with absolutely no programming experience.

You know, we talk and talk about how the relationship between people and information has changed--that there is this infinite amount of information out there and where do librarians fit in, do they at all, and oh my goodness what if people no longer need us? Of course they do. They do now, they did then, and they always will. People don't just need information, they need useful information. The University of Buffalo YouTube bit (which I will try to locate and post here) where they demonstrate their IM reference service is a perfect example: "Hey, overwhelmed undergrad--let me know what your paper is on and I will show you the way." Any student with an ounce of common sense will immediately see the value here. So you can place me in the camp of people who think this "information revolution" is all for the good in terms of librarianship.

I'm very impressed that I somehow managed to yank the content of this post somehow back to IMing.

Stick-y thing 6: Online Image Generators

To your left, check out a trading card I created at Big Huge Labs (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/). Now, this, I can see the potential of. Or is that: Of this, I can see potential? In any case, this website rocks with tons of fun ways to manipulate your digital images. Now, I'm sad to say it's a well-known secret that librarians are horrible horrible horrible at marketing. It's just not a skill-set that comes with the job. Librarians are great at doing. They are not so great at telling people what it is, exactly, that they do. Case in point: years ago I worked on a family literacy project collaboration between my library school and a local branch. Oh, we were amazing. We had Head Start involved, ECFE, crafts, themes, in-depth analysis of the targeted demographic--the pedagological stars were all aligned. I was dazzled by our program. Session arrives and we're all beyond excited. And what happened? No one came. That's right, friends. We had forgotten, for the most part, to tell anyone about it. Oh, there were other issues there--a last minute change of venue and such, but in all our excitement we had left out marketing. And this is how I learned that all library schools should include a "Marketing Your Library Services" among its core curriculum. My point, in retelling this sad little tale, is that Big Huge Labs makes marketing SO easy for graphic design-challenged librarians, of which there are many. There are no longer any excuses. I created this trading card in 5 minutes. Imagine one for each of your staff (like Carleton College, bless their hearts). Imagine one for each of your work-study. Oh! You could do trading cards for staff picks of books. At the site you can also make movie posters (I'm definitely going to fool around with that), mosiacs, magazine covers. Tons of fun stuff. And, unlike Flickr, which I saw as only useful for certain types of libraries, I see image generating tools as being useful for all libraries, regardless of type. They make it easy. It's really fun! Go on, try it. I double-dog dare you.

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Another thing librarians are horrible at, apparently, is creating really catchy titles for their blog posts.