Regime change begins at home.

This week I set up camp in our staff meeting room to listen in on the SirsiDynix Institute webcast from David Lee King and Thad Hartman (Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library), "Creating a 2.0 Library." When I first registered for the webcast, I sent an email along to other folks in the Library who I thought would be interested. Imagine my joy when I was joined by 9 of my co-workers, including Department Heads and our Assistant Director! I thought I'd be all alone in the room, and here I was, joined by 9 people who are open to listening, who want to make change, and who understand the forward direction we need to go. I was so impressed!

I had to skip off immediately at the end of the webcast so I could staff the Movies & Music desk. As I sought out loungey latin dance CDs for a patron, my colleagues discussed ways to bring some of TSCPL's ideas to Skokie. I find it heartening that at the end of the webcast, those in attendance did not immediately crawl into the cozy, safe place under their desks. Mommy help!

For those of you who were not able to attend, SirsiDynix Institute has already posted it to their presentation archives.

The David & David Show: Podcasting and Videocasting Bootcamp

Led by David Free (Georgia Perimeter College) and David Lee King (Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library), this hands-on, experiential workshop went over all of the tools to create podcasts and videocasts. I always find these types of workshops extremely helpful as it really demystifies the process. During the course of the workshop, the Davids requested help from volunteers (one of them being our own Ruth) in creating their CiL2007 podcast and videocast.

Many libraries are successfully doing regular podcasts for library instruction, book talks, interviews, and non-copyrighted storytimes. Among the ideas tossed around at the bootcamp that I think is just brilliant is the idea of doing library audio tours in foreign languages. Wouldn’t that be cool to have Russian, Korean, and Spanish tours?

What is needed for podcasting? The monetary outlay to begin podcasting is minimal; staff time is the biggest resource drain. However, David Free says that once you actually become comfortable with the software, the time it takes to create a podcast drops. We would need a USB microphone (ranging from $20-$100), software (Audacity available for free), and space for hosting the audio files. David said that it’s best if the files can be hosted locally, but that there are perfectly usable and free podcast hosting sites (blip.tv for example). David’s presentation materials are here. He is currently writing a book on podcasting in libraries.

Videocasting requires more equipment and staff time than podcasting, but there are so many innovative ideas that would be fantastic for libraries. Besides the traditional library activities like book talks, bibliographic instruction, library PR, and tutorials, videocasts could be used to

• create a video history of the community
  
• broadcast local library news or behind the scenes library footage
  
• invite community leaders in to talk about their areas of expertise
  
• videoblog of local attractions
  
• issues forum for local political candidates (as television often does not cover smaller communities and races).

All of these ideas could be used to harness the collective brain of the community. Think about getting non-library people involved in creation of the videocasts, either behind the scenes or in front of the camera.

Guiding Libraries & Info Pros Through Change

David Lee King, Digital Branch & Services Manager
Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library

The dinosaurs didn’t go extinct because the climate changed—not at all. They went extinct because they couldn’t adapt to the changes happening around them. –Stephen Abram

King opened his presentation with a reference to the above quote by SirsiDynix’s Vice President of Innovation to illustrate the problem of transitions and resistance to change. King emphasized that change is external. Transition is the internal process that people go through inside themselves. Most leaders base a project on accomplishing change rather than on getting their people through the change. King notes that resistance is the main reason why technology projects fail and recommends the following three-phase approach to change:

1. Saying goodbye. This is when we let go of the past, the way things used to be, and our whole world of experience.
2. Shifting into neutral, an in-between state filled with uncertainty and confusion. This is the phase when we simply cope with things as we focus on the details. Some people get stuck in this phase because they refuse to let go of old ways, get frightened and fell, or freeze at a new beginning.
3. Moving forward. This phase requires that people begin to behave in a new way. Resistance might start happening in this phase if people sense that their competence and value might be at risk. King identified three levels of resistance
• Information-based resistance occurs when people feel that they do not have enough information, are unfamiliar or in disagreement with an idea, or are confused.
• Physiological/emotional resistance occurs when people feel that their jobs, peer respect, or future with the organization are threatened. King calls these fears “mind games,” but recognizes that they are very real to the individual.
• Other resistance includes individual personal history and significant disagreement over values.

Leaders and “techies” have already come to terms with impending changes and understand why people might not want to change; that it’s the transition, not the change itself, which causes unrest in the organization. King recommends the following steps when dealing with change:

• Describe the change succinctly (one minute or less) and why it must happen.
• Plan carefully
• Help people respectfully let go of the old
• Maintain constant communication
• Emphasize the purpose of the change, their part, and the big picture
• Model new behaviors and provide practice and training

He also encourages the “techies” to always share too much information and realize that there are areas where change might not occur quickly.

Planning & Implementing Library 2.0

David Lee King, Digital Services Manager from Topeka & Shawnee County Public Libraries, was brave enough to do several presentations, one of which was this very helpful overview of first steps in planning and implementing web 2.0 services. The variety of local decisions is immense, and deciding who/what/why/where/when can be a stumbling block for some libraries. King said that whatever decisions are made about implementing these services, we need to “organize around the work, not around the department”. There may be support staff who are skilled at editing audio files, for example, and IT staff may not have any idea what to do with a MySpace profile. Challenge the library’s inclination to give all new technology tasks to the dedicated tech staff.

King also spoke about how easy it is to get the message out quickly with web 2.0 services. The conventions of web 2.0 are conversational, friendly, imperfect; this is not master’s level thesis writing we’re talking about! Once the content is created, it can be posted in multiple spaces for different audiences (post events to MySpace page, link to photos in Flickr, upload video to Blip.tv and create easy links to library blogs). Also important to think about in the planning process is how to go about inviting participation. What is the level of customer participation you will seek, and what type of control will the library give up to encourage that participation?

David's presentation is available here.