Down Under

Dear Diary,

I was honored to receive a most gracious email from an Information Science student in Australia who read my Spiritual Literacy article and sent very flattering remarks. Aww Shucks! I was most impressed with their paper that they emailed me at my request.

One quote that stood out from their paper was

" Information literacy is the perception, reception and expression of information in all its dimensions with the intent of affecting and changing those to whom the information is expressed."

It's a Small World After All

Dear Diary,

In my continued attempts to move this Blog project along, I found a blog with similarities to what we want. So I emailed the library to ask some technical customization questions and was stunned to get a reply from a former professor from Library School. YAY!! She was one of my three favorite.

She reminded me of what I have heard since I embarked on my library career, "It is a SMALL LIBRARY WORLD!"

Blog-Mania

Dear Diary,

I have had my fill of blogs today. I created a real Blogger blog for Electronic Resources to see if it really works. Naturally it does not allow me to add categorized lists, and you know how we librarians love our classifications. Although one team member said they would not browse a blog using "Categories" but the other team member said they would ONLY browse a blog that provided categories. Naturally!

So just when I thought today would be the first day of the rest of the life of my work blog...we decided to try yet another software--WordPress.

Luckily, WordPress allows for a
DIRECT IMPORT of other blogs.
YAY!!

So it took maybe 5 minutes
to import my Blogger content directly into WordPress.

And I still had ample time
to climb down off of that ledge! Phew!

MySpace Led to Job Loss

Dear Diary,

I am working on Privacy Issues with my Emerging Leader team and we are presenting a poster at ALA's Annual Conference next month. So I have been getting lots of information about MySpace and Facebook. Some students were outraged when Facebook added a Newsfeed to notify your friends of all of your activities on your account. I just think it is a nuance.

I've heard all the horror stories of potential employers hiring students as moles to befriend unsuspecting job applicants in MySpace or Facebook and gather clandestine information that may be used against them during the interview process. I think about things I did in college out at clubs and would not want that to be used against me when looking for a job.

But after reading about this one girl who lost out on a job because of her MySpace photos, I can empathize with employers worried when laws are broken such as under-age drinking. People sent me this article because the pictures were of her as a "DRUNKEN PIRATE" and she wanted to be a TEACHER....remind you of someone? Not the drunken part, the pirate - teacher part.

The article is on the Smoking Gun, titled College Sued Over "Drunken Pirate" Sanctions.

Uncyclopedias

Dear Diary,

This is so funny. You gotta check out the Notre Dame Uncyclopedia. Much like Wikipedia, it informs the public that "Notre Dame was founded by God at the Dawn of Time in South Bend, Indiana. When the final stones of the campus were lain down, angels proclaimed its eternal glory. Notre Dame is a University for Real Christians only (catholics), which means that the Lord defends it with his own shield and sword. If you go to Notre Dame, you are automatically going to heaven." HA!

I am getting closer to finalizing my Electronic Resource News Blog. I fully intend to have a version up and running by mid-June if all goes as planned.

Marketing Program

Dear Diary,

Me and Leslie presented on Marketing at today's May Institute. My program was developed after two successful marketing campaigns I worked on to bring attention to library services.

Marketing efforts targeted the entire Notre Dame community, including students, employees and peer institutions. Specific marketing was done for students making use of popular media such as YouTube for both the Pirate and the Police campaigns. YouTube was used to both show videos already created as well as to spread a video created by the library.

Positive reinforcement (bribery) was used such as treasures, candy grams, and raffle prizes. Faculty marketing methods include the use of more traditional direct marketing techniques such as newsletters and emails. This program ended with take-away tips for putting these simple principles into practice today!

I reinforced the most important principle of marketing in my opinion -- Identify and admit when you have a bad idea and make necessary changes. I asked "What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Gummi Candy? -- Exactly--RATS. BAD IDEA!" Ha!

I gave away more than 30 Gummi Rat Candies to serve as a gentle reminder. Some gave them back because they were gross. Others said their kids love them. To each his own. Ha! They liked our commercial the best. I showed them the other two:

University of Wisconsin's and
the Original Arizona State's

Good Times

Dear Diary,

I am finalizing my presentation for our library training May Institute tomorrow. My topic is "Marketing the Library: Pirates & Police Oh My!"

I have been talked into wearing the Pirate Costume. Ha! Ha! I am actually looking forward to it. I have learned a lot over the last few days. Especially our evolution toward being "Curator of Content" instead of more traditional roles. Yay!

Let The Sunshine In

Dear Diary,

I got an unexpected reaction to my lovely poetry I wrote to use for the clues in our Caching project. I was reading some aloud and some co-workers in adjacent cubicles started laughing as did the student who was doing our card sorting usability test. So after not one, not two but three people looked at me as if they were sizing me up for a straight jacket, I decided I'd go back to the drawing board. Ha!

In fairness one of the cubicle neighbors offered to give me a microphone and set me up inside of the ladies restroom so I could perform my poetry, ala the street preachers in Chicago. Hmmm...maybe that is a good option for a captive audience. Ha!

Oh well it is sunny and Friday and the students are finished with finals and preparing to leave.

Anywho, I stopped by for my daily visit to our Administration office. I go there to mingle with the lovely staff...for some reason they think I only come for the free cholocates in the candy dish. Ha! Really I think I go because they always greet me, thusly, "Hello SUNSHINE!"

Yes, Sunshine, I am that!

This is Why I'm Hot!

Dear Diary,

I attended a presentation on Second Life (SL) , hosted by the Kaneb Center. The presenter kept jokingly referring me to as his Ringer. While I have only played around with SL, I was actually able to answer some questions from the audience that he was not. Obviously I learned a great deal from him, so it worked perfectly. I managed to impress my manager who was there. She actually said that she was very proud to have me in her department. Aww Shucks.

"Second Life" is a multi-user online virtual world with nearly six million registered users; at any given time you can expect to find 30,000 people there! Its primary use to date has been as a social gathering place, but more and more universities are actively exploring the possibilities of Second Life as an art gallery, library, business venue, virtual laboratory, immersive language environment, and more. If you would like to see a demonstration of Second Life and participate in the ensuing discussion

Not only was I able to answer questions, I provided information about the CyberOne class that Harvard conducted in SL. That has been added to the SL resource page, already.

***Bonus, I am officially one of the select few to be part of Kaneb's Center Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) for their upcoming SL project. YAY! FLCs consist of a multidisciplinary mix of five or more faculty members. FLCs focus on specific instructional issues from technology to ethical behavior. I am going to join them at at Conference in August discussing Second Life and we are going to work with a speaker coming to campus to discuss their University class in SL.
*
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I have finished my Marketing presentation for the May Institute.
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I am beginning to work on our Caching in at the Library project wherein the students use GPS to locate hidden objects in the library. I will write the clues in prose. It should be a lot of fun.
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I am still working on my ERSA blog. Our Aystems Administrator added a WYSIWYG editor to Drupal which has added tremendous functionality for me. He removed the teaser module. It was not appropriate for our needs. I am finalizing our Measure of Success for a meeting with Systems that I have to lead in my manager's absence.
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I joined ALA's Reference and User Services (RUSA).
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I completed my first round of Card Sorting Usability testing today. Now I"m off to rest.

Meeting of the Minds

Dear Diary,

I had another fabulous day at work. We met with the Business Library and discussed shared marketing interests. I got an official tour of the Business Information Center and had a chance to marvel at all they do. We viewed some Librarian Trading Cards which we agree is a cool idea.

They seemed receptive to my "Info 4 Life" marketing idea. I introduced my idea for an Information Circus of sorts or a Notre Dame County-Fair type extravaganza. Perhaps use the circus "freaks" such as the bearded lady to introduce relevant branch libraries such as Life Sciences. Ha! I'm fleshing out the details but that is the initial thought. My co-resident has the attached cartoon on her door...even though she said it was not discussing me...I can't shake the feeling it does. Just Kidding, or am I? Ha!