What's Happening @ Little Elm Public Library?

I was able to talk to my grandchild the other day. Actually the conversation was a bit one sided since she was less than a week old. I was telling her how excited I was about coming to see her and all the fun we would have when I got there. I also told her that I was bringing some books to read to her and then she can keep them for her mom to read to her. That’s when she started to cry. I was not quite sure how to take that. But none the less, I still plan on reading to her. What are your favorite books to read to your children?

Speaking of reading, new bestsellers added this week include “An Echo in the Bone” by Diana Gabaldon; “The Professional” by Robert B. Parker and “The Year of the Flood” by Margaret Atwood. I am currently listening to “Look Again” by Lisa Scottoline about a mother who unknowingly adopts a kidnapped child. Good story so far.

Reading is for all ages and this week October 18th -24th is Teen Read Week. This year’s theme is Read Beyond Reality @ Your Library, which encourages teens and tweens to read beyond this world, for the fun of it. But wait, there is more! We are also part of the WrestleMania Reading Challenge held from October 19th 2009 through January 19th, 2010. The WrestleMania Reading Challenge is sponsored by YALSA and World Wrestling Entertainment. According to the American Library Association website “It is a program designed to encourage teens and tweens to continue their reading beyond Teen Read Week; by doing so, they can win prizes donated by WWE.” All teens and tweens have to do is read a combined total of ten books, graphic novels, and magazines and design a bookmark around a slogan that promotes reading. Reading logs and bookmark forms can be picked up at the library.

If you are looking for an early Halloween event for children, on Sunday, October 25th between 6pm-8pm, Alter Church of Frisco is holding Kandy Kraze. According to the flyer, there will be 1,000’s of pieces of candy and loads of fun for kids up to 12 years old. Alter Church is located at 9195 Preston (just north of Main in Frisco). If you know of other events, send us an email to library@littleelm.org.

Plan your time for next week too! There will be a costume contest for all ages at the library on Thursday, October 29th at 6:30pm sharp. The age categories range from infants to adult so dress up in your finest or freakyish to strut your stuff at the Little Elm library costume contest. Make sure to show up earlier than 6:30 so we can have time to get you where you need to be for the contest.

For more information about anything, contact the library at 214-975-0430; email library@littleelm.org or visit the website at www.littleelm.org/library. Follow our blog at http://littleelmlibrarypagebypage.blogspot.com/. If you follow the blog you can also go through my learning experiences of web 2.0 tools. At the blog page you can also sign up to become a fan of the library on Facebook. Just click on become a fan, then type in your sign in information for Facebook.

Method #9 IM Chatty

Chat is not a new concept to me. I have tried it years ago and again most recently in various webinars and with a text referencing service that we are involved in called MyInfoquest. When the MyInfoquest libraries meet online for meetings, we use a combination of audio, online, and chat features. It is pretty high energy keeping up with all the various mediums and conversations. When I first tried chat years ago, it was not easy and I did not like it. Now that I have had more training and experience it is a lot easier. Chat/IM in libraries adds a whole new dimension of service. It fits in well with virtual library service. Though we do not currently offer this type of service we do plan to in the future. Currently we encourage people to drop by, call, or send us an email. We also have a Facebook, Twitter, and blog accounts to interact with people as well. After reading about Meebo, I think that would be a great way to start the IM/Chat service because you don't have to be tied to any certain account, it appears to interact with any of the services.

Method # 8 Let's Get Sociable!

Social networking sites are a great way to interact with others, including connecting with past and present colleagues and friends, making new friends, and keeping in touch with family. In regards to libraries it is an excellent way to reach out to both library users and nonusers alike to promote libraries. It would be great if someday everyone would either be physical or virtual library users and social networking is the way to make that happen. In regards to privacy concerns between private and professional life in an online environment, there is nothing wrong with combining the two as long as the personal information that you share does not reflect poorly on your employer. It is also important to remember that anything that is put into the online environment can be read by anyone. Our library is currently using social networking tools including Face Book, Twitter, Ning and a blog. We also have almost 5,000 people signed up on the library listserv. We plan on using more social networking tools in the future. It can be very time consuming but it is time well spent to promote libraries. I currently post my weekly library newsletter on our various sites once a week unless I get emails that let me know someone is following our tweets or wants to be added as a friend. I appreciate the various discovery exercises given on the TSLAC 2.0 because it enabled me to learn about other organizations and groups that I would like to join and follow. One thing that I really like about social networking is that others can learn about what you are doing when you sign up to keep up with what they are doing. Next thing you know many people are learning new things from each other!http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1131775397&v=wall

Method #4 Feed Your RSS, It's Hungry!

I would like it a lot better if my feeds could be fed into my email! I learned about RSS feeds when I took the North Texas 23 and I set up my reader at that time. Since then I have not taken much time to go back and read the feeds. It would be more beneficial to me if my feeds could "feed" into my email inbox which I check more often. When I went to add subscriptions and looked for the "discover" link, it was nowhere to be found so I just typed in a topic anyway. I typed in library politics but the results were not what I expected. I subscribed to feeds in the NT23 but like I said before, had not gotten back to them until now. I decided to look at the Top Recommendations. The four new feeds I have subscribed to include Designing Better Libraries (http://dbl.lishost.org/blog/feed) North Texas Regional Library System (http://blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) Blog Junction (http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/feed) and M Word--Marketing Libraries (http://themwordblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default) I really liked the Designing Better Libraries and even sent the information to Laurie (a staff member) for us to keep in mind when planning for current and future library growth. I enjoyed another article from Blog Junction (Twitter Tips for Libraries) so much that I sent a Face Book friend request to the author of the article so I could keep up with other library articles he writes. I do like the idea of RSS feeds but I still would like them to get closer to me, which is my email inbox.

Digg it!

Since I got behind, I thought I would work backwords to get caught up.
Digg was a good assignment. It was interesting that you can use your facebook account to login to Digg but I was not quite comfortable enough to do that yet. I did like the hammer story about women being able to hammer better than men, at least in the daylight. I don't care what the article said the reason was, I think women can hammer better because they don't want to break a nail. I did create an account so if you search Page by Page or Little Elm Library, the weekly library newsletter comes up so I hope a lot of people will Digg it :-)

The Ning Thing

The first thing I thought of was that Ning is a lot like Facebook only less known. Once again, since I am trying to promote the library everywhere that I can, I did open a Ning network account, invited Friends, and created a blog with the library newsletter. I think the hardest thing about all these accounts, networks, pages, and groups is keeping them all straight and updated. I already have three pages of usernames and passwords and am trying to figure out the best way to add information about the library, how to get others connected to all these sites with the library, and getting it done in a timely manner. Just trying to keep up with library marketing by computer is a full time job. What I did not realize is that I had signed up for a social network a couple of years ago and I do not think I realized it was a "social network at the time". I have not kept up with it and this assignment has brought it to the forefront and now I saw that people have been responding over my question about whether they would be interested in seeing our library newsletter about what we are doing. Now I will add it to the list of places to post my newsletter. The two networks that I have currently joined are Little Elm Public Library (of course) and Roseville Public Library. ReadKiddoRead is a network that I joined a couple of years ago and another place I need to start posting information. I also noticed that Roseville Public is teaching web 2.0 so it will be another place to learn how to continue getting better at this :-)

Face Book and more Face Book

One of my Friends of the Library had already set up one account for the Friends of the Library and one account for the Public library. I had not done anything with it up until now because I was not sure what to do. This assignment motivated me to find out what I needed to do in order to work with the Facebook that was already in place. I did have to set up my own personal Facebook profile, which I did. This enabled me to obtain the admin rights from the Friends for my Facebook public library page. Since everything I am learning is being applied to promoting the library, I refer to the library a lot in my individual Facebook area. I personally think that people need to be careful how much information gets put on these profiles. I think too many people think that only thier friends and family see what is posted and do not consider the big picture that anyone who gets on the web could possibly see their information. These web 2.0 tools are beneficial in many ways, when used correctly and cautiously. Don't be afraid, just be aware.

Even more Facebook
I did add some friends to my individual facebook profile, making sure that information about the public library is evident. I am still trying to figure out how to invite friends and fans to the library facebook page itself. It is pretty amazing the number of people that you know who are on facebook. I wrote something about the library on my wall. I became a fan of a few organizations. I can honestly say I now understand how my patrons can spend all day in the library on the computer in these social networking sites. It is very addictive and time consuming. The groups I joined include ALA, TLA, Town of Little Elm, and Toastmasters International. Since the library has numerous clubs and support groups, I am thinking about making pages or groups for them but I need to understand the difference better. I can see why the two can be confusing :-) Now on to the Ning thing!