Thursday, September 17, 2009

Thing 7 (week 3 continued)

I'm sorry if my posts seem a bit disjointed. I do a bit of the weekly activities at a time, when I have time, and I don't get everything into one post. Bear with me folks!!

I guess one of my new favorite technologies has become blogging. The possibilities are endless and I love the edit-ability (I doubt that's a word, but it fits here!) of blogging. I don't know how many times I've posted something or tried something and it wasn't right or not exactly what I wanted and all I have to do is go to the "Dashboard" and fix it! For example, I tried posting the link to my trading card and didn't think I'd done it right, so I tried a new tack. When I checked out my blog, found I had two posts and two links for it. Not liking the first one, I simply deleted the post and viola! I have one decent post and link. I know that may sound really basic to some, but for me it's learning even the simple things that keep me intrigued. I also just see so many applications to blogging, and the ease of integrating other technologies into a blog makes it even more appealing.

On another note, I've had a couple experiences recently that have really encouraged me to promote technology in the library. First, at two different times in the past seven days, I've had patrons ask me about AccessPA and how to go about searching for books and using the catalog. I was thrilled!! One patron was in the library at the time, so I could physically show her what to do and some additional benefits to the database. The other patron was the postmistress who stopped me as I was picking up the library mail. I briefly explained how to go about the searches and borrowing requests, but encouraged her to stop in so I can show her more. What kind of hit me in these experiences is that even though the access and information has been out there for a long time, it wasn't until these patrons had a personal need to know that they sought further help. Can it be said that along with putting the information out there, our jog as librarians also consists of helping people see WHY they need it???

The second experience has to do with a patron who is severely hearing impaired. He comes in about once a week, uses the computers, borrows books and also asks me to interlibrary loan books for him. My usual procedure is to call patrons when their books come in. He cannot hear on the phone, so he gave me a relative's phone number who then would get in touch with him. After several times of calling this third party, it dawned on me that the patron communicates over the phone by texting. I let him know that it would be possible for me to text him directly if he wanted me to and if he was comfortable with that. He was,and now all I have to do is text a simple, "your books are in" and he's there to pick them up rather than having to wait for someone else to remember to tell him. If this were something I was doing on a larger scale or in bigger library, I'd likely see about having the service available through a library chat/text website like aim, for example, to make it a professional library "service."

2 comments:

  1. great library appilcations leveraging tech

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  2. I agree with your point about helping people see WHY they need access to information and how technology can help them do that. I think it has to do with people's general lack of confidence with new technology...some people, although they may know about it, just assume that it is over their heads, especially older people. It's great that your library has reached these patrons.

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