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List:       publib
Subject:    [Publib] Re: Second Life, hype, blogs, etc.
From:       "John" <jrichmond () alphapark ! org>
Date:       2007-07-30 16:12:44
Message-ID: DD83F03208111D4281F4153F7E184A91272682 () exchange2003 ! alphapark ! org
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O.K., so I got a little overheated in what I said about hype.  Or maybe
not, in the hype-as-hype department.  Karen, the teen board at APL is
developing its own Myspace space, under the intelligent and care-full
guidance of the Youth Services Librarian (who cares nothing about Second
Life, but is quite happy to work with the teens on Myspace, and *I* am
happy that all this is going on).  We got wi-fi up and running here, not
before every other library in the area, but before many (some?), and
remain the only place that I know of in southwest Peoria County--which
is a good plot of land--that offers wi-fi, and free wi-fi at that.  The
"free" part isn't unusual for libraries, but there are still people who
are surprised that we don't charge.  Our Playaway collection is growing,
and people are using Playaways.  E-books, which came to us much hyped,
with big, fat duds.

I used blogs as an example of something that might (or might not) be
hyped.  I think it's the hype itself, or the potential for it, that
leaves me--and I'm not the only library director I know who feels this
way--cold.  There are days when I think, "Well, what next?  What piece
of technology, or new means of transmission of information, am I going
to be hit with tomorrow?  When we revise the budget in October, will
there be yet another line that I can subdivide under "materials" to make
room for Product XYZ...which, according to its salespeople, my library
and I cannot live without?  Are these nifty Playaways, which are
circulating so well, going to be the throwaways of, oh, 2008?"

I am completely responsible--I think--for my reactions to all things
old, new, and somewhere in-between.  *And*, I think that in the world of
salesmanship within which we live, there is a kind of subtle or
not-so-subtle message given about all sorts of things which says: You
HAVE to have this...you HAVE to offer this service or you are dead,
obsolete...and you HAVE to care deeply, in your heart of hearts (as the
more sentimental Victorian novelists might say), about whatever it is
that is being sold.  I am reasonably capable of making decisions, I am
not as timid about trying things as I was thirty years ago when I first
exited library school, full of shining idealism, AND...and, some days I
feel bombarded by all these messages Out There which leave me at
times--not always--feeling, um, bombarded.  Shell-shocked.  This fiscal
year, it will be quite enough that the *huge* regional consortium of
which APL is a member will be migrating from a clunky old carl.solutions
system to Unicorn/Rome/Symphony/Whatever SirsiDynix is calling their
latest, hottest system within the last 10 minutes.

So, while, indeed, I am a person of the paper world, in my heart of
hearts, I care about people, how we can be useful and helpful to them,
and if Myspace is it, that is truly spiffy.  And, hype of almost
anything is tiresome.  I even getting tired of writing the word "hype"
right here.

And, by the way, I have taken the Myers-Briggs Personality Type
Inventory about 4,000 times (at least), and I am off the deep end when
it comes to introversion.  Thus, like the posited shy librarian who
becomes SuperDuperInformationSupplierToTheWorld when contacted via IM,
communicating via lists and e-mail can be immensely freeing to me.  Put
me in a big room full of people I don't know and ask me to make small
talk...yuck.

Anyway, I think we ought to join lots of conversations, to quote a
phrase, more-or-less.  But in my heart of hearts, I don't know that I
need to love them all to death, nor do I want to be pressured into
thinking that if I don't fall in love with Product XYZ--technological or
otherwise--then I am a worm and no human.

John D. Richmond, Director
Alpha Park Public Library District
3527 So. Airport Road
Bartonville, IL 61607-1799
Ph: (309) 697-3822, x. 12
Fax: 697-9681
E-mail: jrichmond@alphapark.org
________________________________________________
I especially enjoy trying out baby changing shelves, although our
grandchildren don't seem any different no matter how many times I put
them on one. -- Bernie Siegel

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