Chinatown

My old college chum, Kathy, is now a PhD psychologist doing neurofeedback here in Chicago. I get to see her occasionally when she visits with her mother in a retirement community in Lexington, NC. Her mother is a librarian and it's always a treat to visit with them. Kathy's  husband is Chinese and sailed in the Merchant Marine before settling in doing mechanical work for a local private school. He's retired now but they both have interesting tales to tell. So Kathy offered to take us to Chinatown to visit the local shops. I have a new Buddha figurine and a Tshirt for Ben. Local restaurants fill their windows with food. Chinese epicure shops offer exotic ingredients, including dried abalone for $830/lb. I settled for a wonderful watermelon ice at lunch. 

Her husband is a wonderful cook. I asked her if he shopped here to buy his ingredients. So she took me to his favorite grocery store and among many other things, this is what we saw: 

The frogs were the size of softballs. There were crabs, eels and a wide variety of fresh and dried fish. They also had turtles and conch shells with the critter in them. 

Fortunately, the Taste of Chicago reception at the conference was much more normal fare. I ran into Mary Lane and had a good chat with her. I also caught a glimpse of Kei Malesky (I did tell you I had a quilting class with her sister-in-law at the Folkschool?). Didn't see anyone else I knew but specifically went to the InMagic booth and shook hands with Mike Segur's boss and told him how great Mike was and how grateful we were to have his help.  

Since I'm moving and have a taste of environmental concern, I've not been grabbing "gimme" items from the booths. And I'm trying to be judicious with brochures. But I am scanning for useful things tho so far, I've not seem much that relates to us that we don't know about already.

Still, lots of excitement. The place does not seem very full considering the size of the hall. I suspect folks are still arriving. We'll know tomorrow. 

Sessions begin at 8a. and end at 5:30p. We've been invited to supper with another school chum from high school and college who lives in Racine, WI now and will take the train in to meet us at a nearby restaurant. We'll get a real taste of Chicago then and a good visit. 

Looking for new insights . . .

Measures that Matter

This morning we attempted to drive to the Field Museum and find the parking deck for the Navy Pier. The traffic was impossible, the road construction baffled the GPS and the conclusion was to go back to the hotel and let Jessie take the bus after lunch to the Aquarium near the Field Museum. After my class we set out again for the Navy Pier where we had tickets to take a sightseeing boat up the Chicago River and take in the architecture. The time frame required taking the car again, but after some librarianly research, we had a way around the construction and made it handily to the dock. I really don't travel well and navigating the food situation is almost as stressful as the crazy traffic, but the river trip was wonderful and well worth it. The buildings are spectacular, the river is the place to see them, the evening was lovely and cool.

My class today was excellent and has left me convinced we need to totally rethink the data we collect and also the services we provide. She said so much it will be hard to summarize--little things like always saying "and" instead of "but" because "but" is a negative turn-off and "and" connects ideas in a positive way. And big things like aligning services AND metrics carefully--and after investigation and conversation with decision makers about their views on the organization's larger goals--to reflect and enhance the organizational goals. Every service we offer needs to answer the question "What difference does it make?" and each service needs to have metrics designed into it from the beginning that track goals and demonstrate that difference.

The process of designing meaningful metrics begins with understanding their context in relationship to the organization's goals, passing through the development cycle on the left and ending with communicating results to stakeholders only in terms of how the library has met the larger goals.

She stressed the importance of NOT focusing on stats except to use them internally to improve service, but to report the impacts of library services--qualitative rather than quantitative values.

She also noted that librarians take on new roles without giving up anything and can end up off track and not doing the important things well. Which is why she stressed evaluating services against the organizational goals and being willing to lay down those that don't directly relate. She said by demonstrating the choice to build services that are truly in mission alignment, the remaining services are more highly valued by management.

She talked about Balanced Scorecard evaluation and the Logic Model, but the bottom line was that everything we do has to positively answer the question, "What difference does it make?" and any metric we collect has to demonstrate that it does make a difference. As we are committing to taking on new and more projects--Endnote, photo archives, wikis, Spanish web portal, I think we really need to focus on these question before we commit to these projects. AND we need to follow her advice about designing metrics at the outset that demonstrate value and set specific targets and goals to assure we are on track.

I really am concerned we are overreaching in our commitments and would encourage us to pause and take the time to do this evaluation. We have not in the past, as in other organizations, been challenged to justify our work, but we are undergoing changes in management and funding and I think it would be smart of us to be ahead of this curve. I volunteer the barn for a planning retreat.

On this note, Jessie is headed downstairs for a Corona for us to split and hit the hay. Short session tomorrow then two beastly long days on Mon & Tues. Will try to keep it succinct.

We made it!

Still learning how to use GasBuddy, we bought gas where we could easily get on and off the highway. The traffic was surprisingly heavy. Those population scientists may be on to something . . .

We are on a nosebleed floor in the Hyatt attached to the McCormick Place Convention Center tho attached is a loose interpretation. (The elevators consistently pop our ears and one of them sticks on the 27th floor) It might be a mile from our room to the SLA section of this place which probably is as big as a small NC town. You can get there from here, and do it indoors, but I'm glad I brought my walking shoes. We did walk the building tonight to locate my class tomorrow, the registration area, and food vendors. The place was totally empty except for a couple of security guards. It absolutely dwarfs the place we were for APLIC in DC. I'll be curious to see it busy and full tomorrow. 

Folks have been basically friendly and helpful. There is a Metra station in the building for Jessie's convenience. The reservation was garbled and lots of incidentals will be automatically charged to the room so Gina and I will have a good chat over my checkbook when I get back. And I may be able to talk them into parsing it all out before I check out on Wednesday. At this point, I'm glad they figured out how to give us the same room all 5 days so I wasn't going to be fussy about the bill in that moment. So we are here and settling in and making friends with the Concierge.

The trip was mostly uneventful Interstate except for a run through downtown Indianapolis and around the Monument Circle, which Jessie had never seen and I hadn't seen in years. At Christmas, they string lights from the top down to the fountains (the picture is only the base, it is a substantial obelisk) which become skating rinks and they sometimes have horse drawn carriages out. A very good urban revitalization project.

In northern Indiana, in the middle of the BFE, there was an enormous, meandering windfarm with large fields of corn and soybeans underneath. Look closely and you can see windmills to the horizon--it was so in all directions, stuck here and there between fields and barns. Pretty incredible to see, difficult to photograph from the road. But encouraging. I suspect good for the farmers as well as the environment.

So with the time change, I'm off to bed early, Chicago time. See you tomorrow!

Image courtesy of http://DailyClipArt.net

Off to the races!

We are in Lexington, KY not far from Man 'O War Boulevard. It was nearly midnight when we arrived, courtesy of major slow-downs on I-40. The Scootabout did us proud, crossing Black Mountain handily and averaging 38+mpg overall so far. I am amazed that such a little car was not buffeted by the big trucks, she actually feels quite secure on the road. 

But we've crossed other mountains as well and have a few left ahead. Most of them learning curves. I have a relatively new phone which is now loaded with multiple apps for traveling, navigating the conference, and mapping the Chicago Metro. I've loaded templates for my workshops and NCSLA participant lists, hotel and conference registration forms on my laptop. And then there is the issue of actually navigating downtown Chicago and a conference center the size of Staley once we get there. So while I'll be learning about new library technologies in workshops, I'll be learning to use new technologies to get there. And the learning has begun.

What I've learned so far: 

*The hands free phone works great if a) you took the time to actually properly label friends' phone numbers (work, cell, home, etc) when you entered them into your iPhone and b) their names are short and easy to pronounce

*My Garmin GPS works better than the SYNC GPS mostly because it's faster to download and doesn't require a reliable phone connection or a computer to preprogram in advance

*Do NOT try to use voice commands with the GPS on, "Recalculating" seriously messes with the car's limited vocabulary, and when the two are arguing, it's really easy to miss your turn--not unlike having children in the car. Not a happy throwback.

*Many apps do not a consensus make--Ford's expensive SYNC technology offers traffic reports that in no way agree with the free WAZE phone app, which only really works if there is another WAZEr in the area and that person is truthful. Neither one was really accurate and we still got stuck in traffic. Airball for technology.

No rush today. We can't get into our room in Chicago until 3p so we'll mosey up and maybe practice riding the Metro tonight. And checkout GasBuddy on the way . . .

Final Reflections

I opened this blog on May 2, 2009 with the following lyrics from the Grateful Dead, "What a long, strange it's been". I began my educational journey into library science in 2000 courtesy of Central Carolina Community College's LTA program. It's hard to imagine finally reaching the end of my studies--for now. I fully understand that continuing education is a part of the job. But the formal part ends today. Papers have been signed, FAXs sent, a parting luncheon with my internship supervisors enjoyed. Maddie asked me a lunch was the next phase was. I didn't have a lunchtime chit chat reply.


I tentatively have a position in the new joint library that is emerging from the community college library where I currently work as an LTA and the local public library. But I continue to send out job applications, including to K12 settings, until the county commissioners give my new boss a budget and she knows for sure who she can hire and what she can pay. Where ever I end up, I hope the job will always be about education and trying to make a difference to the people I work with and serve.


I think the headline on the latest NCAE newletter, pictured above, says a lot about the tough times educators and librarians of all stripes face in this current economy, and probably always have faced to a degree. Maddie is a good organizer for NCAE and made sure I signed on before I left here. So I've been getting their newsletters and political action alerts for the past several weeks. And based on what I've seen, both at the community college and here at RMS, I've written a few legislators and congressmen, especially about the growing gap in college readiness we see as K12 educators come under increasing pressure from larger class sizes, resource (including media) cuts, and unreasonable testing demands.


Last summer, Maddie gave me her copy of the state IMPACT guidelines to study for my praxis exam. And we read about the IMPACT study results in my last two classes. Great stuff if we had the resources to do it. We know what our kids need, we just lack the will and the means to provide it for them to the degree we'd like. The president of the local community college--the one my son attends as an early college high school student--wrote an editorial in the local paper about how his college may not make their SACS accreditation because SACS wants them to hire more full time faculty and limit them to 15 hours a week of teaching. His response included that there was no way his college could afford to to that under the current state budget and thought it was highly unlikely they could afford it during better times. Another conflict between the ideal and the real.


In my "spare" time, I parent a couple of teenagers. They are themselves making that painful transition to adulthood where the dreams and ideals of childhood meet harsh responsibilities of survival as an adult. A young woman, a former apprentice, came by the house the other evening to share with me the pain of reconciling the dream of the man she'd fallen in love with against the man she'd discovered him to be. In a lot of ways, this transition away from this educational journey feels much the same. All that we've learned and studied about how to be our best versus what money, time, and circumstance will allow. Sort of like being kicked out of the ivory tower and onto the street.


So today, the long, strange trip takes another turn. Well here goes. I'm as prepared as I can be and a pretty stubborn idealist to boot. Thank you for the vision and for all your help. I'll be in touch . . .

AMTR

Apparently, this is the big Kahuna of reports. The state mandated AMTR--Annual Media and Technology Report. Maddie has been laboring over this for days. She showed me the final copy she's getting ready to enter online. Twelve pages of numbers and categories for those numbers. She says the report is fewer pages, but more sophisticated in its questions this year. Several scans of the internet and calls to county tech support to find out exactly which Pentium processors need to be reported where on the sheet. And emails to the warehouse to find out what's on the RMS shelves there. And this after she and Robin have scoured the building to account for all 300+ computers on site.

In reviewing the report I was surprised to find that she has 18 iPods. She can't circulate them to students, but they were purchased with the intent that staff would use them. She hasn't been able to generate interest. When I worked at CCL, we circulated iPods to staff members and couldn't keep them in the library. But we were able to purchase audiobooks related to our leadership/business collection. Staff members listened to them on their daily commute to work and also as they traveled on business. Maddie doesn't have mp3 audiobooks in her budget, tho NCLIVE has just made several hundred available. Maybe once the AMTR is done, we can look at the NCLIVE collection and brainstorm about how to promote them.

But the big point of discussion in our review of her AMTR was her suggestion to ECU faculty that they create a class that focused on the "daily details" of school media that includes record keeping with this type of reporting in mind. As I've listened to Maddie discuss her work over the past couple of years, items like weeding, catalog maintenance, stats, inventory and year end reports have always weighed heavily on my mind. If I do end up in a school setting, my internship has exposed me to them, but I could certainly have used a class detailing best practices for accomplishing them. This is an important gap in my education. As are classroom management and web page design and maintenance. I know ECU can't teach everything, but Maddie's suggestion is spot on. I'm taking an incomplete in this class until my internship is finished as ECU's semester has ended, but I'm so glad to be here at this time to actually see the year-end requirements. Maddie says she's going to tell Dr. Dotson not to graduate me until I come back in August to see how the school year starts. Don't listen to her, Dr. D! (even tho she's probably right . . . )

Water over the dam

Lots has happened since my last blog post. Lots of different things, tying up loose ends and "information gathering" for year-end reports. Robin has been tracking down details of the technology inventory, Maddie has been working on the collection and compiling information into report formats. I've tried to make myself useful where I could.

There has been more proctoring. There was another day of EOGs when I got back from NCLOR training. There has been makeup testing for the students that missed. There was a horrible glitch in the scoring software that left children in tears over low scores that really weren't. Students with low scores are currently in "remediation". Students with good scores are currently in "enrichment". Low scorers will be retested next week. Lots of substitutes in the building while teachers are pulled for remediation. Lots of boxed sets leaving the library and groups doing reports while teachers organize post-EOG enrichment activities. Maddie says when she was in the classroom, she lived for this post-EOG time when she was finally free to do the units she loved that didn't relate specifially to state testing. This year she says teachers have been so stressed with demands throughout the year (I'm presuming because of state shortfalls for materials and staff) that she doesn't see a lot of the "enrichment" she would wish for. Lots more videos scheduled than she'd prefer.

Part of what I have been able to help with is organizing in the collection. Lots of shelf reading and relocating materials. Maddie is moving biography to make room for a "popular" series collection on prime real estate near the library entrance. Lufkin Road, where I interned last, did much the same thing. It helped promote reading by encouraging the popular series books, and once it got readers hooked, helped keep students on track with where they were in the series. She also has a professional development section for teachers, in the back room near the copier. She'd never really had the time to organize it. So after I finished moving and cleaning up the biogrpahy section, this second picture is my version of how the professional development materials work best. The post-its indicate where topic labels need to be made. I do think it will help teachers locate materials for themselves easier. And we found a spare displace unit she's putting right next to the copier to display and promote different resources to pique teacher interest.

Then there was more fun with the bar code reader. I spent much of yesterday on the 6th grade hall during 6th grade prep time trying to locate library materials in empty classrooms--AV materials, library books, maps, and LOTS of dictionaries. Robin says the dictionary buying binge happened the summer her now 24 year old daughter took driver's ed. Someone wanted a hardbound dictionary for each student in the school. Robin spent that summer cataloging and barcoding them. And there's still a stash in each classroom, and several hundred still in the library. I inventoried what I could before planning period was over and students returned to their classrooms. Then the job was walking the halls with a cart asking teachers if their students had library books to return. Maddie says she loses about $2000 worth of library books a year. I felt bad interrupting class to ask for stray books, but only one very tired looking teacher seemed miffed by the request. And I got a lot of books back.

I asked Maddie if she felt I was accomplishing the intent of my internship. Her reply was, "You been immersed into the functioning of the school. This is it." This is it.