Recently Chrystie Hill came to Australia and gave talks at a few public libraries including The State Library of NSW. I was kinda disappointed to tell the truth- Chrystie herself was enthusiastic, told some good stories and generally was a good public speaker.I just couldn't help thinking during her talk that if you've done the Library 2.0 course that you would know all about the tools she was speaking of and that some of the community building things she was speaking of weren't quite applicable in a library such as The SLNSW.
At the same time I'm keen to see the tools used to prove me wrong and a little impatient to see these things happen now rather than later.
What was excellent was finding out about WebJunction and all the learning possibilities therein and hearing this term Webinar which is a kind of online conference.
I'm still reading the Meredith Farkas book and just days after hearing Chrystie talk I read the two pages that she contributed to Meredith's book- in particular how libraries get it wrong with building community online. I wish I had of read this before the talk as it would of been great to hear her further insights into why some libraries succeed more than others using these tools.
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Hey there, and thanks so much for coming to my talk at the state library, and for posting your thoughts about it, both during and following. It's really good to hear from you and others about any thinking stimulated in our sessions together.
I'm also disappointed that the talk disappointed! This was my first time doing a talk about the "behind the scenes" look at WebJunction, and how we use 2.0 tools as staff to build tools for library staff on our service. With a much smaller staff and a different mission and operations than the SLNSW, I can see how it may not have seemed immediately relevant.
The key message behind all of the info in the talk for me, and perhaps I can work on driving this home more, is that it's not really about the specific tools. Community building (online and off) is one of the main purposes of a library, any library, and this work is central to our values - we should all simply be doing a better job with it. Second, we have to try, experiment, take risks, and be willing to fail. As leaders we must model this, as service professionals we must practice it. This is about technology tools, certainly, but more importantly, it's the methods or practices we put in place for creating connections between people that's most important.
I personally experienced a lot of similarity between my experiences at WebJunction and what I observed taking place in the state library there. I'd be happy to talk more if you'd like ... feel free to send me an email to chrystie(at)itgirlconsulting.com if you want to continue the conversation. I'd love to ask you to fill out my evaluation survey (also anonymous) on the engagement - would love to hear in more detail how the talk could have been more relevant to your work. Cheers!
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