Comments on: What about Library Association 2.0?

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:42:25 +0000

You’re not alone. Having “form a committee” be the automatic response to an offer of help, if a committee isn’t actually *needed* to do the work, is totally ridiculous. What do they lose, even if Jessamyn did abandon the project? Someone else might be inspired by her work and take it up again later. In general, I have no patience with library organizations, and I have no intention of wasting my time on committees when I don’t see much measurable output coming out of them. I’d rather *do* things, in the library and the outside world, that I can point to afterwards and say, “see? this changed because I was involved, and now it’s better.”

By: Michelle (Jane)

Michelle (Jane) — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:01:35 +0000

In Response to Blake:

Some of us who like to move JOIN goups to try to give them an extra shove. I am involved in LITA and ALA, though it makes me insane at times, because I feel I can not gripe about a system I am not trying to fix.

That being said, I still think most committees are the places that good ideas go to die. And die a bloody death. Or a nice slow and painful one.

By: JD

JD — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 16:17:37 +0000

Regarding the upkeep and sustainability of tasks, couldn’t a middle way be achieved? The innovator/starter can get the project or task up and running, then it could be handed over to a committee after the committee has been trained. Much as I dislike the structure of committees–I’d rather have just one person to go to for specific requests–they do have the benefit of multiple points of view and provide a cushion when a member leaves or dies so that the function of the committee can carry on.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:53:18 +0000

Thanks for writing about this need for a shift of thinking not only in the ways we provide service to patrons, but also how we organize ourselves professionally. It’s a good point, and something to chew on….

By: Alane

Alane — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:24:29 +0000

Um, couldn’t Jessamyn just turn into HTML anyway? I mean, the PDF exists, ergo HTML. Or something. Why does the official person have to approve of a goodhearted soul turning a publically available document into HTML? Just wondering…
(can you see why I have always got into trouble with rules and committees?)

By: Ryan

Ryan — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 13:57:16 +0000

Julia:

I appreciate the sentiment of sustainability with respect to this issue, because I agree strongly that projects should be sustainable, but I do have to say that I have cognitive dissonance regarding what you said.

For some reason community groups have no problem embarking on a newsletter — a mammoth task, most frequently managed by one key individual, and, in more ways than I can remember, apt to be inactive and active depending on the commitment and/or interest of key volunteers.

But when a technie volunteers to do just a small tiny little thing like cut and paste the text of an already created document into a blog or website with an RSS feed it’s treated as if it is a mammoth task and requires deep planning and consideration.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how many extremely useful things got sidelined because volunteers were “too busy” doing newsletters, special events, community raffles etc. That’s not to say I have anything against these things, but the amount of effort and skill gets way overestimated for techie things and way underestimated for non-techie things.

It is probably this very reason that so many tech blogs exist today. I’m not even close to be a tech genius, and I am still absolutely shocked at how — even now — fairly simple-to-use technologies like Flickr, RSS, blogs and wikis are treated as if they were NASA-sanctioned missions to Mars. And I really wonder why my *real* techie friends think of this trend.

By: Alison

Alison — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:54:53 +0000

Linda took the words right out of my mouth. I know the NEASIS&T folks and they rock.

By: Leo Klein

Leo Klein — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 23:00:05 +0000

It’d be nice if some of these state organizations took on a few features from Web 1.0 — let alone Web 2.0.

How to tell if you’re neighborhood State Library Association is an open organization:
- Does it have a ListServ?
- Is the ListServ open to just anyone in the world — or closed except to “members”?
- Is it easy to become a member?
- Is it easy to find out about events and other news?

In my experience, one of the best examples of a regional library association is METRO in New York. I got spoiled when I lived there.

By: Linda

Linda — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 21:47:38 +0000

You would have a warm home at ASIST, and certainly the New England chapter is very active in Web/Lib 2.0 affairs.

By: scrappylibrarian

scrappylibrarian — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 20:37:21 +0000

New Hampshire state library’s assocation has a blog? my new hampshire?? thanks for the head’s up – I’m a school librarian myself, and have just been trying to get our state school library association to get their website in -order- let along a blog, but maybe this will help push them along a bit. Huzzah!