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Libraries of all types found ways to help their communities as they weathered Hurricane Sandy themselves.  Some of the obvious solutions included:

• providing a warm and dry place to take shelter,
• distributing food and warm beverages,
• acting as distribution centers for emergency supplies,
• setting up charging stations for essential electronic devices,
• creating “tech petting zoos” to occupy children of all ages,
• supplying entertainment in the form of books, videos, audiotapes, and e-books,
• hosting additional children’s programs to occupy them while schools were closed,
• acting as “hoteling stations” to provide an office away from their workplace for displaced business people,
• providing information resources and workspace for students.

Even libraries without power found ways to serve their patrons.  According to the Harborfields Public Library’s Facebook page, even though the library itself was closed, patrons were welcome to come use the “outdoor library” comprising of tables, outlets, wifi and, of course, books.

One of the more creative solutions was the Brooklyn Public Library’s bookmobile distribution of supplies to residents in Coney Island and Red Hook in Brooklyn.  Their community outreach included a children’s book “The Great Storm and Flood Recovery” by the Mentor Research Institute, in both English and Spanish, to help children cope with the effect of the hurricane and its damage on their homes, families and their own lives.

A resourceful library advocate, Kathy Dempsey of Libraries Are Essential, assembled and staffed a makeshift library at one of the Medford, New Jersey local shelters.  She made available a variety of material ranging from science textbooks, romance novels, poetry and children’s books to magazines and holiday gift catalogs for families who took shelter at the Chairville Elementary School in Medford.  In Kathy’s words,

While this little makeshift library was not an official part of the operation… the reading material helped displaced, worried residents pass the time: libraries FTW, again!

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

For current status of libraries in New Jersey, check:  Hurricane Sandy’s Effect on NJ Libraries

For disaster recovery assistance in New York City, check:  Hurricane Sandy Recovery Information

Ways to donate funds to help New Jersey and New York libraries affected by Hurricane Sandy are found at:
Helping United States Libraries After Disasters - American Library Association
Library Disaster Relief Fund - New York Library Association
Rebuilding New Jersey’s Libraries - New Jersey Library Association

Additional media stories on how libraries were affected by Hurricane Sandy:
New York City Libraries Relatively Unscathed; New Jersey Still Taking Stock - Library Journal
Libraries Weather the Superstorm - American Libraries
We’re in this Together, Helping After Sandy - The ‘M’ Word – Marketing Libraries
Needham Residents Without Power Invited to Charge at Library, Shower at YMCA - Needham Patch
Posts Tagged “Hurricane Sandy” - NY Public Library Tumblr
Libraries Respond to Hurricane Sandy, Offering Refuge, WiFi, and Services to Needy Communities - School Library Journal
Hurricane Sandy: Somerset County libraries open as warming, recharging and information spots - NJ.com
Brooklyn Public Library Bookmobiles Help with Hurricane Sandy Relief - Galleycat
A Little Storm Shelter Library - BoingBoing

Originally posted by myself on Wolper Information Services’ insight&outlook

CC courtesy of Beth Kanter

Mary Ellen Bates, in The C-Level Suite and You webinar sponsored by Springer last Thursday, spoke about how we, as information professionals, can show our worth to employers.  Ms. Bates started off by tackling the challenge of proving the human component is just as important as the resources and tools needed in performing research.  Computers and databases may be able to provide answers to your questions, but cannot offer insight or interpretations of those answers.  Humans bring perspective and non-linear thinking, and info pros know what questions to ask to get the best results, even if the client doesn’t.

We are curious, neutral, persistent, analytical and perceptive.

These skills enable us to assess information for its relevancy.  Resources and tools like computers are wonderful, but info pros function as high-end filters.

Explaining what we do can also be a challenge, but one important goal is to emphasize terms that show value, rather than just stating a fact:

• “We search premium databases” -vs- “We bring perspective from the outside”
• “We provide research services” -vs- “We enable better decision making”
• “We are experts in finding and organizing information” -vs- “We make critical information findable”

In order to do this, though, we need to learn what’s really valued in our organizations by:

• Questioning all assumptions we have about our organization and its informational needs to see what we’re missing.  Do I know my organization’s strategic goals?
• Asking clients to describe situations in which they couldn’t find the answer they needed, in order to ascertain their research habits and better help them in their search and to provide the resources that will give them what they need.
• Finding out if, after a trip to the information center, our clients feel like they have enough information, or maybe more than enough.  Were their needs met?
• Listening for phrases like “I don’t know if you do this, but…” so we can help our clients to know that we’re capable of more than they may think.
• Soliciting input by asking clients:

“If you could change one thing about the information center, what would it be?”

To make the most out of a reference interview and have your client feeling that they’re getting the highest quality service and information, Ms. Bates suggests asking yourself:

• Do I understand the context and purpose of this project?  Why are they asking?  Why do they need this information?  What will they do with it?  How can I make it more valuable?
• Do I know what will happen to my deliverable?  Will it be distributed to colleagues or used as sales or promotional materials?
• Do I know when I can stop?  What is good enough?
• If I can’t find exactly that, what would be second best?  Find out not what they think the answer should look like, but what the answer is.  What can I do to help my client accomplish that?  How can I make it more valuable?

Defining our future is a task of participation, NOT representation

This is applicable on many levels in our society, but is from a post by Carl Grant summarizing his recent keynote at ALA Annual 2012.  Carl asks librarians to take charge of our future and help develop the very tools we use to serve our communities.

This is something I have been trying to do for just about a year now and have found it quite intimidating.  How do you become involved with something so large as a profession when just starting out?  I’ve tried to focus my interests in hopes of finding smaller niches in the industry where I can be of service.  I am following the dealings of LITA and have volunteered for my local SLA chapter.  I’m very interested in standards and have been researching participation in NISO working groups, which is something that would have more of an impact.

I’m starting small, but once I become more comfortable within my own professional skin hopefully I can help to make a difference and shape the future of librarianship.

I’m not so sure… I’m a podcast junkie — I listen to hours upon hours of podcasts per week, I might even consider it an addiction.  I’ve tried a few different apps for management and playback, and my favorite overall is BeyondPod on Android.  When I decided to purchase a podcatcher for my iPad, I decided to go with Downcast and am generally satisfied with a few exceptions, but I have no major complaints.  Once I saw that Apple had released the recently rumored Podcasts app, I had to give it a try.  I’m not sold on it just yet, but it’s a good start.

Here’s what I was looking for:

• Subscriptions & single episode downloads
• Automatic downloads
• Library management
• Playlist functionality

Currently Findings only works with the web or Kindle, so I believe that is why I originally dismissed it, but with their discovery feature I may pop back now and then to see if anything catches my eye.  I think the concept is really interesting, so if other e-reader apps would allow them to connect, and perhaps they if partnered with something like Good Reads, it would be a much more robust service and appeal to a wider audience.

Definitely something to keep an eye on!

So basically it’s:

Example SharePoint Taxonomy

 -VS-

Example SharePoint Taxonomy - Visualized

This is just an example taxonomy, full business taxonomies will have much more data in many more levels, but you can see why something less linear makes this information a little easier to grasp.  

All of the visualization tools I tried today were free, so I thought I’d share a few I liked:

MindJet - Free for 1 User and 2GB of storage
This is what I would compare to a really lite version of MS Visio.  It would definitely be useful for mind mapping, flow charts, and hierarchical charts.  There are three pre-defined structures, multiple shapes and colors, the ability to place callouts and icons, and many customization features for text, lines, and borders.  This platform was quite robust, and even allowed for collapsing groups, collaboration, and project management.  There is a paid version that allows for more users, greater storage capacity and additional collaboration capabilities.

Bubbl.us – Free
This site was used for the above term-map.  There is a lot less flexibility with this service, and basically what you see above is what you get.  There is the ability to add more sub-levels, but there is only one pre-defined structure and no alternate shapes, though you can change the bubble colors.  I found this useful for showing fairly simple data with few levels, but wouldn’t recommend it for more complicated representations.

SpiderScribe.net - Free
This service was not really at all useful for my data-mapping project, but I thought warranted mentioning, since it was a really interesting concept.  This site is more of what I would consider good for life- or schedule-mapping.  You can enter notes, pictures, events and maps.  I didn’t play around with it much, but I might delve a little more deeply with some meeting or conference planning.

I’m finding infographics and data visualization to be pretty fun, so my next post might be on other free infographic services.  Do you have any recommendations?

Some of the topics covered include:

• iPad rental machines
• 3D printers
• Open source ILS
• Social media and mobile applications for libraries
• New systems from Serials Solutions and Ex Libris
• and more!

From TechSource’s blog:

“The ALA Midwinter Meeting provides a fantastic opportunity to reflect on how technology is continuing to transform the library world. Between the exhibition floor and the variety of technology-related events, the conference can provide attendees with an overview of where library technology is, and where it may be going. Of course, for various reasons, many librarians won’t be able to attend, and many who do will find themselves spread so thin that they cannot attend some of the technology-related events.

We’re happy to announce that we’re continuing our free, conference-wrapping webinars with The 2012 ALA TechSource Midwinter Tech Wrapup. Our expert panel will present their observations and analysis of the top technology trends from the conference, and what they see as the implications for libraries.”

I’m one of those that was unable to make it to Midwinter, so I’m very grateful for this free opportunity to get a bit of a summary.  I registered yesterday and am excited to hear what technology has been impacting libraries lately!