homoLudens

but to no effect.

I’ve been working, little by little, on the Galileo H.S. library site. I’m trying to maximize integration into what is already publicly available through the city library system. SF Public has a new Q&A Cafe 24/7 online reference service. Inspired, as noted earlier, by AADL and the Block article, I Q-ed for some A’s, asking something like: “I’m the new high school librarian up the street. I’m putting together a RSS-fed news website of information related to the California recall insanity that would be of interest to teen readers and voters. I’m wondering if anyone is already doing this? And, if not, if you might be able to direct me to some useful teen-friendly sites that would have such information.”

Some of the transcript of the session is posted in the pic to the left. Have to say that it was a disappointing experience. Got one link - to the state voter information site. Duh - now that’s teen friendly. And was encouraged to visit LII. Well, comon’ Mr. Ref, I AM a librarian. Of course I know LII. At that point, I changed approach and started asking questions about the interface and his/her location. I wanted to know, for example, if my reference savior was locally based, an SFPL employee perchance. Felt like I was talking to the robot from Lost in Space. “Delaney does not compute.”

Frankly,there was nothing that (probably expensive) interface did that IM (even freebie blogChat) combined with a blog couldn’t do better. Sorely missing was the liveliness that is at the heart of IM information exchange, even with complete strangers. Good reference librarians, digital or otherswise, are personable. Q & A Cafe was as dull as that state info site. This is not how to revitalize the profession.

Meanwhile, any ref librarians out there who want to dive into the creation of a teen-friendly news site related to Arnold’s New Movie, let me know.

from slashdot - Posted by CowboyNeal pointing to Joy Press in Slate: “The old argument that no one likes reading on a computer has pretty much eroded. In the last five years or so, we have all become accustomed to reading newspapers online, not to mention the explosion of Web mediaófrom blogs to the magazine you are looking at right nowóthat don’t exist in print at all. This will only become more true not less true. Just because publishing people can’t conceive of book piracy doesn’t mean it can’t happen.”
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