Walt at Random

Here’s this week’s post at PLN Highlights–and, as always, I encourage you to sign up for the PALINET Leadership Network and add PLN Highlights to your aggregator (or subscribe to posts via email).

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What’s happening at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

New articles include notes by Steven Bell on Innovation and control and some new Mentoring notes from the business literature. We’re continuing to add links so you can keep exploring a topic once you find a worthwhile article.

Two new features may also help you find worthwhile articles and notes:

• Every topic (the twelve primary categories in the topics sidebar) now shows a “Feature article of the month” at the end of the list of Recent articles. These articles aren’t necessarily the must-read articles or the best of PLN. They are articles that may deserve more attention than they’ve received recently. You’re encouraged to take a look–and to add criticism or commentary as appropriate.
• We’ve also added What’s hot at PLN? This page shows the 25 articles viewed most often during a given period–currently March 7 and April 6, 2008. Typically, that list will be updated once a month, sometimes a little less often. This isn’t exactly “Greatest hits of PLN”–it reflects recent readership, not overall readership.
• Assembling that first “What’s hot” page–taken directly from log analysis, but with most Topic, Category and Help pages removed from the list–we removed one additional page, but maybe it’s worth highlighting here. The General feedback and suggestions page was viewed a lot–but had no content other than the header. So, to get you started, we’ve added a couple of polls on content within PLN. Please respond to the polls (you can add a message)–and, of course, add your own suggestions there or on the feedback page for each topic, or start a discussion in the PLN Forums.

Know people who are or might be library leaders and haven’t heard of PLN? Tell them about it and encourage them to join. And if you have acquaintances who have PLN accounts but aren’t getting these posts–encourage them to sign up. PLN Highlights is the best way we have to keep you informed on what’s happening at PLN. We won’t flood your aggregator or inbox, but we will try to let you know what’s new.

Here’s this week’s post at PLN Highlights — and if you haven’t signed up for the PALINET Leadership Network, now is a great time to do so, and to become an active participant. There may be readers of Walt at Random who have no intention of ever being any sort of leader within libraries, not even thought leaders or professional leaders–but surely there aren’t many!

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What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

• We tend to share success stories–but we’re not so good at sharing failures (or “learning experiences” or “qualified successes” or “premature innovations”). That’s true even though we may learn more from clearly-described missteps than we do from successes. Learning from failure combines a post by Meredith Farkas, some of the comments on that post, a related post by Alan Kirk Gray–and a new page on the Library Success Wiki. We’d all benefit from your learning experiences; can we do better at sharing?
• In Light my fire: thoughts on the Kindle, Villanova’s Joe Lucia comments on his own experiences using Amazon’s Kindle and considers the nature of text and books.
• Leader’s Digest for March 2008 brings together summaries and extracts from more than twenty articles on aspects of leadership and other current events. Some of the elements in this collation will turn up elsewhere over the next days and weeks, but they’re in place now for a good overview–as are 18 earlier Leader’s Digest compilations and conference reports.

There’s a Feedback and suggestions page for PLN–and each of the dozen Topics (primary categories) also has a Feedback and suggestions page. There’s also a Site Feedback Forum. All of which is to say: We welcome and need your feedback–and if adding to one of those pages or starting a topic in the forum is too public for your taste, feel free to send your feedback to crawford@palinet.org or waltcrawford@gmail.com.

I’m reposting this week’s PLN Highlights post as usual; you’ll find the post below the line. We continue to add worthwhile, interesting, sometimes provocative content to the PALINET Leadership Network, PLN–free to all current and future library leaders, requires a minute or two to sign up (and clicking on one email link)–and we need library leaders to join and actively participate, commenting on what’s there and providing (or pointing to) new resources.

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve added two particularly interesting and provocative pieces, one on future possibilities for library catalogs (although “library catalog” might not be the term you’d use) and one on future possibilities for “OpenLibrarianship,” a term Carl Grant proposes. (Is OpenLibrarianship really Librarian 2.0? If so, that may be a good thing.) The latter is a case where a little bit of conversation has improved the presentation: I added a comment on the first article to its Talk page, and Carl responded by writing an essay that refines and extends the original commentary. More active participation can only improve PLN for everybody.

In a side note, what happened with Carl Grant’s piece is what would happen with any piece that makes a useful contribution to PLN–even if I personally disagree with it. I’ll edit for clarity (a process that usually involves very few changes). I’ll add Related Article links (and I’m trying to make sure that every new PLN article is linked to by at least one other article). And if I take issue with the article, I might comment–but on the Talk page or in a separate article, not by manipulating what’s there. PLN isn’t my network; as managing editor, I’m there to recruit, refine and link, not to control.

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It’s been a busy week at the PALINET Leadership Network, PLN. Some of the new resources:

• Telling the library story — the March 2008 LLN Peer Panel question is about information literacy, but the responses are mostly about telling your library’s story…and making sure that your library’s reality matches the story you’re telling. George Needham, Jamie LaRue and Lirene Roy offer comments.
• Challenges in developing library information literacy programs — Glen Holt discusses some real-world issues in library information literacy and orientation programs.
• Who needs reference librarians? — Jamie LaRue asks that question in his newspaper column, says the answer is “we all do,” and offers ways those reference librarians can become more visible and valuable.
• A call for OpenLibrarianship — Carl Grant offers a challenging set of proposals for today’s and tomorrow’s librarianship and proposes a term to go along with it. Walt Crawford added a comment on the Talk page, which inspired Grant to write another piece refining the first one: OpenLibrarianship: A framework discussion. These are noteworthy, provocative pieces. Is OpenLibrarianship really Librarian 2.0?
• Real men aim for maximum gadgetude — Jamie LaRue again, this time with a true confession from a one-time Kaypro II owner.

As with last week’s Future catalogs: food for thought, Carl Grant’s articles deserve extended discussion as possible visions for tomorrow’s libraries. The talk pages are open, as are the forums. PLN–free to all current and future library leaders (however you define “library leader”)–is there for discussion and to exchange information.

In the category of exchanging information, one PLN participant has posed an interesting query on the Talk page for leadership training, mentoring and other resources: Are there resources to help interim library directors do their jobs as well as possible? Your suggestions are welcome.

Note: Some of the links above won’t work unless you’re signed in as a PLN user. So join up: It only takes a minute or two, along with clicking on a link in an email message.

Here’s this week’s post at PLN Highlights. Remember: If you’re a present or future library leader–manager, thought leader, leading voice, what have you–you really should join the PALINET Leadership Network (and subscribe to PLN Highlights).

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Some of the articles just added to the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN):

• Future catalogs: food for thought - What could a “catalog” do? Eric Lease Morgan offers an extended and challenging set of visions in this essay.
• Separating the discovery layer from the ILS - In a related article, John Houser discusses the desire to provide unique local interfaces for a library’s integrated library system–and the simultaneous desire of many institutions to share metadata. Separating layers might serve both desires.
• Face time or Facebook? - Jeff Scott notes the uses of technology to help bring people through the library doors–and the importance of face-to-face service once they’re in the library, to make them loyal patrons and supporters.

You’ll also find updates to the extensive set of Kindle and ebook reader notes, a new Open source category to gather the growing set of articles on open source, and more links to take you from one article to related articles.

Remember–your views and contributions are always welcome, and really essential to making PLN a true participatory resource for today’s and tomorrow’s library leaders. Add your comments on the Talk page attached to every article (or, if that’s appropriate, directly to the article), add feedback on the feedback pages for PLN as a whole and for each major category, start new Forum topics. If you have something you think may be suitable for an article and you aren’t ready to deal with MediaWiki markup, send it to me (crawford at palinet.org or waltcrawford at gmail.com) and I’ll take care of it.

And, of course, if you’re not yet a PLN member, sign up now–it’s fast and free. Do remember to click on the link in the email following your signup!

Here’s the latest from PLN Highlights:

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What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

When you click on that link, you’ll see one big change: the home page has a clean, minimalist redesign, so you can take in the whole thing and move on to topics or new articles in a few seconds. As always, comments on the redesign or any aspect of PLN are welcome.

Some of the newest additions to PLN:

• Changing your mind — The March 2008 PLN Challenge finds one academic librarian questioning Turnitin.com–and a public librarian finding that web 2.0 initiatives haven’t been a big hit in her community. PLN Challenges are now just that: Open-ended challenges for your responses and comments, seeded with responses from the PLN Challenge Panel. What have you changed your mind about lately?
• Different ways of dealing with obstacles — Morgan Wilson was inspired by a nature walk to suggest half a dozen ways of dealing with obstacles of all sorts. Thought-provoking reading, open for additional commentary on the Talk page.
• Should libraries host user generated content? — Kathryn Greenhill makes a case for libraries hosting patron-written blogs and other user-generated content. Don’t miss related articles (on libraries serving as centers to create local content and helping to tell the community’s stories)–and you can add your own comments to the one that’s already there.
• Should libraries rely on free commercial web 2.0 services? - Kate Davis considers issues raised by relying on the commercial infrastructure, particularly when there’s no direct payment for services rendered.
• On door counters and carparks - Davis again, discussing the need to focus on physical and virtual library users and getting beyond “bums on seats” (no, not people on the down-and-out) as justification for physical libraries.

If there’s any doubt as to the international nature of PLN, this quartet of contributions from Down Under should clarify the situation!

The article’s not new–but it’s sparked a discussion. Glen Holt wrote Ranking and reality–We’re number one! two years ago, when St. Louis Public Library emerged as the leader in one library ranking. Now, there’s a discussion (click on the topic with the article’s name) in the Marketing Forum on the question of whether being ranked highly has a downside. Add your voice–and note that creating a new Forum topic is another way to discuss something you see in a PLN article or something you don’t see.

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If you haven’t been to PLN yet, take a look–there’s a lot there, and it needs participation from you and other current and future library leaders to be even better.

And if you are a PLN user, subscribing to PLN Highlights is one easy way to find out what’s new. The posts won’t arrive more than about once a week: That’s a promise.

Here’s today’s PLN Highlights post–and a reminder that many of you really should join the PALINET Leadership Network, a free international network for current and future library leaders to learn and share.

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This week, rather than focusing on new articles in the PALINET Leadership Network, I’d like to note some other aspects of PLN–and ask for your help.

• You may have noted the quick headlines under “Latest items from Leader’s Digest” on the PLN home page. Those headlines change automatically as content is added to Leader’s Digest itself–and early in each month, the cumulated material from the previous month is combined into a monthly digest–e.g., this one for February 2008. (No, it doesn’t include items dated February 29; those will be in the March 2008 digest; we currently work by weekly groups.)
• Most, but not all, of the items in a monthly digest also turn up elsewhere in PLN either as articles or additions to articles–such as this one with a dozen checklists and commentaries on toxicity, fear and problem people within an organization.
• You’ve read an interesting article and want to follow the topic further. One good way (in addition to links within some articles) is to click on one of the Category links at the bottom of every article. Another is to look for related articles–links and brief descriptions to other PLN articles, just above “Your turn: Talk about it.” For example, the Toxicity, fear and problem people roundup links to Tyler Rousseau’s “Don’t be that boss” and a roundup on Speaking up and keeping quiet.
• Similarly, Jamie LaRue’s piece “Can the latest ebook Kindle the market” links to a technology backgrounder and set of commentaries, “Kindle and ebook reader notes,” and the fine LLN Peer Panel on Mentoring links to PLN’s expanded set of mentoring resources.

Here’s where you can help. You’re likely to see natural relationships between articles that I’ve missed–or that I haven’t gotten around to pursuing. Article-to-article links are an excellent way to pursue interests, particularly in a platform like PLN that lacks an inherent dictionary or hierarchical topic structure.

When you see two articles or other resources that you think relate to one another, let me know (or add the links yourself, if you’re comfortable with MediaWiki markup). You can add a note on the Talk page of one of the articles–or just send me email (crawford@palinet.org or waltcrawford@gmail.com) noting the two articles or resources and how you think they’re related.

Some of the most interesting relationships aren’t obvious. You can do other current and future leaders a favor by pointing out those interesting relationships. Let me know; I’ll do the markup.

Oh, and don’t forget the forums–they’re wide open for discussion.

Two weeks ago tomorrow, I decided to try using my new notebook PC as my only PC–using it as a mini-desktop, with my Sony 19″ LCD as a secondary display and my wireless Microsoft Natural keyboard and mouse as primary typing and pointing tools. (The keyboard on the Gateway notebook is actually just fine–but I’m really used to the Natural, and with the way I have my desk set up, the notebook’s keyboard is too far away to use. As for the touchpad…well, I could adjust the “tap” sensitivity, but I’m so used to a good optical mouse…). I wrote about it here and here and here.

So how’s it going? Am I cursing at the notoriously “broken” Windows Vista, desperately trying to downgrade to XP, and swearing at all the ways that Office 2007 disrupts all my learning from Office 2000? Finding that apps won’t load properly, that things behave mysteriously? Have I realized that notebooks really aren’t made for everyday use?

Nope. Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder about all those claims that Vista is broken. Other than my wife’s occasional glitch with Wifi shutting down under battery power (a known problem that doesn’t affect me, both because I’m usually on AC and because, since the notebook’s two feet from the DSL modem/router/wifi box, I’ve got it plugged in via Ethernet).

Here’s what I’m finding, in no particular order:

• I was having one odd and extremely minor issue at startup, but couldn’t tell whether it was Vista or the Intel graphics driver: The monitor would always come up as an extension to the right of the notebook (primary display), and my desk layout really necessitates having it on the left. No big deal: One mouse click, a drag-and-drop, another mouse click, and it was fixed. But: after a week or so–I’m not sure how long–the problem went away. Vista consistently comes up now with the dual display exactly the way I want it: The 1280×800 notebook primary display on the right (and displaying the desktop shortcuts and the taskbar), the 1280×1024 monitor secondary display on the left, wide open except for the desktop picture.
• The notebook comes up a lot faster than my 5.5-year-old XP desktop did: something under a minute (maybe 45 seconds for full startup?) instead of 2-4 minutes Timed: 90 seconds as compared to 4-5 minutes). Shuts down faster, too. Applications start at about the same speed, but file opening is significantly faster, probably because the virus scan isn’t loading a single CPU.
• Last time the weekly virus/spyware scan started up, I didn’t even notice–there was no slowdown in applications. I’m generally finding that applications always run at full speed; that second CPU really does make a difference.
• Technically, if Hz is all that counts, the notebook’s a step back from my old PC: 1.67GHz rather than the 2.2GHz of my old desktop. But that’s nonsense: The old desktop was a Pentium (4?), the new one’s a Core 2 Duo, and each of those two CPUs does a lot more per cycle than the old one. Technically, the new hard disk is slower too (5400RPM rather than 7200RPM), but there’s nothing I do where that seems to matter–and, of course, with 3GB RAM (I used to have 756MB), I’m not doing much of any paging to disk. I’m also using Intel integrated graphics where I used to have a graphics card (but, of course, a 2002-vintage graphics card)–but since I’m not a gamer, I don’t see a problem. I let Vista decide how much eye candy to use; I’m happy with the results. When I’ve tried doing a little graphics work, it’s certainly faster than it used to be.
• Compatibility hasn’t been a problem, except for the Acrobat 7 situation discussed last time around–and that was an Acrobat 7 incompatibility with Word 2007 more than a Vista problem. Otherwise, I’ve been astonished at how well very old software has installed and run. As for Vista and the builtin utilities, so far everything seems to be better than for XP.
• One very pleasant surprise: I was led to believe that Vista Home Premium doesn’t include Windows Backup–but maybe Gateway made special arrangements. It’s there, right in the Tools tab for the hard disk, and it works just fine: Differently than XP Backup, but equally well. (I’m backing up all text files to a flash drive; very fast, very easy.)
• I always used to use PowerDesk instead of Windows Explorer. While there’s a PowerDesk 6 that runs just fine under Vista, I find I’m usually using Windows Explorer instead–and when I found it a nuisance to get to the directory structure where I store everything, I found that dragging the highest-level directory up to Favorites took care of the problem immediately. (It’s a long story, but all of my data directories are under a “d\” directory…I’ve never used My Whatever except for MP3s.)
• I rarely take time to play it, but the new Solitaire is much more sophisticated than the XP version…
• Then there’s Word 2007 and Excel 2007. (I rarely use PowerPoint, and I’m using Access 2003–and, if I ever want it, Publisher 2003.) I already knew from looking over my wife’s shoulder that I wanted Word 2007, and I’m quite happy with it. OK, so the “quick style set from template” doesn’t work quite as thoroughly as I’d like, but there’s a trivial workaround for that, and it’s something that wouldn’t affect less template-oriented users. It’s clear that the ribbon exposes functions more thoroughly and logically; once I realized how easy it was to minimize the ribbon (when multiple on-screen applications make space difficult), I was completely sold. (Want to minimize the ribbon? Just right-click on the menu line, check “Minimize the ribbon”–I know, that’s pretty arcane, but…–and you’re left with the menu line, the quick access toolbar above it, and nothing else. To restore the ribbon, just click on any of the menus (Home, Insert, etc.) I find Word working more smoothly than it was before. The new live-preview features are nice ways to stay out of trouble… OK, I haven’t tried save-as-HTML yet, to see how it compares with Word 2000, but so far I’m really quite pleased. As for Excel: It worked before, it works now, I think it’s more logical, but I’m not a power user in any case.
• And the productivity gains from a two-screen setup with easy drag-and-drop to place things where I want them! When I’m working on the PALINET Leadership Network (have you signed up yet? give it a try!), it’s much faster to be able to devote a big chunk of screen space to a source document while I’m editing it in the wiki than it was to either use smaller windows or tab back and forth. But that’s nothing compared to what I was doing this afternoon: A project that required a good-size Firefox window, plus an Excel spreadsheet, plus a tall (but slender) Firefox window sitting on one site, plus a third wide (but not necessarily too high) Firefox window sitting on another site–and, ideally, with all the windows fully visible simultaneously. I just couldn’t make that work on my old PC, but with the dual display it’s a snap.

Do I assume everything will be perfect? No. This is a computer and I’m using a variety of software; I assume there will be some glitches. But so far, you can color me happy and productive.

Oh, as for the notebook itself…well, I only use it 3 or 4 hours at a time, typically, and I’ve found that even after four straight hours, the hottest part of the case isn’t much above room temperature and the noise varies from totally silent to a whisper-quiet fan. Except, of course, when I’m running something from the DVD burner; that’s a noisy beast at times (although not always–actually playing a DVD isn’t particularly noisy, but installing software can get a pretty good buzzsaw going). If I do want to listen to music, the earphone jack’s right on the front of the notebook and, as it should, cuts out the little speakers automatically.

Fact is, except for installing software and the clatter of the keyboard (I’m a heavy-handed typist, apparently), the office is quieter now with the notebook on than it was with the desktop PC off–because the old speaker system that I used with the desktop had a subwoofer that was always on and had a low, soft hum (masked by the PC’s fan when it was on). Since I really wasn’t listening to the speakers any more, since it’s now really convenient to plug in headphones, and since two screens do take up more desk space–well, the Altec-Lansing surround speakers gave me great service for 8+ years, and now they’re in the garage. Time changes.

I’m probably using a little less power now when not running the PC, and not much more (and maybe less) when I am using it. When I’m not, I’ve got the printer and the notebook’s AC adapter/charger on a power strip and I just turn off the power strip, so there’s no standby power at all. I turn off the LCD monitor, and I don’t believe it has any standby power with the switch off. And, presumably, the notebook has lower-power components than the old desktop–at least if the fan noise is any indication, it’s putting out a lot less heat! (And, to be sure, my office now has four 16-watt CFLs instead of four 60-watt incandescent bulbs…)

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One of these days, I might yet start up the silly project I’d planned to do ever since I got the XP system: Trying some of the 40 or 50 old title CD-ROMs (all of them from the mid to late 1990s) to see whether they’d run at all and how they “feel” on a newer system. These are all CDs designed for Windows 95/98; jumping to XP means the CDs couldn’t access hardware directly–and Vista is even more virtualized than XP. Will I ever get around to that? If I do, you’ll read about it.

Continuing the catch-up group of posts that originally appeared on PLN Highlights, here’s the post from February 5, 2008–noting that PLN is now up to 371 users. If you’re not one of them, go to PLN to sign up.

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A lot’s happened at PALINET Leadership Network (PLN) since the last post. Among the highlights:

• More than 300 participants: PLN’s user list passed the 300 mark last week. (As of this writing, there are 319 registered users–up from 190 when PLN launched at ALA Midwinter 2008 and 70 when the “soft launch” began in December 2007.) Do you know library people who would benefit from PLN? Let them know about it!
• Library leadership institutes, mentoring programs, new member round tables and other resources: Jess Bruckner of the Kilbourn Public Library, Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, initiated the LIS Future wiki in December 2007, just as PLN was about to emerge. He developed excellent sets of links for library leadership institutes, library mentoring programs, new member round tables and other resources. (Bruckner also maintains the WisLISjobs.com site.) With Bruckner’s cooperation, those links have now been folded into PLN, expanding the “Other resources” page into a set of pages linked from near the bottom of the PLN home page as the heading “Leadership training, mentoring and other resources.” Thanks to Jess Bruckner for this pioneering work. (LIS Future no longer exists; the domain points to PLN.)
• Open source: You’ll find two new items on open source software to complement John Houser’s essay from last week. The PLN Challenge Panel offers diverse notes on how individual libraries are (or aren’t) ready for open source; Joe Lucia adds a second piece, “From open stacks to open source.”
• Revaluing words: Glen Holt offers controversial views on the value of words and the place of fair use.
• Citizens, engage! Jamie LaRue provides a stirring commentary on the place of public libraries as places and community centers and the need for community members and libraries to engage in community integration.
• Leader’s Digest: Leslie Dillon’s Leader’s Digest for January 2008 includes lots of trends (library and otherwise) and other new material, which you’ll find here and also distributed elsewhere.

Talk pages may not be mentioned here, but they’re the easiest way for you to participate actively in PLN. Disagree with an article? Have another perspective to offer from your own experience and your library? Add it to the article’s Talk page, add a link and write your own article, or send me your draft article (crawford@pln.org or pln.content@gmail.com) with a note on the article it relates to!

The PLN Forums are also starting to see some activity. They’re there for you–another way to communicate with other current and future leaders.

For the handful of you already subscribed to PLN Highlights, apologies for the duplication…

This post appeared today:

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What’s new at PALINET Leadership Network?

• In Entrepreneuralism, the LLN Peer Panel offers comments on librarians as entrepreneurs.
• In On appearance and legitimacy, Iris Jastram discusses one problem of younger academic librarians and library leaders: Being taken seriously.
• In Should libraries host user generated content? Kathryn Greenhill makes a case for libraries hosting patron-writtenblogs and other user-generated content.
• And in Revaluing the book in the hypertext era, Glen Holt considers books, libraries and “the hypertext era.”

Take a look. Add your own responses. Try out the PLN forums!

Filling in the first four posts at PLN Highlights (to give you a flavor of some of the new material that’s enhancing the 295,000 words already in PLN), here’s the post from February 13, 2008. Again, some essays may require that you have an account…

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What’s new at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN)?

The set of Leadership training, mentoring and other resources pages noted last time around now includes brief descriptive notes for each link–and there’s a new Current library leadership events page, where you’re invited to add appropriate events.

Most new articles come from a variety of blogs, extracting and combining posts that speak to leadership issues. For example,

• In Don’t be that boss, Tyler Rousseau offers some guidelines for good managers–based partly on previous experience with not-so-good bosses.
• Steven J. Bell, Wayne Bivens-Tatum and a number of commenters discuss an ongoing question: Are we doing enough to create the next generation of leaders?
• Reflections on library leadership brings together thoughts from Michael Golrick, Jeff Scott, Barbara Kelly and Brett Bonfield–plus comments from Meredith Farkas, Steven Bell, Scott Walter and Barbara Fister.

As always, we welcome your comments and new articles, and the PLN Forums are open for discussion. And if you don’t have the time for wiki markup, you can always submit an article by email to crawford@palinet.org or pln.content@gmail.com.

For a few of you, pardon the duplicate posts: I’m going to try reposting PLN Highlights posts here–typically once a week, but I may repost the first few of them. Why? To remind you that the PALINET Leadership Network exists and that we’re adding new resources all the time.

Note that you must have a PLN account to view some of these articles–and it only takes a minute or two to set up a free account.

This post appeared on February 19, 2008:

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What’s new at PALINET Leadership Network?

• In New leadership for new challenges, Frank Hermes reports on the OCLC Symposium at ALA Midwinter 2008.

• In “Hey boss, I want your job!”, Jamie LaRue talks to his staff about their desires for the next few years.

• In What can organizational structure do for user-centered change? Ryan Deschamps expects libraries to become flatter organizations–and points out some advantages of hierarchical structures that could be lost in the process.

• Finally, Ryan Deschamps argues that user-centric libraries must also be librarian-centric; in Users or customers: internal and external, Michael Casey agrees and discusses the need to treat “internal customers” (staff at all levels) well if you’re going to succeed in treating “external customers” (patrons, users) well.

Take a look. Add your own responses. Try out the PLN forums!

Update: The migration to the new Vista notebook is going surprisingly well–well enough that I’m using it (with a dual-screen setup) as my working system while finding remaining issues. “Easy Transfer” got pretty much all the files and settings–with the singular exception of Firefox bookmarks (an easy manual transfer).

I’m now in the process of unlearning/relearning some advanced Word things (I knew that would be necessary). I’m a heavy template user, and Word2007 (Office2007 in general) sensibly treats sets of style definitions as, well, sets of style definitions–which can be part of themes and templates but can also be separate. You can switch a set of styles in an existing document. In Word2000, the only way to do that was to switch templates (which, as far as I can see, you can’t do in 2007). So in 2007, a template really is a template: A full document design for you to add text to. Separating themes (which, so far, I don’t quite grok) and style sets makes good sense, and it’s easy to save new style sets from old templates–once I figured that out (which took a while). This fits the general theme I’ve heard from Office2007 reviewers: Different and with a learning curve, but ultimately more logical and with more useful features made visible when they’re useful.
Other than an occasional startup switching the right-left placement of the primary and secondary display (now that I realize that’s a possibility, I won’t think my cursor’s simply stranded), it’s going pretty well. I have no desire to drop back to XP, and certainly no desire to drop back to Office 2000. Or, for that matter, to return the notebook: Time to send in the rebate form.

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Promotion: Want to encourage long life and robust content for C&I? One way to help is by telling other people about it; another is to buy Cites & Insights Books.

Want to encourage library leadership in yourself and others? One way to help is to join the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN), where you’ll find a growing range of varied content. You’re encouraged to add your own relevant comments and participate in the forums.

Yes, it’s another PALINET Leadership Network (PLN) post. If you haven’t signed up yet and either are or think you might eventually become a library leader (however you define “leader”), you should–and you should consider actively participating, either by adding content to pages or on the Forums.

But we know that PLN won’t grow just by providing a platform for people to add content to. We continue to add content from other sources–and when “we” is really plural for “I,” some of those sources are liblogs. I’ve already added one article excerpted (with almost no changes) from Michelle McLean’s Connecting librarian and another one created by combining an adapted version of a post by Meredith Farkas, a related post by Jeff Scott, and two article summaries already part of the ongoing PLN feature Leader’s Digest.

There will certainly be more. I have a folder of source material here and will be asking more bloggers for blanket permission to use entire posts or portions of posts, always with attribution and links to the originals, as entire PLN articles or portions of PLN articles. I’m asking even when no such permission is required–when the blogs operate under explicit Creative Commons licenses that allow derivative works.

(Yes, I know, I don’t ask permission to quote from blogs in Cites & Insights, unless I’m quoting so extensively that it can’t possibly be fair use–but in C&I I’m nearly always quoting at least partially for purposes of commentary and criticism, which is not the case for PLN.)

With that lengthy preamble, I’m actually making two points:

• If you get email from me, either waltcrawford at gmail.com or crawford at palinet.org, asking for such blanket permission, it’s really your choice, but I’d love to have the permission. I think McLean and Scott and Farkas will all tell you that I edit sensitively: I’m not about to remake your work in a way that changes your voice or your intent.
• You can take the initiative and send me email–to either of those addresses–granting such blanket permission. I’ll add you to the list, with thanks. If your blog is one I haven’t been reading, I’ll add it to my list, at least for a while. Heck, you could even add a comment here and I’ll add you to the list.

No promises as to how many blog posts I’m likely to reuse. It depends on other issues, how much other material is showing up (and where we see holes in the fabric), whether people start contributing original articles for PLN (which can be entered directly into the wiki or sent to me to do the MediaWiki markup), how much time I can spend on this…

I really haven’t posted yet in February? How time flies…

I voted this morning. What a strange feeling: Being a Californian and believing that my vote in a presidential primary might actually be significant in terms of selecting a candidate!

Who did I vote for? That’s my business, of course. This is not fundamentally a political blog. (Obviously someone I’d be happy to see as president.)

The polling place wasn’t crowded, largely because so many people vote by absentee ballot–a process made easier since we’re sent mail more than once, inviting us to vote permanently by mail. So far, we haven’t gone that route, partly because there’s a sense of civic engagement in voting in person.

Before voting, I was marking up some new material for the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN), which has now passed the 300-user mark (320 as of now, I think). One of the new pieces is Citizens, engage!–Jamie LaRue’s column, written for the local newspaper. (You may need to register as a PLN user before you can read this one.) It’s a salutary column about the role of public libraries as places and as community centers–and the desirability of citizens engaging in community integration and development.

LaRue says:

“Civic engagement means more than politics and voting. It means taking actions, together, that result in a community worth living in, in which many can and do thrive.”

Is this another sales pitch for PLN? Maybe, but mostly I’m being a little upbeat on a voting day, recognizing that good public libraries do engage their communities in many ways, helping to improve the communities.

Oh, and if you’re in one of the two dozen states voting on Super-Duper Tuesday? Go vote, if you haven’t already. Engage in the process. You’ll be glad you did.

Who’s a leader in the library field–or will become one at some point?

You, quite possibly. Leaders aren’t just directors and managers (and not all managers are leaders). I believe every librarian is potentially a leader in some areas, at some points–as are many nonlibrarians in the library field.

• Take a look at the PALINET Leadership Network (PLN). It’s an international network to provide resources and share ideas among library leaders (present and future) of all varieties. It’s free, it’s open to anyone who believes they belong, and it’s off to a good start–with just under more than 300 users and some 200,000 words of content already in place.

One small piece of content, which also appeared in the January 2008 Cites & Insights, is “Who’s a leader?”–which, as with much of PLN, you can read even before you create an account. Steven Bell offers some additional thoughts on the topic on the article’s Talk page; make sure to read that as well.

“Create an account”? Yes–to take full advantage of PLN, you need an account, which takes about a minute to create. We ask for your real name, your institution (optional), your email address (which must be a real email address), your choice of username and password. You enter that, you get a confirmation email with a link in it, you click on the link–and your account is open, giving you access to all the content in PLN. A little while later (maybe a day, maybe less), you’ll probably get another email, and your account will be fully authorized, meaning you can comment on articles, add to some of them, and create your own articles (or take part in the fledgling forums). (As I was typing that, a new user just created an account–and I just approved it. If not me, then PALINET support would do so. We’ll only turn down approval if an account has obvious signs of being a spam agent.)

I posted about PLN earlier–the first public announcement of its open availability. Since then, I’ve organized lots more material, a fair amount of new material has come in, and we’re just about to hit the 300-user mark.

• We also know that most leaders (and would-be leaders) are busy people, who don’t have time to go check a wiki every week or two to see what’s new. With that in mind, we’ve created PLN Highlights–yes, my third blog (the first is only used to announce C&I issues). You can add PLN Highlights to your aggregator–or, if you’re not a big aggregator person and blog reader, you can sign up to get posts via email (click Subscriber to posts under the Pages heading on the sidebar). You can expect roughly one post a week–never more than two a week, rarely fewer than two a month. Posts will note some of the new additions to PLN and, once in a while, milestones and interesting facts.

When you create a PLN account, you can be sure your email address won’t be sold for marketing purposes. We will, however, send you occasional email–almost never more than once a month, rarely less often than once a quarter, and always concise (my aim is 150 words or less)–to remind you that PLN is around and benefits from your participation. PLN Highlights is PLN’s primary “push mechanism,” the way to keep you informed on what’s happening in PLN; the rare broadcast emails are supplemental.

PLN can and should be a primary international hub for library leadership–a resource that complements leadership institutes and helps current and future leaders to think about leadership issues, continue their own development, and contribute to shared understanding of issues in the field. Take a look. See if it’s helplful to you–and, if not, whether you can contribute ideas and resources to make it more useful. We’ll continue to bring in content from various sources, but we’d love to see a growing body of content and discussion directly from PLN’s users.

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Update: Within an hour and a half after this post appeared, PLN went from “nearly 300 users” to “more than 300 users.” If the post itself was responsible for passing that milestone, thanks!