Daily Thoughts 8/3/2011

"Robert Browning," oil on canvas, by Michele Gordigiani. 28 1/2 in. x 23 1/8 in. (724 mm x 587 mm). Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Daily Thoughts 8/3/2011

Today I checked the displays, updated the Twitter and Facebook page, and checked the gift books.  We are getting a security upgrade for the computers right now.  I also printed up some civil service position announcements which go to the reference desk.  There are going to be 4000 openings for Fire Fighters in New York City soon.

We had the Internet Job Search Hour this afternoon from 2-3 p.m..  There was a person working on their resume, and another person was working on business related material.
I am also going to a conference tomorrow called The Social Media for Nonprofits Conference.  It should be very interesting.  http://www.meetup.com/NYC-Tech4Good-a-NetSquared-group/events/25337891/

The book, Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne has come in for me to read.

Daily Thoughts 4/12/2011 (Getting More, Social Media)

For greater knowledge on more subjects use your library more often.  Poster showing a mortarboard and a pair of glasses superimposed over a globe, promoting use of libraries. Date Created/Published: Chicago : Illinois WPA Art Project, [between 1936 and 1941]

Daily Thoughts 4/12/2011

This morning, I read a little more of Getting More on the train to work.  Today has been a steady day.  I checked some items for discard, updated the Twitter account, and checked the displays.  I also put in my program schedule for May and June.

Our new BWI (Book Wholesalers Inc.)  representative came by for a visit and I gave a tour of the library and explained our ordering process.  They are supposed to have a list of grants available to libraries on their website.  They also said they were visiting Queens Library and would provide us some information on their gifts program.

Hopefully, tomorrow we should have the image gallery from the Local History Room ready.  The slideshow looks quite nice.

I updated the current events display and checked on the gifts.  Things are caught up right now for me.

On the way home, I read some more of Getting More How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World.  There was one comment that I especially liked. The author cites Dr. Seuss Green Eggs and Ham as an excellent book on persistence, possibly the best one written.  The book also describes how to focus on goals and people, not facts and statistics.  A lot of decisions are not rational.

I am thinking I amight do an informal session on social media at the library. A lot of patrons come in to use Facebook and Linked In on the library computers.

Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010 (net profits, SEO, jack mcdevitt, echo, social media, library budget)

Houghton Mifflin and Company’s Holiday Books for MDCCCXCV, 1895, Chromoltihograph.  This is one of the few images that I have chosen to use more than once.

Daily Thoughts 12/25/2010

During the last week we've watched The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg several times.   It is an excellent christmas movie.  It is a break from watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. I really enjoyed the Polar Express.  It is also a childrens book which is very beautifully illustrated.  I am also fond of The Garden of Abdul Gasazi which is very beauftiful.  Chris Van Allsburg has a nicely illustrated website
http://www.chrisvanallsburg.com/polarexpress.html


I have been reading more of Net Profits by David Soskin.  He is writing about how he opened his company in the United Kingdom and then expanded into Canada, the United States, and Europe. There is a lot to think about here.

I also read Jack McDevitt, Echo  which is a mix of archaeological science fiction, mystery, and disaster story.  It is a very complex story with lots of twists, turns, and skulduggery.

The week has been very relaxing.  I also watched something pretty mindless but entertaining, the series, Wolverine and the Xmen on dvd.  It is not Marvel's best stuff, but I enjoyed it.  The original Xmen series is much better.

The budget issue with the library has not ended.  There is going to be a revised budget announced on Monday, December 27, 2010, and a hearing on Tuesday December 28, 2010 about the budget.  If you are interested in the library please attend.  http://www.lohud.com/article/20101225/NEWS02/12250324/Mount-Vernon-sets-hearing-on-86-8M-spending-plan 

Web Bits

I have also been thinking of free SEO tools. It is a way to review free methods of search engine marketing.

There is Addme, which is a free tool which submits to 20 engines.

http://www.addme.com 

There is also Google Pagerank Checker

http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php

Google Adwords has a free keyword analysis tool.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal free keyword analysis

Statcounter is a fairly reliable hit counter that is free.

http://statcounter.com/why_is_it_free.html

There is also Google Webmaster Tools which allows you to have free analyics.

www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html  

This is an automatic link checker which allows you to determine if you have broken links on your site.

The other thing which I am thinking of is social media campaigns.

There are the big three; Linked In, Twitter, and Facebook.  Depending on what I am thinking about in the near future with something more oriented towards books, there would also be Book Blogs on Ning, and a blog associated with various book sites.

Daily Thoughts 11/27/2010 (Get Glue, LinkedIn, Social Media, Budget)

Interior View of the Astor Library, 1854

Daily Thoughts 11/27/2010 

Using Social Networks To Select Material.


I have two books that I placed on hold after reading Linked In; What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelley and Letting Go Of Words, Writing Web Content That Works.  Librarians often talk about the books they like on Linked In.  It is often career oriented material.  While I was on a thread in Linked In on LISCareers, they had a number of career books they were discussing.  The thread is called Best Books For Career Professional/Personal Development http://linkd.in/f0VYYT%20  Two books that caught my attention were First Break All The Rules: What TheWorlds Greatest Managers Do by Marcus Buckingham and Creating A Life Worth Living: A Practical Course In Career Design For Aspiring Writers, Artists, Filmmakers, Musicians, and Others Who Want to Make A Living From Their Creative Work by Carol Lloyd.

I also spent some time on Get Glue looking at different book lists.  I ended up picking out three books Rules For Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki who also is on Twitter, Dust of Dreams by Steven Erikson, and Paper Cities an Anthology Urban Fantasy, Edited by Ekaterina Sedia.  This is my list on Get Glue of books http://getglue.com/BookCalendar/books

I find looking through lists of books on social networks sometimes very interesting and useful.  There are a lot of people with computer backgrounds who have lists of new computer books which are often not available from standard review sources.  People also recommend a lot of book that are never reviewed in the standard review sources like Library Journal or Publishers Weekly.  I think only 1% of published books are reviewed professionally.  This leaves a vast array of books with little or no coverage.  They are often things like computer books, books on construction, textbooks, and other materials.

Also many social networks have lists where people give what they are currently reading.  These are sometimes curious to look at because they tend to have a wide cross section of books.

Budget and Politics

It is almost the end of the year.  I learned we have enough money to make it until the end of the year without layoffs.  This is a relief in a way.  I am waiting to hear about the finalization of people retiring.  On November 29, 2010 we are having a union meeting to discuss the budget with union representatives from the state. The mayor announced there would be no layoffs in the city.  However, our library is moving away from being part of the city, we are in the process of becoming a school district library at the request of the Board of Regents of the New York State Library.  This would put our budget up to vote in 2011.  It also means that the board of trustees would have to be elected as well.  It is very political.

I now know that there will not be any furloughs, it goes against the CSEA statewide union policy.  It is something I would have liked to consider.  It requires a lot of patience to think about these things.

In the city itself, there is some dissension, the city comptroller has announced that she is against the mayors budget.  This makes things even more complicated.  Right now in Westchester County, they are having budget hearings.  Funding for libraries in Westchester County are being considered.  The Westchester Library System which does some of our services is being cut.  They already have cut the bookmobile.  In our city, it went to the homes for the aged and the local armory.

It gets even more complicated, because the civil service has to work with the library if there are layoffs or a reduction in force.  They already did a reduction in force for our library on July 11, 2010 which was rescinded.  This makes them very careful.

In the surrounding area in the five boroughs of New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has suggested a $16.5 million dollar budget cut.  This would eliminate 404 librarians leaving a lot of librarians out of work with a limited amount of open positions.  Many of the open positions are for technically oriented positions, systems librarians, metadata specialists, digital image specialists, information architects, content specialists, and web technology specialists.

The whole profession is in a shift, much like the publishing industry is shifting to new technologies, libraries are slowly starting to do it as well.  It is a very disruptive time period.

It also is a very important time to learn how to advocate for your library and find advocates in the community.  Choices which are made now, will affect how or whether libraries will exist in the future.  In my personal opinion, reform is necessary, not elimination.

Metro Career Transition SIG on Friday, November 12, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., U R What You Tweet Social Media 4 Career Advancement

Metro Career Transition SIG on Friday, November 12, from 5:30-7:30 p.m., U R What You Tweet Social Media 4 Career Advancement

I went to the Metro Career Transition SIG on Friday, November 12, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Metro has a number of excellent classes and networking events. They even have an individual membership now for
$100. It is worth considering if you go to their classes regularly.


The Metropolitan New York Library Council http://www.metro.org/  is on 57 East 11th street, Fourth floor, New York City, between Broadway and University Place. The location is easy to get to by subway. This event was open to nonmembers. Suasna Gormley, the chapter chair, introduced the speakers. I saw one person from New York Librarians Meetup and I saw Tom Nielsen who is the member services chair for Metro. I remember meeting him once when he was working at an engineering library many years ago.



Metro New York is very clean and well laid out. The meeting room is comfortable, the projector is large, and at every meeting or class I have been there, they have decent coffee.



As always, I try to present what I thought was important that I heard at the presentation. There was a lot of very relevant information in this presentation.



One of the presenters was Bonnie McEwan President of Make Waves. Her blog is called Ripples and Wipeouts, http://www.makewavesnotnoise.com/blog . Make Waves is a marketing and communication consultancy for nonprfits. Tbe other presenter was Donna Severino, Vice President, Records Management at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. She is also the Chair of the SLA Employment Task Force. I found a recommended book title which looks interesting on her Linked In profile, If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Pracitce by Carol O'Dell and C. Jackson Grayson, Jr. The title of the preseentaion was UR What U Tweet Social Media and Your Career. Having seen lots of different presentations, this was one of the more practical, better presentations that I have seen. It is part of Bonnie McEwan's slideshre presentations. http://www.slideshare.net/BonnieMcEwan/social-media4careeradvancement



Having the url for the presentation freed me to listen to what was being said and take notes on what was not in the slideshow. Slideshare is wonderful because it eliminates the need for copious notes. I could think about what she meant by transparency. In a way, I am not very transparent. I don't necessarily agree that being transparent is the most wonderful thing. A certain amount of being enigmatic can have its usefulness. I would rather represent myself as an image of what I work with; book related pictures, book related art, or book posters are some of the imagery I like being associated with. It generates some controversy which is not always a bad thing.



Some of the ideas that were particularly useful were that you should frame yourself in the social media environment or other people or employers will do it for you. This means checking how people are talking about you and branding yourself. Sometimes it is good to Google yourself. Bonnie McEwan described Linked In as being a fairly safe environment to brand yourself to start with. Facebook is more about relationship building and twitter is one of the best communication channels. Part of branding yourself is keeping your communications consistent with your image. I found these ideas something to ponder. Bonnie McEwan talked about a little bit about how to keep your Facebook profile clean of arguments and present a good face to the world. Employers are looking at your Facebook account. I agree that facebook is a way to share ideas and build relationships.



There were of course some tools that were mentioned. One of them was http://www.tineye.com/  which allows people to upload an image and search for it. I have heard about this application at other meetings which I have attended. The other application that seemed interesting was an application called wordle which generates word clouds http://www.wordle.net/



The main focus was on Tiwtter, LinkedIn, and Facebook which are the three largest social networks. Bonnie McEwan also talked about Foursquare http://www.foursquare.com/  which is a location based social network.



There was a small amount of discussion on the topic of copyright. Creative commons was brought up. There are so many different kinds of licenses available for content. It can get confusing. There is copyright, copyleft, creative commons, gnu free documentation license, and other agreements. There are also trademarks and personality rights which are just as important to pay attention to.



There was also a discussion of the concept of librarian by Donna Severino . For some people, the word librarian summons up old fashioned connotations. I found this interesting. I am finding that some of the newer information jobs are spread into other fields like information science, records management, computer programming, web design, and content management. Librarians are one of the groups of people that can fill these positions.



Donna Severino also talked about wording in resumes and other places. She said it was very important to pay attention to how you used words in resumes. It was enlightening and makes me think that I need to have someone review my resume.  She suggested Laura Hill of Careers In Motion http://www.cimllc.com/ .



Bonnie McEwan reviewed books with the purpose of being viewed as an expert book reviewer. She focused on professional books with a mix of serious mysteries like Elizabeth Peters. Elizabeth Peters is an excellent writer. This showed a little bit of her personality along with the different styles of music she likes on her Facebook profile. Social media encourages a certain amount of mixing between professional and personal interests.



There was also some discussion of putting your resume on the web. Eportfolio is the term for a website with samples of all the different work you have done on the internet. I think a Linked In profile in many ways is superior to a resume. It would be nice if we could just send our linked in profile instead of a piece of paper to employers. I liked how Bonnie McEwan described how she no longer uses much letterhead paper or envelopes for her company anymore. At the same time, a person showed a very detailed business card which used both the back and front of the card. The back was a bullet pointed list with skills. Bonnie McEwan's business card is in color with printing on both sides.



This was a very well rounded presentation. It was worth going to. Depending on how things are going, I may go to another one of the Career Sigs at Metro in December.



There was only one element missing from the description of social media for careers. This was the meetup where people meet in person to discuss a specific activitiy like ebooks, libraries, social media, or technology. I have been to a lot of these lately and write about them. The social in social media ultimately in many cases is face to face. I found out about this meeting through http://www.meetup.com/NYLibrarians/  which led me to the Metro website.

Daily Thoughts 10/9/2010 (social media, twitter, facebook, the monstrumologist)

Ferdinand Hodler (1853–1918), 1885, El lector (The Reader), Museo Thyssen Bornemisza

Daily Thoughts 10/9/2010

I created a display this morning for poetry.  I also checked the displays to see they were in order.  A new steampunk book came in for me to read, Dreadnought by Cherie Priest.  It looks interesting. 

While I was looking through various reviews I came across a new Ammon Shea book, The Phone Book: The Curious History of the Book That Everyone Uses But No One Reads.  I rather like Ammon Shea because he writes about things like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and grammar with a very avant garde style.

I had a long train ride home from work.  This being the weekend of a holiday made the trains exceptionally slow, convoluted, and requiring multiple transfers.  This gave me a bit of extra reading time.  I finished reading The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey which was gripping. I could not put it down.  The mad doctor Erasmus Grey who collects, dissects, and eradicates monsters is absolutely convincing.  Will Henry, the orphan apprentice of Grey is also very well done.  The best though is the monster hunter Kearns hired to help them.  Kearns is the apex of nihilism and is an utter beast inside with a very refined exterior.  There is even a discussion guide to the book in the back.  An utterly fantastic read.

Web Bits

Malcolm Gladwell on Twitter and Facebook.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/03/malcolm-gladwell-twitter-doesnt-work


I am going to disagree with this in some ways. Twitter and Facebook can be used to feed into other forms of citizen journalism like blogs and news sites. They are part of a larger strategy which can be used to bring about change. They can be part of a larger advocacy strategy. This is a site called http://www.savelibraries.org/  It feeds news from the web into the site. There are twibbons banners which can be added to facebook and twitter. Save libraries feeds into Twitter and Facebook with news channels. Twitter and Facebook by themselves are just pieces of a larger puzzle. They are channels of communication.



Another piece which is missing from this article is that Twitter and Facebook can be used to host events that allow people to meetup in person over time. For example while they were holding rallies at an earlier date to keep New York Public Library open, these rallies were fed by many other types of groups, meetups, tweetups, and other organizational methods to gather people. On Facebook Urban Librarians Unite was part of the campaign to save Queens Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and New York Public Libray http://www.facebook.com/urban.unite Some of the groups through social media are not short term. A good example of this might be http://www.meetup.com/nylibrarians .  If you are thinking about all social networks being purely a platform for business, The American Library Association also has ALA Connect http://connect.ala.org/

These were just a piece of a larger strategy as well which included other communication channels; postcard campaigns, rallies, letters and email communications.  Twitter and Facebook feed right into journalism.  It is very easy to communicate using forums and other tools directly with the media now.


Many of the people in these groups blog as well and build a slow following. A good example of how to do this is through the book, We The Media, http://oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/  Twitter and Facebook add to the ability to use grassroots journalism effectively.

Thinking that Twitter and Facebook as solely a written medium is also fallacious.  Twitter and Facebook can be tied into Youtube to create videos which can spread quickly.  I have not tried this yet.  It also possible to use podcasts to create audio as well.  It opens an entire new way to report what is happening from the opinion of the person experiencing the events.

There is nothing stopping people from using a complete media strategy with Facebook, Meetup, Twitter, Blogs, and other media.  For these things to be effective people would have to meet in person through specific gatherings over a long time period.  Social media is not an abstraction.  For it to work, take the time to meet some of the people who you are communicating with.

It also is a good venue to invite people for events like Bacon Palooza which is a fundraiser to help autistic children  http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/event.php?eid=152396631460119

I just got a book called The Dragonfly Effect Quick, Effective, and And Powerful Ways To Drive Social Change by Jennifer Aaker and Andy Smith with Carlyle Adler.

Daily Thoughts 7/8/2010

In the time of the Ptolemies : The Alexandrian Library. (1908), Harpers Magazine, J. Andre Castaigne

Daily Thoughts 7/8/2010

There is an article up on Mount Vernon Public Library on the http://www.savelibraries.org/ website. It is the quietest it has been in a long time. I am spending a lot of time at the reference desk because our first job is to serve the patrons who come in. Providing the material and research which they need is what matters.

I had a little time to check the displays to make sure they were in order, look at the new books to see what was coming in, and take some time to do a little organizing of my desk. I also checked out The Zen of Social Media Marketing, An Easier Way To Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue by Shama Hyder Kabani.

The latest issue from Library Resources & Technical Services was sent to me as part of my membership to ALCTS. There is an article called Challenges and Responsibilities for Collection Management In a Digital Age by Tony Horava.

The library is very much down to a skeleton staff. Depending on what happens in the next week will determine a lot of what we are going to do in the coming year. I cannot imagine that it will be any easier next year.

I tired to read more of Fitzpatrick's War by Theodore Judson, but eventually lost interest in the story. I didn't find the historical reasoning for reverting to a steam age to be that convincing. I am going to return it tomorrow.

I have started reading the Zen of Social Media Marketing which is very much a kind of pep talk mixed with marketing and social media. Shama Hyder Kabali has the whole book online for free. It seems to be a way to sell her company. I am hoping I can find a few tips and tricks. So far, I really haven't found anything at all. It is happy fluff. A nice mental break from more serious reading.

Six Pixels of Separation Everyone Is Connected Connect Your Business by Mitch Joel President of Twist Image

Six Pixels of Separation Everyone Is Connected Connect Your Business by Mitch Joel President of Twist Image

Mitch Joel writes about social media in this book. Many of the concepts he covers are very new; unconferences, meetups, and mobile technology. His book covers many ideas that I have not seen written about in other books.

At the same time, he reminds you that social media is about connecting with people. The reader should answer emails sent to them from social networks. It is hard to know who you will make contact with. If you are using social networks, it is very likely that you will meet the people who you are connecting with online. This is quite true. I am meeting a colleague from Linked In who I have not seen in a while. I also went a librarians meetup that was the result of social networking.

He also describes how people are becoming digital nomads. With wifi, a laptop, and a cell phone it is possible to work in many different places. We have many people who come into our library to use the wireless connection for work. It has become necessary to have a cell phone to function in the current economy.

Some of the concepts he is describing are new to me. For example, he explains viral expansion loops, or self replicating groups of people that pull more people into social networks. This is what powers Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. It is viral marketing targeted to pull people in.

In one chapter, Mitch Joel is sitting in the car with Chris Brogan and describing how Chris uses his cell phone to tap into social networks to get directions to a conference. It is an explanation of how social networking taps into the real world with maps, information, and help.

The book flows quite well. It appears to be very innovative. The author describes how he met his agent through his blog. His blog is called "Six Pixels of Separation-- The Twist Image Blog." The title of his blog is very similar to this book. Right now, I am following Mitch Joel on Facebook. The message he is giving on Facebook is very similar to his book. He has a consistent message across multiple platforms. It is an excellent example of how to integrate many different services under a single message. This includes a podcast.

Mitch Joel is not writing a how to book for using facebook, linked in, blogger, or other social media sites. This is a strategy book for people who need tips on improving their existing social media connections. It is also an encouragement to use the internet. He is being a technology evangelist for social marketing.

This book is entertaining and informative. If you want to learn how to give a consistent message and slowly build a social media platform this book will be useful. There is a lot of spin in this book. It is not an academic book. There are no notes. There is an index. Occassionally he puts some website links in the text and mentions the author and title of a book.

Why Now Is The Time To Crush It Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Why Now Is The Time To Crush It Cash In On Your Passion by Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary Vaynerchuk is known for his passionate presentations on Wine Library TV which is available through both Youtube and Viddler. He does very entertaining presentations on different wines over the internet. He is describing how to use social media to sell a passion.

The goal of this book is to show the reader how build a personal brand for business over the internet. He does not promise overnight sucess. His personal success is based on long hard work and passionate interest in what he is doing. He claims that unless someone is very interested in what they do, they will have a hard time building a business on the internet.

The process which he describes is very inexpensive; it requires you to have a flip cam, internet access, buy a website, and join a variety of social networking groups. The two he focuses most on are twitter and facebook. He also recommends putting up videos on viddler and youtube as well as starting a blog. He does not promise millions; instead he says there are many niches that can build a respectable living doing what you enjoy in the $40,000 to $75,000 range.

What he is describing is not for everyone. It requires a lot of sweat equity and drive. Many people will simply not be able to do this. There is also a need to master several new technologies, spend a lot of time interacting on social media, and have someone help you with web design. Another factor is that Gary Vaynerchuk is quite charismatic and full of energy.

This book was a quick read. It took me about three hours to read it. The language is clear and direct. The instructions are very plain. It is an excellent introduction to a strategy of producing social media based on personal drive and sweat equity. If you have the drive, this is an excellent book.

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

Public Domain Art, Photo Montage Dickens,Collins,Gaskell and Proctor

Daily Thoughts 12/7/2009

There is a new university digital book archive called Hathitrust which has 4 million volumes. I find it interesting. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6709706.html

It is the end of the year ordering time. I have been spending some more time on the New York Times books page. I have been looking at the cooking books and the gardening books as well as some other books.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/

There are some other minor things to get done. We have to finish ordering art books for a grant. We are trying to get some very nice oversize art books with the money. We also have to decide on a new label for the inspirational fiction books.

I have two philosophy books on my desk. The first is A Guide to the Good Life {the ancient art of stoic joy} by William B. Irvine. I have always felt an affinity to stoicism. The other book is The 36 Secret Strategies of the Martial Arts The Classic Chinese Guide For Success in War, Business, and Life, Hiroshi Moriya. It is translated by William Scott Wilson who also translated The Book of Five Rings and Hagakure.

On the train home, I read some more of Daniel Goleman, Social Intelligence. The book was talking about how emotions are contagious, people act synchroniously with each other, and our neurons are designed to react to other peoples emotions. We don't exist in isolation.

I have been working a bit more on Linked In. I think I may have my first recommendation given to me soon. I hope it works. It is an interesting process. A lot of it is complete hype. There is a lot of nonsense around social networking tools. There is also a lot of time wasting and a tendency to make promises that are not quite right. I think one third of it is hype, one third of it is technical skills, and one third of is is genuinely useful networking. This is an article from Business Week which explains this phenomena. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_50/b4159048693735.htm

Trust Agents Using The Web To Build Influence , Improve Reputation, and Build Trust by Chris Brogan

Trust Agents Using The Web To Build Influence , Improve Reputation, and Build Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

Chris Brogan is a master communicator using the web. He runs one of the top marketing blogs at http://www.chrisbrogan.com . His main focus is showing people how to build a following in social media using openness and trust. He is also the founder of Podcamp which is a conference on podcasting. Julien Smith is a web analyst.

The ideas in this book are actionable. Every chapter gives suggestion on how to improve your use of social media. I have already used two of the suggestions; make sure you follow less people than are following you on twitter and try to make all the sections about yourself on blogs consistent and professional.

His aim is to teach you how to use social media like blogs, twitter, facebook, and linked in to create a network. This is supposed to help you eliminate the need for resumes and cut back on using business cards.

In addition to the social media tools Chris Brogan and Julien Smith suggest philosophical and strategic outlooks for looking at business. These include looking at work as a game, jumping the gates to create new opportunities, life hacking, leverage, and digital nativism. These strategies are the strategies of the most successful producers of web content and marketing.

There is a message that marketing and communications are becoming more personal. Customer service is described as being public relations. Marketing is about being open and listening to people. Networking is about helping others achieve their goals by pulling them up.

The book is a tool to change your perspective and improve your ability to network on the web. It is the mindset of the native producer of digital content. The ideas are different and interesting. There is a lot that can be used directly from this book to succeed in building your own extensive network of contacts.

Me 2.0 Build A Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success by Dan Schwebel

Me 2.0 Build A Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success by Dan Schawbel

Dan Schawbel is describing how to create a complete social media presence for individuals. He calls this a personal brand. Companies, organizations, and recruiters now have a dearth of resumes and personal information available all over the internet. This book is aimed at people in their twenties who are just starting in their careers. However, most of the content is relevant to people in general.

There is a certain irony in reading this book. The word me in the title really does not say what the book is all about. It is about becoming embedded in social networks. Dan Schwebel describes how to integrate the use of Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, blogs, and other social media to create a complete image of an individual person. He also describes how to monitor and protect yourself while doing this.

Planning and long term goals are also integrated into his descriptions of social media tools. He even uses things like SWOT analysis (Strength, Weaknesses, opportunities, Threats), and checklists of goals to use when creating a personal brand.

There are many more advanced suggestions as well; creating a video resume, public relations and your image in social media, and entrepreneurial drive. This material is very corporate and entrepreneurial in nature. Donald Trump is mentioned briefly in the book which was kind of entertaining. It fits in very well with venture capital and the ideals of technology startups. Dan Schwebel says that Fast Company is his favorite magazine to read which is a favorite among young technology company workers.

I found the book to be useful. I even followed a few suggestions he made about Linked In. I found this book on http://www.mashable.com Mashable is a news site for social media.

And Then There's This How Stories Live And Die In A Viral Culture by Bill Wasik

Bill Wasik

And Then There's This How Stories Live And Die In A Viral Culture

This book is by the inventor of internet "flash mobs" or groups of people who spontaneously formed when suggested to by internet messages. Bill Wasik is what might be called a memetic engineer or a person who creates quickly spreading ideas. This book is pure infotainment at its best.

Some of the different categories of idea he writes about are in politics, advertising, corporate culture, and indie rock. The writing is both critical and ironic in content.

There is a very hip, left wing slant to the politics in the book. It is genuine reminder that we don't have to buy into advertising or spin, we have the right to choose what we view on the internet.

Bill Wasik visits some of the "digerati"-- the digital elite to look at how they create spin with new media. He mentions The Huffington Post, Bzzagent, KEXP Online Radio, Youtube, and many other internet sites.

In his view we have started surveiling ourselves to create a kind of giant popularity contest where the most views win. People are absorbed into the public consumption of blogs and other social networks.

This is a fun book to read by a very erudite and funny author. It is a mix of geeky avant garde, new media and social engineering. Bill Wasik is a senior editor at Harper's and has written for Salon magazine. This shows with very smooth prose that sounds like he is talking to you personally.

O'Reilly Tools For Change Publishing Conference 2009

O'Reilly Tools For Change Publishing Conference 2009

I will be attending the February 9 and 10, 2009 O'Reilly Tools For Change Publishing Conference. http://www.toccon.com/toc2009 . I have to thank Joe Wikert's Publishing 2020 Blog for telling me about this conference http://jwikert.typepad.com/. The conference looks tremendous.

It took me a while to get the paperwork together to get my job to cover meeting attendance for the conference. I had to provide a detailed agenda of what I was doing at the conference for them.

This is my agenda:

Contact and look at the booths for the following conference sponsors:

I will be visiting O'Reilly Media (we buy Missing Manuals Series as well as many other computer books for our library.) Oreilly has just made all 140 of their titles available as ebooks http://toc.oreilly.com/2008/12/oreilly-ebooks-130-top-titles-plus-iphone-app-and-head-first-pdfs.html).

I also intend to visit a variety of other vendors including Frommer's Custom Travel Guides (I think they might have a new online product for travel), Safari Books Online (They have an ebooks package for computer books for libraries.), Espresso Book Machines (a print on demand book system.), and The Book Industry Study Group.

I intend to bring back literature from the exhibitor floor for the library. The list is short enough that I won't need a floor map of exhibitors. Hopefully, I will be put on mailing lists for publisher information.

The conference sessions which I am attending are planned out as well:

1) Monday 8:00 a.m. Blogs and Social Media which is led by Chris Brogran of Cross Tech Media. The library I work at is redesigning their web page. Part of the web redesign will be a library blog. We have not chosen a platform or done anything with it yet. I think it could benefit from services like LinkedIn and Twitter.

2) Monday 1:30 p.m. Building Communities Around Content led by Francois Gossieaux (Beeline Labs & Society for New Communications Research.) I am hoping that I can find more about books and publishing communities. When we design a library blog it will have some different purposes than a personal blog. I am interested in how to structure announcements for events.

3) On Tuesday Cory Doctorow will be giving a keynote speech for half an hour. I really like his writing, especially the articles he has written for Locus Magazine. Cory Doctorow has numerous free books available on the internet including the essay Ebooks, Neither E nor Books for the 2004 O'Reilly conference http://manybooks.net/titles/doctorow11071107711077.html

I am also interested in the keynote speech by Peter Brantley from the Digital Library Federation. The presence of large collections of free ebooks is having a very interesting impact on the way people read. I sometimes look at Project Gutenberg to read books that our out of copyright.

4) Tuesday at 10:45 a.m. I am going to Google Book Search past, present, and future by Jon Orwant. Google has been in the news lately with its settlement with the publishing community. I think the session should be quite interesting. Library Journal wrote several articles on this subject.

5) Tuesday at 1:40 p.m. I am going to the session on The Rise of Ebooks with Joe Wikert and Mark Coker. I am interested in hearing about the changes taking place with ebooks. Sony ebooks sold over 300, 000 electronic ink readers last year. Kindle has not released its sales figures for ebooks. The Kindle has been endorsed by people like Oprah Winfrey.

6) On Tuesday at 4:30 p.m. I will be attending What Does The Future Look Like for Publishers. There has been a lot of consolidation in the publishing world, as well as the move of much of the news to online mediums. I prefer reading my news online, and my books in print.

This all may change depending on how things go at the conference. I am looking forward to a very diverse program and a chance to learn a lot about the changes that are happening in the publishing industry. These will all "trickle down" into the library world as well.

I am still looking at the website for the conference to find out a little bit more. I am going to be working on a new business card for the conference.