I remember way back when, Robin was asking about elderblogs. This morning, I was reading the local paper at my parents' house (I'm on vacation) and found an article about Millie Garfield (mother of Steve Garfield, a well-known videoblogger). The article mentioned something called The Ageless Project, which has links to the blogs of many elderly bloggers (as well as younger bloggers, they are linked by decade born at the top of the page). This list includes links to bloggers in their 90s!

I just posted the list of individuals who currently have successfully completed the course requirements. Congratulations to all of you! If you are not on the list, you should have received an e-mail last week or this week from your chat group facilitator about your status and suggesting ways that you could make up the required work you missed. If you didn't attend any Webcasts one week, you can watch the archived version of one of the Webcasts from that week and write a blog post on it. If you missed posting at least one blog post (on one of the activities) one week, you can write a post now on one of the activities from that week. If you missed chat sessions without first contacting your facilitator, please contact them to find out how you can make that up.

These are the individuals who have successfully completed the requirements of the Five Weeks to a Social Library course:

• Linda Bedwell
• Karen Bjork
• Karen Bradley
• Reegan Breu
• Tamara Cameron
• Shireen Deboo
• Cheri Duncan
• Tiah Edmunson-Morton
• Rita Ennen
• Jacquelyn Erdman
• Jini Errichetti
• Cristie Ferguson
• Josalyn Gervasio
• Renata Gibson
• Robin Grant
• Fred Jahns
• Janelle Jarboe
• Rachel Kingcade
• Suzanne Mangrum
• Jill Markgraf
• Lauren McMullen
  

My friend Aaron Scmidt recently became the director at the North Plains Public Library, a very small public library in Oregon. On his blog, Walking Paper, Aaron writes about how he has used social tools to develop his library's Web presence because they were easy, free and made the most sense, not because they were "cool":

One thing that was great about the process of developing this small website is that it was not a case of thinking of a neat new way to make a library website. WordPress was just the tool that made the most sense (though of course it isn’t ideal). Another web technology found its way into the library’s work flow for the same reason. Using a Google Spreadsheet to organize the collaboration of multiple employees that are infrequently in the same room works so well. No longer do multiple staff members need to keep track of multiple documents that get revised monthly. It is all centralized for us to access at will. Ideally everyone would have their own google account, but for now staff are sharing the library’s main login. Simple.

Watching the course end is a very bittersweet thing. This has been an incredible experience, and I've been blown away to see how much collaboration has gone on within all of your blogs. As you continue on and start implementing some of these social software tools, you may have even more need of a space to reflect on ideas and get feedback from your peers. Why not do it here?

Yesterday, I discussed the idea with my group of keeping the blogs open for you to continue sharing ideas and progress reports on your social software projects. My group seemed very interested in the idea. Drupal and the wiki are living on the server my husband and I run. We both feel like it would be a silly thing to just close this up when an incredible community has formed around it.

I can’t believe we’ve already made it to the last week of the course! It’s really gone fast, at least for me. Week 5 is all about selling social software at your library. I think so often, people think that a good idea is enough to make something happen in an organization, but there are usually a whole host of barriers to overcome in implementing social software including securing administrative support, getting staff buy-in, getting buy-in from IT, training staff and/or patrons on the new technology, making a plan for maintaining and sustaining the new technology, and marketing the new technology. Not considering these issues, and others, can kill a project before it’s even been implemented. This is why your final project centers on creating a proposal for the tool you wish to implement. If you can clearly articulate what you want to do and answer any important questions that will likely come from admin and staff, your project will be much more likely to succeed. The proposal is due tomorrow (Monday, March 12th) at the end of the day.

My husband is away on business in Florida and he heard an interesting story on the local NPR station about what the Miami Dade Police Department is doing in MySpace. They have actually created their own profile in MySpace. The Department is suggesting to parents that instead of completely preventing their kids from using MySpace, they require them to add the Miami PD as one of their top friends. This way, the PD is easily available by synchronous and asynchronous messaging if a young person is worried about a potential predator but doesn't want to tell their parents. Also, anyone who is friended by the Miami Dade PD will have the PD's badge on their list of friends which may also deter predators.

Talk about good timing! Just as we go into the week where we're discussing Flickr, I get the green light from my publisher (Information Today) to start the Flickr Alternative Book Cover Contest to promote my book! Since many of you are going to be trying out Flickr this week and I know many of you have a very creative bent, I thought you might be interested in entering. Here's the info:

What do you think the cover of a book called Social Software in Libraries should look like? Create an alternative cover for the book and add it to this group. The people with the three best (most original, most on-topic, most artistic, or funniest!) covers will each receive a signed copy of the book Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration, Communication and Community Online by Meredith G. Farkas. The winners will be announced at the Computers in Libraries conference (April 16-18), but you don’t have to be there to win.

Steve Lawson and Michael Porter (our excellent presenters this week) have been kind enough to start a Flickr group for us where we can share photos! You should have just received an e-mail invitation, but if not, you can just join by visiting the group page. If you're not already a flickr user, it's so easy to join!

Also, if you do have an account on Flickr, you can add it to the »

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Last week was really amazing. It was so thrilling to see all of the great ideas you all had about implementing wiki in your settings. I hope you all have a chance to read each others' blog posts and learn from the insights of your peers.

Proposal Reminder! I just wanted to remind everyone that your proposal is due on March 12th, which is a week from tomorrow. The reason we are making it due before the end f the course is that we want each of you to comment on the proposals of your peers. As you've noticed with all the blogging, it's the conversation that can spark so many good ideas. The instructions for completing the proposal can be found here. You can either post your proposal to the blog or to the wiki and then just provide a link to it on this page. I really can't wait to see what you all come up with!