My favorite experience in the course was actually connecting with other librarians and getting to hear their thoughts and experiences and getting to share mine with them. Of course, learning about all the new technology was helpful as well. For my personal use, I found Flickr to be the most interesting; I had been on the site before because one of my friends posts all her pictures there, and so there are more pictures of my cats on the internet than there are of me. It was the site that I was the most unfamiliar with all the details of that I can now see how much fun it could be. And for my library's use, I think that wikis are the most applicable, along with blogs.

Time for another victory report to this group. Here at CSU-Pueblo, we now have the following technologies in place;

• A Wiki--"CSU-Pueblo Library Project Management"
• A Blog--"CSU-Pueblo Library News and Events"
• Del.icio.us--"Librarians' Suggested Links" (it also appears as a widget in our blog)

We are in the process of configuring a Flickr addition -- "Tour the CSU-Pueblo Library"

We just finished training on the blog. When everyone was told that these tools could cut down on meetings, eyes lit up. 'By George! I think she's got it!'

So now that we know everything we can know, until more is said and we're lost again, how do we convince our colleagues to jump with us? Which magic words will we find that will open up the budgets, the time, and the energy reserves (anyone else tired?). As one last random stream of consciousness ramble on the readings, I’d like to talk about two of our readings, which actually seem quite different now that I write about them.

I like the measured and practical approach that Karen Coombs takes in "Helping Technology spurred change take." To steal directly from her article, she suggests that we keep these things in mind when introducing our new techy ideas:

So I just wanted to tell you all that I have had my first small victoy in selling a social software change to my management team.  I have officially been given to go ahead to recruit student workers to contribute to our blog.  It's still under discussion, but I am hopeful that we will be opening up the blog for moderated comments as well.  Now I'm getting really excited about presenting my project proposal.  WooHoo!!!

I thought the readings for this week were incredibly helpful. They were to the point and each identified several things to look out for and make sure to include when trying to sell social software to the library. I really liked the information about working with IT. I agree that it is important to include them from the beginning. First because they are the one's that know whether or not something will actually work and second because they will have ideas that we may not have thought of. Creating something new and useful for the library requires individuals coming together to share ideas and re-working the ideas once changes and problems have come up. Knowing the technology you are going to propose is important, but so is getting varying points of view from the library staff. Those different points of view will bring up things that no one has thought of and new ways to make something work, or overcome a roadblock.

If nothing else (and there's a lot else) I'm going away from this course with ideas of how to sell social software.  A lot of my colleagues are bought in already but those who aren't will be when they see how useful it.  I think that will overcome the "oh no, more technology to keep up with" reaction.  I now have 3 wikis going in our library and a myspace page!  Thanks.

Throughout this course, my enthusiasm for social software tools exploded each week! But the final week of this course truly provided excellent content for me to properly organize these ideas in order to sell them to my library.  The chat with Alice Sneary had me excited and buzzing for the rest of the day. We discussed various survey techniques and possible audiences. The conversation got me thinking about outreach ideas – finding the audience and figuring out ways to draw them in with these tools. It is vital that our libraries begin to think about branding and what we want to be known for, now and in the future.  

By far what I got out of this course was the mass amounts of information I could then pass on to my collegues.  In the past if I came accross an article or two I might pass it along, but there was never a larger purpose, an information sharing to try to accomplish a goal.  By taking this course I felt I was prepared enough to actually speak with my collegues in an informal 30-45 min session about blogging as well as a brief introduction to wikis.  Since I was relaying infromation from this course, it didn't add the pressure of "this is new so we have to do it."  It felt more like they got to participate in the exploritory level and throught process behind why I am suggesting the directions I am suggesting.  Of course, now the real work begins of not only infusing these tools into our library but giving the other librarians the confidence to use them beyond the initial novelty stage.

Reading over and considering the class materials on "selling social software," I've noticed that many librarians run up against resistance to new technology from involved staff.  This can definitely be the case in school settings (where the concerns about safety and security for students is paramount) but I also find that teachers are often very interested in new technology.  I find that most teachers at my high school are always on the lookout for technology that might do the following: grab students attention, add another dimension to the learning experience, be easy to use, save some time!, jazz up the class experience, etc.  

I really liked the screencast called "Library 2.0? No, Thank you!"  Many of the obstacles they pointed out are my obstacles, and I think they presented very creative workarounds for the problems.  I can really relate to technical obstacles since I don't control the web server and have to beg the lone IT guy we have to make any changes.  At least he is open to open source software!

After the screencast, I was encouraged to try many of the things I learned in this class including starting a blog for my faculty and redoing our library website.  I am also exploring the whole social networking concept as I look to mounting digital collections on the library website.  What can I carry over from places like Second Life that will work to put gallery talks together?  I found it very helpful to have many ideas to draw on as I plot the digital future of my library.