Here’s my Information Outlook column from the July-August 2009 Issue:

Innovation: No Excuses

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Stephen

Usually technology projects and branding go hand in hand, though a little big shakily at times.  However, when I got the go ahead to buy a set of Flip Mino digital video cameras  for our libraries, I decided to brand my little heart out.  The result is a “design-your-own” Flip Mino with the library’s colors and logo.  I love it.  Hopefully it will look as good in person as it does online!

But this does beg the question…why not take advantage of cheap branding (in this case, free branding) whenever available?  Customers will see us using our cameras at events, see the logo, and that connection between “You’re gonna be on YouTube!” and “The Library” is made.

And really, it doesn’t have to be a logo.  It can be something fun, like a photo of each branch library on its own camera (instead of one uniform look).  Or it could be the winning design from a teen design contest.  Or…., well, you get the drift.   Why not take advantage of potential fun when we can?

This is my entry in the LFPL Blogathon, organized by the energetic and imaginative Andy Woodworth to benefit the flooded Louisville Free Public Library: please donate to the Library Society of the World fundraiser or to directly to the LFPL Foundation. I may have said some of this before. I have certainly used this image in a post before, but I think it’s quite appropriate here. -SL

Don Quixote in his library by Gustave Doré

Whenever I hear someone–an elected offical, often–say that “libraries are for research and information and literature, and not for X” where X = video games or DVDs or comix or books that aren’t in English or Goosebumps or Madonna’s Sex or boardgames or sewing circles or popular novels; whenever I hear that, I think “this is a person who doesn’t really like libraries, who is scared of libraries and what they represent, and wants others others to be similarly scared.”

I think that research and information and literature are all wonderful things, and that almost every library must put some or all of those things at the core of their mission. But that’s not why I think libraries kick ass.

I think that libraries kick ass because libraries help people expand their imagination.

And there is more to the imagination than the serious, gray, DOA literature that people envision when they say that libraries should be for “serious” stuff. Libraries need to collect broadly to reflect the cultures in which they are embedded.

Libraries do many other things, too, many more obviously utilitarian things that even elected officials can get behind, like helping people learn to read or find a job. But in order for people to want to learn to read or get a better job or discover a cure for cancer or write a haiku, they need to have their imagination awakened. Before we can make ourselves better or make our world better, we need the imagination to envision something better in the first place.

To be able to be in the midst of thousands or even millions of volumes containing the expression of human thought and feeling in all its multitude of forms is an awsome thing. Even more so when you think that there are many more libraries like the one you are in, none of them complete. I have memories of being a child and realizing that whatever I happened to be interested in, I could go to the library and come home with an armful of inspiration. I get this feeling from every library I visit, and I hope that I can pass some of that feeling on to students where I work.

The first line of the Darien Statments says, “The purpose of the Library is to preserve the integrity of civilization.” Grandiose, perhaps, but it’s something I tend to believe. The Library, and even the small-l-library, provide a way to immerse yourself in the present and past of a culture or a civilization, and come to the surface ready to create the future.

Michael Stephens says that “libraries should encourage the heart,” which I have always thought is kind of corny. But now I think that perhaps we are saying the same thing. Libraries kick ass when they allow our hearts and minds to expand and roam freer than before.

Anyone read Sarah Houghton-Jan’s blog, the Librarian in Black? I know I do – Sarah always has some great stuff to share. Well, she has an important announcement – she has a shiny new blog & URL!

From Sarah:

“Librarian in Black has been updated, and moved. Please update your links, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.”

• New Librarian in Black blog
• New RSS feed
• New Way to Subscribe by Email

So go ahead, click the links, update your RSS feed readers, subscribe via email, whatever you usually do … I’m waiting…

Share:

CNN.com reported this today:

“The story:

She’s petite, she’s middle-aged, she’s bookish, and if she gets a chance, she’ll knock you on your keister.

By day, she’s Beth Hollis, a 53-year-old reference librarian in Akron, Ohio. By night, she’s MegaBeth, an ageless dynamo on the roller derby rink.

“All my life, when I tell people I’m a librarian, they say, ‘You don’t look like a librarian,’ ” Hollis said. “And now that I’m a roller derby girl, they say, ‘You don’t look like a roller derby girl, either.’ “

Check out the video.

Stephen

Welcome to the new Librarian in Black blog!

I have been working with my fabulous designers to create this new website which is now re-designed, re-functioned, and re-purposed.

I want to extend the biggest, most sincere thanks to SIDESHOW graphix, the geniuses who both designed and did all the coding work behind the scenes for the new site.  Cris and Robert, you are brilliant, visionary, patient, and I am in awe of you.  You absolutely understood the soul of Librarian in Black.

My new tag line, “Amazingly informed & therefore properly opinionated,” comes courtesy of a Michael Porter statement about yours truly.

Between the cats, the Victorian old-bookish feel to the images, and the stellar Sarah portrait, I am a very happy librarian blogger indeed.

For my readers, please update your links, bookmarks, and RSS feeds.

• New Blog URL: www.LibrarianInBlack.net

• New RSS feed (you may be using this already, but please check!) : feeds.feedburner.com/Librarianinblack

• New Way to Subscribe by Email: http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=Librarianinblack&loc=en_US

I want to thank all of my devoted readers and commentators.  Together we make this library content sing.

Happy reading!  And for bonus points, try to find both cats in the new site’s design!

I ,ove this idea from The Bookshop Blog:

Is your library a little off the beaten path?

Just a little sidewalk chalk and you’re on your way to drawing folks into your branch or academic library event. (And don’t think that most folks know where the library is on campus. I’ve visited so many campuses where dozens of people could not direct me to to the library….)

Stephen

You probably know Zoho as a SaaS company with enterprise collaboration and productivity tools. What you might not know is that they also offer on-premise deployments for companies with more than 10,000 employees. While this has been an important option for large enterprises not ready for the cloud, its limitation has always been the hardware requirements that went along with it. Starting today, that limitation disappears via partnership with VMware to get Zoho’s apps running on the vSphere “private cloud” behind the firewall.

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Quietly Offering On-premise

Zoho is best recognized for its software as service offerings, a suite of 19 applications ranging from a Google Docs competitor to a low-cost CRM. But for some time now the company has allowed larger enterprises to purchase appliances that replicate Zoho’s own datacenter, but keep the data behind the firewall and allow for better integration with other enterprise applications.

“Not many people know that we do on-site deployments for companies that have at least 10,000 employees,” said Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna. Vegesna also mentioned that they sell Zoho apps to service providers who can rebrand and sell them independently, a move which has allowed the company to penetrate markets in China and Japan.

The downside with selling appliances is that it forced customers to use the hardware configuration provided by Zoho. Running the apps on VMware’s vSphere creates an alternative to that by providing a virtual appliance. The architecture ultimately tries to create a private cloud behind the firewall, though there have been fierce critics of the notion that this approach is anything like the public cloud.

Adapting to the Needs of Enterprise

When we asked whether Zoho really presents this as an equal option or just a failsafe, Vegesna said that “all these enterprises are already using or experimenting with Zoho, and they come to us asking if we offer on-site deployments…we clearly put the advantages and disadvantages right in front of them.” He compared their collaborative software to real estate, “SaaS is like an apartment. If you’re big enough you’ll buy a house, but if you don’t have the money you’ll rent an apartment.”

It’s interesting to see one of the more successful SaaS companies embrace the need for on-premise implementations. Rather than try and convert all companies to the cloud, Zoho is one of a class of SaaS companies adapting their product rather than turning away those not ready for the cloud.

Discuss

Late last week Socialtext’s Michael Idinopulos wrote a post with some interesting advice for anyone looking to start a social software implementation in the enterprise: skip the pilot. His argument was that since the new breed of enterprise 2.0 tools are about human interaction, something which changes dramatically at scale, then small pilots were not a useful barometer of future success or failure.

Idinopulos admitted that pilots are great for traditional IT, which revolves around a set of actions that do not change much whether it’s 10 or 10,000 people (think billing or adding leads in a CRM). We agree that in any kind of collaboration, the shift from 10 to 10,0000 causes dramatic change. But that leaves an open question: do you still use pilots for your wikis, blogs, and other social software implementations, or are they a waste of time?

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In one sense it’s a little strange for Idinopulos to question the need for pilots, since Socialtext’s switch to freemium was pitched to us with pilots as one important use case. It makes us wonder whether the “free 50″ version has seen less use as a pilot than the company expected.

But whether you’re looking at a big social platform like Socialtext, or something much simpler, whether or not you spend time and energy on a pilot is an important issue. We generally feel that the premise Idinopulos presents is correct; interaction among workers in a tiny subset of your organization isn’t a fair test.

But where does that leave us? Are pilots a necessary evil to support purchasing decisions, or a waste of time that gives an inaccurate picture of how enterprise 2.0 really plays out? We’d like to hear whether you love or loathe pilots in the enterprise.

Photo by totalAldo

Discuss