Hi, Five Weeks,

I'm trying to knock out my poster for ASIST, and one thing that would help me is a few screenshots! So if you've got a weblog or wiki or other screenshot-able site I could feature, please comment here or drop me an email at dorothea AT textartisan DOT com.

Also, I know a few of you have been training others. That's a phenomenal outcome, and I want to highlight it. If I just described you, please drop me a line and tell me about it.

Thanks!

Just to let everyone know that there will be a poster session on Five Weeks to a Social Library at the ASIST 2007 conference this October in Milwaukee.

I must say, I'm quite chuffed!

Specifically for content contributors:

I would like to encourage all of you to consider depositing the wonderful content created for Five Weeks to a Social Library into E-LIS, which bills itself as "the open archive for Library and Information Science." I am assured that the underlying software can handle audio and video objects.

As many of you know, my work places me in the middle of the Open Access movement. While hardcore OA is focused on the peer-reviewed research literature, I take a broader view; I believe it is vital that we disseminate openly and take due care of all our hard work.

Hearty congratulations to Five Weeks contributors who are Library Journal Movers and Shakers for 2007!

• Amanda Etches-Johnson (organizing committee)
• Helene Blowers (content contributor)
• Kelly Czarnecki (content contributor)
• Beth Evans (content contributor)

And it is of course worth mentioning at this point that we have other Movers and Shakers among us: Meredith Farkas (2006), Tom Peters (2005?), Matt Gullett (2006), and very likely others I'm not immediately recalling. (Identify yourself in the comments, and I'll add you!)

At tonight's chat session, several people mentioned a desire to keep up with their fellow Five Weeks participants after the course ends.

What we'll be able to leave up here depends on Meredith's willingness to continue hosting. There are, however, plenty of other ways to keep in touch, and I for one think that's an admirable idea.

So toss out some keeping-in-touch ideas in the comments, and feel free to be wild and wacky about them! We can distill the group wisdom toward the end of the week.

Kathryn graciously shared a number of useful and enlightening links with tonight's chatters:

• the outline of her ongoing Library Emerging Technology Group's charge
• a brief but highly useful set of criteria for evaluating new technologies
• her engaging and witty weblog

Enjoy!

We were listening to the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio show when my husband's jaw dropped and he said, "The Hitchhiker's Guide is a wiki! No wonder coverage is so uneven!"

Just a quick note to say that my husband, the cats and I have made it safely to Madison. We have connectivity (thanks to a computer borrowed from a friend), so I am back in touch and can be emailed as normal.

Thanks to Amanda for covering my group chat last week, and to Group Six for generally being awesome. 

We are amazed and humbled at the hard work Five Weeks participants are putting in. At the end of the course, we intend to recognize everyone who has made a good-faith effort to fulfill the requirements we set out at the beginning of the course. As a reminder, these requirements are:

• Taking part in at least one live Webcast (though preferably two) per week. The Webcasts will be offered every Tuesday at 7pm ET and Thursday 2pm ET (though in week 3 there will only be a Webcast on Thursday)
• Participating in your small-group chat
• Watching the screencasts and listen to the podcasts created by our presenters
• Blogging regularly, using the tools you are learning about, and completing any assigned activities not designated "optional."
• As a final activity for the course, preparing a proposal for the implementation of a social software tool at your library.

Of course we will also recognize participants who have had technical difficulties with one or two activities, but have otherwise done their part; nor will a necessary and professionally-handled absence from a scheduled event be a problem. (Contact your small-group leader beforehand should an absence be necessary.) We are simply aware that Five Weeks has meant a significant commitment of time and effort, and we do not want to see the real achievement of its hardworking participants tainted or diluted by a very few people who have not made the same effort.

I've seen a lot of posts in the last few days with a worried "feeling overwhelmed" feel to them.

Relax, folks. There's no tests here, no grades, no scary boss evaluations. We the Organizers, all we care about is that you take full advantage of the opportunities we've pulled together, that you experiment and ask questions and make mistakes and figure out how to fix them and just generally learn things. And many of you are doing far more than we'd expected or even hoped!

(We do worry that a few of you are missing opportunities, and we will probably be saying more about that early in week 3. But for the most part, it's all good!)