Final project

As we come to the end of the class, two definite plans are forming.  I work at the Prairie Area Library System which serves 370+ libraries of all types in 26 counties in northern Illinois with some cooperating members in Iowa.  The first was to propose using a wiki to take on a stalled project that used to be operated on a database by one of our sister systems.  Called Parade of Programs, this was a member library generated listing of people who had provided good programming for libraries.  People submitted the information and a staff member at the System kept the database up to date.  As too often happens, when the person who started the project left a few years ago, it was deemed too labor intensive, and no longer kept up to date.  Our member libraries have not only been asking out that data but even have expressed an interest in expanding the information to include adult programming information. 

 When I presented this at our internal discussion about LSTA grants projects this week, there was quite a bit of buy-in by staff.  One of our staffers was responsible for the development of a reference wiki and believes that we can use some of the same platform for this project.  Since the project has a history of handling the information, we can probably use the same basic template, without many changes.  The idea of the exercise is to have members post the information themselves instead of using System labor.  Since it's a project which they are asking for and they have used the information in the past, we're very confident that it will be well received by members.  It should be fairly easy and straightforward for them to post to the wiki and since they already know this is useful information, that should help get them past any reservations connected with using a new technology.  My supervisor is drafting the letter of intent and looking toward our sister system as a partner in the grant which may eventually have Statewide use.  If we don't get LSTA funding to get the project started, we will look at the current Ref Wiki and see if a scaled down version can be implemented using that.  Since Brian is already working with the Ref Wiki project, we have someone on staff who has the background and knowledge to help work with issues and keep the project going.  So this one is basically in the works.

The second project is more internal.  We have three service centers located at the corners of an equalilateral triangle with the distance between about 2 hours.  Our System is the result of the merger of three predecessor systems and we are still working with baggage from prior to the merger.  One of my recent projects is to work with our Professional Collection which involves materials for internal staff as well as those for our members, many of whom have small libraries with small budgets and can't afford to buy much in the way of professional and staff development materials.  I have been trying to get some dialogue going with internal staff about how to handle the collection going forward without a lot of response.  We are already over meetinged and e-mail isn't a very handy way to have discussion so I'm going to try using a blog.  At this point I'm not sure whether it is a separate blog or setting up the professional collection as a topic on the internal blog we are already using.  This way I can post information and pose questions and my colleagues can answer using comments or introduce their own related topics. 

The advantages of a blog, besides the ease of commenting, is the ability to have the information by topic and to have a good archives.  I took this project over from someone else and one of the biggest headaches for me has been the time and effort to try to track down what had been done over the past two years.  The blog will give good tracks so that anyone on the staff can see what's happening.  It can also be used to post relevant information about the ordering of materials and the use by member libraries.  It's not as complicated a project as Karen Harker's described in Duck Soup though it includes some of those elements.  It embodies Anne Welsh's principal of "base it on stuff you do anyway."  If it works, it will demonstrate to our administrators how a new technology can have a positive impact on an internal problem.  Also it will offer the opportunity for staff members to stay abreast of what's happening and offer their information and comments in a pretty efficient way.   Since we are already using Word Press for our internal blog and at the presentations there seemed to be a consensus that this is a very good tool, I expect that will be the platform for this project.