Kind of Disappointed about my Project

After putting my project together onto the website and getting the pictures just right so everyone could see the different pieces of history in the town, I realized that the "loop trail" I wanted to put in just won't go. This really has me down because I was really excited about having this trail leading from the interstate to all these sites so not one would be missed. I do not feel like I failed but I have this idea perfect in my head of what I wanted the project to look like. The website still looks great and is really easy to use with printable maps and different buttons to push. I am a perfectionist when it come to my school work and with this not being perfect in my eyes it a let down. Yes, I think it will still help the community in one way or another. I am going to send the link to the tourism director today so she can take a look at it. Hopefully, she will still want to link it to their website, if not I will understand since the final product didn't exactly happen. I did find out one piece of information about Valdese that really is kind of sad and I am going to see if I can help fix. That is, all the information about the original town and Waldensians is held in the Morganton Public Library basically untouched. Why would a town 15 miles away have all of the records and not have most in Valdese? This is the question I am going to ask. No wonder our young people in town have no clue about its history.

Online Discussion about Wither the Post Modern Library

I want to start off by saying it was really nice to meet online for class to do this discussion. I know it was only because the building was closed for Veteran's Day but it was important to show the new program students how it works to have class in the zone. Many of the other classes in the program require online classes and this was a great introduction. Now I have to say i am more of a Wisner on the subject of technology in the library. That is not to say I think all technology should be avoided in the library but at least limited as much as possible. Courtney talks about how to revolutionize the library almost to the point it could not be called a library anymore but more less just a computer lab with few books. We may have reached a milestone where government officials my need to look into public computer labs that are separate from the public library. Now that I work in a library I see the traffic jam of people trying to use computers in our small building. Many times we have so many waiting they take up the table space for patrons actually using the library to study or read. Another aspect of the traffic jam is we librarians are spending way to much time helping computer users that have little experience with the technology. I do not mind helping people at all with this but on the other hand I cannot focus on many of the tasks at hand. Especially, the patrons looking for books or re shelving items. With that said, I know technology is the future but should we just let printed items go the way of the dodo? My answer is NO. I agree with Wisner when he said, "We have to stand for the book." Technology comes and goes quickly in today's society. Libraries have neither the funds nor the resources to keep up with the latest rage. We need to get back to the basics and provide people the service we always have; books and information patrons need. It would be a huge loss of culture and dignity for a community to take books away from the public and replace them with computers. Will I be a captain or a hitchhiker on the road to the future? I will be a captain for the use of books and the limiting of technology in the library. Personally, I will stay up on the latest trends to make sure I will always be able to provide the best service to the public. I will stay a champion for books, reading, and the arts because I could not imagine a world where books were second class citizens in a library. The other day I had a girl ask me why I was studying for my masters to be a professional librarian. I said, "the more you read the smarter you get, the smarter you get the better decisions you make, the better decisions you make the more you give to society, and the more you give to society the more you help the world. I do not know why I said that but it sounded good. The girl smiled at me and handed me her two books, I looked down and saw they were both study guides to the GRE.

Hitting the wall on my project

I have been trying to get my photostory up and loaded to communitywalk.com but have hit a huge snag. I am having a lot of trouble getting the path maker feature of the website to actually use roads instead of just making a arbitrary line between two points. The point of this project was to create a printable map that had the different sites on it where people could use it to get around town. It still looks really good with the different sites labeled and what there is to see and do there. I am just a little disappointed with the outcome. Plus, after working in a library for about a month now, I have seen a hundred other projects that would have been fantastic to do. Hopefully I can get this site working but I am going to use this knowledge I gained from this project to start a couple programs in my library. Many people have no clue how to apply for jobs via the Internet. I want to create a program to help people create a usable resume and how to link it to online job applications. To us this is as simple as pie to them it is trying to speak Greek.

Continuing on the Action Project

This past weekend I went to Valdese again to visit with the tourism director and laid out the ground work for what I would be doing next. We decided on the sites to include on the community walk and what to say about each. After that I went to the different historic sites around town and took as many photographs as possible to include on the website. It was a lot of fun to go and see all of the sites again. It has been many years since I had visited a few of them and it reminded why I was doing this project. I read an article the other day in the Morganton News Herald about how the population of Burke County has dropped nearly 1% just in the last 9 months due to people moving away to find work elsewhere. Barbara (the tourism director) is quite worried that many of these people were from Valdese in particularly because of this she is on the front lines trying to get alcohol voted in this election. This would be a great way for the growth of business opportunity in town. We both agree that with this project hopefully it will open the eyes of new visitors, people looking to move to town, or the greatest scenario would be a business. Maybe they will see how historically quaint the town is and decide this is the place to set up shop, I know it's a long shot.

Continuing on my project

Yesterday I officially started work on my project. I have created the map and registered Valdese, NC onto communitywalk.com. Now it is time to get information and pictures of all the different sites in Valdese and get them loaded to the website. I am really excited because just playing around with it yesterday I had a lot of fun. I have added a couple of sites that I already new a great deal about and it looks really good. It seems it is going to work out to be a great tool to help Valdese tourism. I am going to use the make a trail feature to create a loop that will take you through the town and all the way around the backside so no location is missed. The loop will end back where it began so the visitors will have no problem finding there way around.

Project is a go!

Went the other day to speak with the tourism board of Valdese and they were really excited about my project. Actually they were so impressed with my plan of creating a loop trail through the community they told me that they would link it up on the tourism website and their facebook page. I am really surprised how interested everyone was in the project! I makes me feel good that I am helping out my hometown. Now the pressure is on to create a good community walk and make it as professional as possible.

Exploring for My Tech Project

I think I have finally decided on working with the Valdese Public Library and the Valdese Tourism Department in doing a Community Walk. With this project I hope to attain an easier way for potential visitors to Valdese to plan a full day trip to the small town. There are plenty of sites to see in town but with my experience at the winery I noticed that many patrons had no clue about the other places available to visit. This project will also help me carry on my attempt in helping preserve a little of the Waldensian culture my family has tried to do for so long. I have contacted the tourism board already and they were excited to hear from me again and that I am working on another project for Valdese. This project will consist of me creating a "community walk" on communitywalk.com. I will take pictures and create descriptions of different sites around Valdese and pinpointing them on the website map. Thus, creating a path that one can follow through the town using and accurate easy to follow map. It can be confusing trying to navigate a town you have never visited before. Hopefully the town will place a link on their website or the tourism board website where visitor can click and see the path they can take to see everything. I have pretty much decided on a loop trail through town that will be easy to follow from Interstate 40 throughout the town and then back to 40 without a hitch. I am still working out the kinks but I really think this will be a way to connect technology, the library, and tourism to help bring in outside visitors to a small somewhat struggling community.

Update

I am having a hard time coming up with a technology project related to the preservation of historical documents. I do not want to change my idea because it is so interesting to me! hopefully my visits to the public libraries this week will help me. I feel kind of overwhelmed with this project and i don't know why? I am not the most tech savvy and that is really what worries me. I am an old school archaeologist that likes my print materials but I will do anything for historical preservation. HAHAHA! I seriously hope there will be someone to help me with this or needs help with a project they are working on at the library.

Trying to Explore Options for Project

I have begun to research possible project topics. I am pretty much decided to do one working with historical records. Particularly the technology being used to help preserve them. I am trying to find articles on the topic from recent years. Hopefully everything will work out and I will be able to do a nice comprehensive project that will not only help me but help the library as well. Wish me luck!

Interview with the Librarians at Newton Public Library

On September 1st, I went the Newton Public Library to speak with the librarians of the different sections about technology usage in their areas. The different sections included the children's/young adults section, the reference desk, the special collections, and the director of the library branch. It was interesting to see how different technologies were being utilized to help modernize the library bringing it further into the 21st century. I first spoke with April Green, library service specialist, in the children's/young adults area and found even very young people were using technology. Some of what they used the most include computers that can access online learning games that have most everything else filtered out to provide a safe learning environment for the children while online. April said one the most sought after technologies in her section are the new "Playaway" multimedia books. These are small Mp3 players that have the book downloaded to them and all the child has to do is plug in the headset and press play. They are much less likely to be damaged unlike the old cassette tape and CD formatted audio books. The young adults have access to a Nintendo Wii where they can congregate with friends to play different games that have been screened for content. One thing that I did not know is that this library provides access to "blackboard classrooms" that help at risk high school students graduate high school even if they have already dropped out of public school. April said this is a trend she has seen growing in the area and has to keep the laptops locked away until a registered students asks to have access. It's hard to believe that in this day and age dropping out of high school is still a growing trend. Next, I visited the reference desk where I spoke with Judy Foster a graduate of ASU's MLS program and director of library resources. She was excited to help a student in the same program that she graduated from and she provided excellent information. Computers are by far the most utilized technology in all the sections but is especially true in the reference section (it's where the computer lab is located). She and the other reference librarians agree that most of their time is spent helping people on the computer. I actually had to wait for a few minutes while she went to go help patrons. Technologies the librarians use the most are the online catalogs and other resource guides like NCLive.org to help find what the patrons are needing. She reiterated the point that if we are going to be librarians we have to be technology savvy, if not we will have a difficult time helping patrons. The reference desk got busy because school had let out so I decided to go downstairs where the special collections and genealogy room is and met with William Floyd a self taught librarian with 20+ years experience. His use of the libraries technology was completely different from what I had heard upstairs. He mainly used technology to digitize his collection from print materials. The library recently received a grant for this digitization to reduce the amount of space taken up by state and county records. He said it was tedious and time consuming but had paid off in the end. Mr. Floyd made an excellent point and one that I agree with tremendously. In a special collection and history room it is still very important that the printed materials still be available to the public. Why? It is because some materials can not be replaced, information can be lost, and computer systems crash. Plus, many of the older patrons use this room for family history and they do not like to use computers or new technology. It is all about balancing technology with the majority of you patrons. He did mention that Ancestry.com has helped his genealogy patrons more than any other technology available in the library. After I left the special collections I happen to notice the Branch Manager was at her desk so I decided to ask her about technology in the library. Lynne Reed was a wealth of information but it was a different kind. She told me about the new and upcoming technology that will be coming to the library soon. They had received a LIST (?) and an IDP (?) grant, unfortunately I can not remember the exact names. These were going to be used to help patrons by providing further online services and resources. This way they can bypass the reference desk if they choose and located materials on there own. The money was also going to be used to automate the circulation desk by letting patrons check out the books on the own using special kiosks. It is amazing that even this little library was going to be thrust into the 21st century. One thing, the money was granted to the county so all of the counties libraries will be updated this year using the state and federal funds. After leaving the library I was amazed at the different technologies libraries are using to provide excellent services. I am still a big believer in print sources but I can see with the advancements in computer technology that it is a necessity to change with the times as well as the changing faces of the patrons.

Ready for the interview

I have created a list of about 15 questions that pertain to technology in the library. I will going to the Newton Public Library to get my questions answered. I like using this library because the librarians are more than willing to help MLS students. (One of them is a MLS student at ECU.) I found that it is nice to have a prospective from another student in a different school's program. Plus, I have noticed for a small library Newton uses a good amount of technology. I have also made some of the questions refer to the technology use of young people in the library. So the next post will be the interviews of the different librarians.

First Post for LIB5050

This is my first messege for LIB5050. Hope all goes well!!!