In a local newspaper there was an article about how a business owner let high school students have whatever they wanted from his restaurant for a certain amount of time, provided they posted something on Twitter or Facebook about the product.

Could this idea be adapted to teaching students about the library? Maybe in a first year seminar or college success class or whatever you call it? Or even the orientation to the library for new students? Instead of a scavenger hunt or droning to students about all the VERY IMPORTANT things they need to know about the library, maybe have each student write a post or tweet about five things they discovered in the library and send the screen shot of their post as proof for grading the assignment. This activity could be combined with the computer skills class, with Intro to Business, or another class where the professor is willing to allow a combined assignment.

The activity could have guidelines for things that are off limits for credit – that the school has a library or whatever else you think is too general to count as learning. You could also assign bonus points to obscure facts – if a student tweets about a special collection that consists of five books and a photograph and is hidden behind a large plant. Or maybe assign one point to simple facts like library hours or names of library staff and more points to posts that show the student did something such as learned how to use the copier or requested an item through interlibrary loan.

Even if you didn't want to require students to have a Facebook or Twitter account, is there a school account they could post to, a school-specific social media they could use, or could you combine this assignment with teaching them how to set up a webpage or blog?

Depending on the time allowed, I think this activity could be used for library orientation, a one-shot class, or a semester-long class. It could even be adapted if you are teaching how to search a specific database. How do you think this idea could be used? What are some logistical problems you think would need to be addressed?

The post I planned for today is taking longer than anticipated to prepare. This morning, I woke up with this post writing itself in my head, but now all the words are gone and only the idea remains. Let's see if my conscious mind is as skilled as my sleeping mind.

Because tone is difficult to convey through writing and we live in a culture that is unaccustomed to assuming positive intent (Thanks, Sally, for that perfect phrase), let me say first of all that this post is in no way intended to be trollish or snarky or negatively critical of anyone or anyone's opinion. If I ask a question here, it is an honest question. I have theories and my own thoughts, but I can't know what someone is thinking unless they tell me. And so, in order to hopefully better understand others, I am asking.

Not in face-to-face life, but in cyberland, I pick up the feeling that some people who work in libraries are saying, "The library is changing. Our profession is changing. It's not what it used to be. What are we going to do?" Often, these proclamations come with the connotation that this change is undesirable, or at the very least, inconvenient and unexpected.

I don't understand. I started visiting the public library when I was six and grew up thinking of the library as a one-stop shop for information and entertainment needs. The library even had some other useful things like a telephone when mine broke or a copy machine or tax forms or programs to keep me from being bored. Even better, they had people to help you figure out how to access or use all these resources.

As an adult with an MLIS and some experience working in libraries, I still think of the library in this way, but I tend to phrase it as "helping people find, access, and evaluate information and providing technological access that they might not have at home" or some other convenient phrase. However I state it, the purpose of the library doesn't seem to have changed.

The methods might change. The speed at which new things need to be learned may have changed. The budgetary support might have changed. Maybe these things are what people are referring to, but their comments make it sound as if they think the entire profession is fundamentally changing.

Not having a great deal of professional experience, maybe I don't have the background to recognize that the core purpose of the profession is changing. But if I'm right and the reason the library exists is to provide people with informational and recreational resources, then what is the cause of the distress?

Is it that we have to learn things more quickly and be better at a greater number of tasks? Well, one of the draws of this profession for me is the need to continually learn. What is the attraction of working with information if it is not the opportunity to learn?

Is it that what people expect from the library is changing, but the budgets aren't keeping up? That is a problem, but then the cries should be, "The budget isn't in line with patron expectations," not "The profession is changing." My guess is there has always been some kind of discrepancy between the available budget and what people want.

To be fair, I don't have any concrete examples of people who say or indicate that they think librarianship is changing. As I said in the introduction, this is more a feeling I have picked up from browsing the Internet. As you can see from my blog roll, the people I read tend to embrace change or even look to create it. In face-to-face life, the librarians I know haven't vocally complained about change and I haven't picked up any resentment over the way people in general eagerly adapt technology into their lives.

So maybe I'm completely wrong and there is nothing to be confused about at all. Still, based on my knowledge of human character, I suspect there are people who want things to be like they were "in the good old days." But "the good old days" were once filled with their own problems, so I don't think all that much has changed after all. The details might have changed, but the basic challenges stay the same.

I like to make my own clothes. Theoretically, when I get skilled enough, my clothes will fit better than RTW (ready to wear) clothes. Because starting from scratch is often easier than fixing something, I decided to focus my energies on learning to draft patterns rather than learning how to alter mass produced patterns.

I began by visiting the public library. There I found Design-It-Yourself Clothes. It was one of the few pattern drafting books that was written after the 1970s. Even if the clothes pictured aren't exactly to my taste, many of the basic patterns are. Even more, there were plenty of pictures and the text was simple to understand. So I took the book home and began drafting.

A year later, I had checked out the book almost constantly with only a few days in between. I would plan my return day around my errands so that the library staff would have just enough time to get the book back on the shelf before I came to check it out again. I tried to leave the book on the shelf for 24 hours to give someone else a chance at it, but then I swooped in and picked it up for the next four weeks. A few times I considered buying the book since I use it so much, but I honestly couldn't find a way to afford it. 

During this year, I checked out other pattern making, pattern fitting, and sewing books. I still check them out, but not with as much dedication as before. Other things have taken over some of my free time.

Even if my sewing energy has diminished a bit, I still have a good selection of patterns for knit (e.g. t-shirt) shirts and a good idea of what not to do for woven (e.g. button-up) shirts and pants. Without the library books, I would have been limited to whatever instruction I could find online. Personally, I prefer a paper book that I can carry around with me, use without Internet connection, put papers on top of to compare drawings, and otherwise manipulate in ways that are difficult with a laptop.

Without the library, my sewing skills would not be as advanced as they are now. I also would have stacks of fabric instead of several new and unique shirts. Design-It-Yourself Clothes is on my table now. Time to decide what to start sewing today...

In Part 1, I introduced Journeywoman Evelyn Hannon and her website. Here, I talk about some things I think librarians can learn from her work.

Journeywoman Evelyn Hannon had an idea for a resource and found a way to bring it into reality. 

On some levels, starting your own business might be easier than getting permission from your manager (or her boss) to start a new project. On the other hand, if you have an idea for a way to present information that would make it easier for you to find what you want, then maybe it will be easier for other information seekers, too. It's worth trying.

Even if your idea isn't something that fits into the library at which you work or you can't get permission to try, is it something you can work on during your own time? Two examples of useful private projects are Librarian Wardrobe and Open Cover Letters.

Journeywoman's work focuses on a specific topic: travel advice for women. 

Admittedly, some topics will be more interesting and have a more universal appeal than other topics, but whatever you choose, it will help prevent burnout if the topic is something in which you are interested enough to spend hours and hours of time immersed in discussing. If you daydream about something or have a hobby, then maybe that is a good idea for your topic. Then again, you don't want to start to hate your hobby because it has turned into work. I don't know if there is a way to tell what will happen other than experience.

Journeywoman's resources are easy to understand and to navigate. She stays current without chasing trends.

Whatever format you choose for your project, make sure a newbie could understand how to navigate it. Sure, there are all kinds of exciting videos and tabs and transparent screens that could be used, but really, for the sake of your users, keep it simple. The exception might be if your target audience is likely more tech savvy than the average user and will be looking for the newest features. Otherwise, if your audience is the general public, keep it simple and well organized. Create the kind of resource that you would want to use.

Journeywoman has a website. When she started her project, she had a print newsletter. She stayed current by changing to electronic formats. Her website, however, is not in the newest format, but because it is easy to use, that doesn't matter. Search for some of her media mentions and you will see that she got an award for her retro website design. Staying current is good, but keep usability as the main guide.

Journeywoman also stays current by using a Facebook and Twitter account. They key there is that she uses them. One tweet or update a month doesn't make your project visible or very useful. You might as well not have the account. It might take some experimenting to figure out what media is best for your project, but try to actually use your social media account(s). 

And keep it personal. Tweets about changing library hours are well and good, but a picture of the holiday decorations is better. Or can you wrangle some staff into donning animal masks and singing "Old MacDonald Had a Farm?" Why? Because you're people, not automated customer service. If you want a more directly library related reason for the video and your library happens to have resources on pre-school games, include a link to their titles under the video. There you go, human, interesting, and informational.

Again, keep it personal. Just because you have a professional project, that doesn't mean you have to be all formal and academic. Which do you enjoy reading more? An informal popular magazine article or a dense scholarly journal article? There is a time and place for both, but if you enjoy more informally presented information, chances are, so will your users. Don't deny people access to information for the sake of keeping up appearances or doing what you think you're supposed to do. Making information too hard to access or understand is a way of denying access to the information.

Now some people are naturally formal and if that's you, then that's how you should design your project. Stay true to who you are. There are others like you. You won't please everyone, so create the kind of project you would want to use.

While trying new things and staying current, let yourself say "no" to some things. As far as I know, Journeywoman is not on Google+. Her site has no links to Delicious or Tumblr or other social media beyond Twitter and Facebook. She has found what works for her project and does it well. Pick a small number of things that work for your project and do those well. They can change over time, but they shouldn't change simply because new options are available.

So there are my thoughts on what librarians, or anyone contemplating a project, can learn from Journeywoman. Most importantly, create the kind of resource you would want to use and keep it easy to navigate.

I'm the first to admit there are no insightful revelations here – it's all been said before. Because I wrote out these thoughts, however, I decided I may as well clean them up a bit to use for a blog post.

When you were in grade or middle school, did you have to write those "I Admire So and So" essays? I strongly disliked those. To admire someone seemed to indicate that you thought they were perfect or that they could do nothing wrong or that you wanted to be them. I didn't think that about anyone.

I may say, "She is always kind, no matter what the provocation" or "He knows how to defend others without being condescending," but I never said, "I want to be her" or "She's so amazing." Celebrities of any nature were not my role models; their lives had nothing to do with me. Parents, teachers, and people in my immediate circle were simply there; of course I didn't want to be them or think they were perfect.

So all in all, I had a hard time knowing who to write about for those essays. My solution was to pick someone as neutral as possible, someone who the adults would hopefully think "oh, sure, nothing of interests in that" and move on. I think these essays were my first practice in writing to fill the assignment, but not actually saying anything I saw as relevant (more crudely known as BS).

And now here I am, about to write what could turn into an "I Admire" essay. That's because I think Journeywoman Evelyn Hannon is the kind of person I want to turn into as I grow up. She took a personal risk. She made mistakes. She learned things. She wanted to help others like her. She had an idea. She made the idea reality. She thought for herself and refused to follow trends simply because they were the newest and shiniest. If her work is an accurate indication, and after years of reading it I see that she's been consistent, she cares about people. She cares about them enough to suggest that they might not have the best idea after all. Reading the Journeywoman website and newsletter feels like sitting in a friend's cozy living room, drinking tea and sharing in mutual learning. When I listened to an interview with her, her voice gave off the same feeling. She's in her 70s and travels the world. Yeah, I think she's my answer for the "If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be" question.

So how does this make her a genius subject librarian? Let me first define my terms as I use them here.

• Genius: Someone who has exceptionally good ideas and finds a way to bring them into reality
• Subject: A particular, focused topic
• Librarian: Someone who is involved in all or part of gathering and organizing information and in helping people learn how to find, access, and evaluate that information

Alright then. Here is how Evelyn Hannon is a genius subject librarian. 

1. She had an idea for a resource and found a way to bring it into reality. Even more a credit to her genius, she manages to stay current, but still true to her own ideas. She is current without chasing trends. She takes what is useful and leaves the rest.

2. Her work focuses on a specific topic: travel advice for women.

3. She gathers information and organizes it into easily accessible resources. Her resources are easy to understand and navigate and she provides guides to more resources, thus helping people find and access information. She helps people learn how to evaluate the information by providing different points of view or occasionally interjecting her own thoughts.

If you've never looked at the Journeywoman website, it's worth browsing. There are headings and subheadings. Everything is clearly labeled and it is easy to navigate back to the home page or within a subheading. Ads are clearly distinguished from content. There is a clear contact link. She shows her media mentions and awards without being obnoxious. She keeps the website copyright current and easily visible.


I do have three complaints about the website.

1. The "Contact Us" links open in your desktop email program. If you don't use this program, you're stuck, unable to contact Journeywoman unless you know how to find the email address in the source code. (If you get the emailed newsletter, she does include the contact email there.)

2. There is no dedicated "About" page.

3. The individual articles are not dated. Travel tips from 2000 may be different from 2011. Restaurants go out of business; hotel management changes. 

Beyond the website, Journeywoman has an active Twitter account. Unlike most business accounts, she tweets information as interesting as her site – links to travel blogs, travel pictures, responses to other travelers. Granted, travel is a more universally interesting subject area than, say, medicine, but still. Just because you're a professional, that doesn't mean you have to be boring.

Journeywoman also has an active Facebook account. Here, Journeywomen from around the world talk to each other and share information.

Through the Journeywoman website, travelers can sign up for HerMail. This service again provides current information by connecting travelers with locals.

Evelyn Hannon takes safety seriously and understands the risks unique to woman. She addresses these as she provides information and as much as possible, builds safety features into her services.

So maybe Journeywoman Evelyn Hannon isn't a librarian in the traditional sense, but she does provide people with information that would be difficult for them to find as easily elsewhere. I think librarians can learn something from her. That's in Part 2.