He seems to be enjoying it, too. It makes sense: It’s an easy, efficient way to share thoughts, appearances, interact, and show that he’s a real person. (Not that there was any doubt.) He may influence others. A recent tweet from him said that “a long conversation today with Brent Spiner [Star Trek's Data]… began with ‘Tell me about Twitter.’”

It’s great to see public figures trying out social web tools. Musicians (or their agents) have been involved for quite a while. Some athletes have taken spins, too. I’d love to see many more public figures AND public servants (including community leaders and librarians) jumping in. Staff should get involved. Several collaborating staff members, in fact, could share the tweeting duties on an “official” Twitter account. Come on, people! Share the news, the concerns, and the daily routine. Build relationships. Be there. Be available.

I’ve been keeping up with my nonfiction book blog, though, and hope to post here regularly again once we resume using social tools in creative ways.  If that takes too long, I’ll broaden LibraryStream’s focus.  It’s a big world out there … and the library must be in it.

During a mostly unrelated conversation* this morning, my mind wandered and I started imagining a library catalog that provided content as if it were a comic book. Why not? A person searching a catalog is engaged in a dialog. Why not illustrate that dialog in a fun way? The catalog would still do its search magic beneath the surface, but the interface — the Q & A — could be channeled through a random comic book scene.

Let’s say a teen opens the “Comic Catalog” to an illustrated scene featuring two characters. One character has a blank cartoon bubble overhead (or a bubble with prompting words like “Do you have …”). The teen types keywords into the bubble just as he would with a normal text box, but … he’s typing into a comic book! That’s the search box. Cool.

Then he presses ENTER and watches the other character respond with the catalog’s top entry. Other results can appear in a list below, or may be selected and scrolled up into the comic interface.

If you have several dozen images stashed in the catalog’s storage, the randomness of the comic scenes will keep it fresh. If a user wants to play a little, she can scroll through the scenes to find one she likes. Maybe the scenes could appear as upturned comic book pages that she can flip through.

Sure, this is a gimmick, but it’s visual, colorful, and fun. A whimsical interface option might spruce up the catalog. We’re a Polaris library, so I ran the idea by the good developers in Syracuse this afternoon. It’s a busy week for them — their annual user’s conference begins tomorrow — but they listened politely and passed it around their work group.

Sharon Ufer Lavell, our library’s collection services manager with whom I was talking when this idea arose, suggested customizing the user’s avatar or changing the background based on the call number of the top result. A kitchen background might appear, for example. Or a sport stadium. Or a zoo.

I pitched the idea to a school teacher, too. Would the kids gobbling up graphic novels use this? Her immediate answer: “I would use this!”

What do you think? Should we seek a Comic Catalog?

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* Our original conversation: Is there an online database out there that provides full-content comic books? Well, is there?

NOTE ABOUT IMAGES: The examples shown here were produced quickly today using a few simple graphical cut-and-paste tools and using images from ComicStripGenerator.com.  Maybe a manga, anime, or classic comics-style illustrator could be hired to dash off a nice image collection for a Comic Catalog.

I just felt like tinkering with a variation on READ posters.
I loved this author’s first book and was reading this one when I met him at ALA.

That prompted me to think of a nerdy little game that teens (primarily) might enjoy. Suppose people created tag clouds of various popular songs and then challenged others to guess the tune from which they had sprung.

Of course, some titles are so much a part of their songs — with the key words repeated (or in some cases, hammered) into our ears so frequently — that it’s hard to miss the cues among the tags. Take the classic rock song from the ’70s shown at right. That title is probably easy to pick out.

Or the (mostly) instrumental marching band anthem from the 1960s [left]. Its one word tag cloud is surely the simplest ever.

But we can make this game more challenging!

See if you can pick out these next two songs. You can click through to larger versions on my Flickr page if that would help. One song came from a major rock band and the other is a tune from an “American Idol” contender.

Does that give you a sense of the game? Here are two ideas I’d like to propose:

1. A game for library teens

If you have a teen group in your library, let them pick the songs (remembering, of course, that not all lyrics have PG ratings!), give them the tools*, and let them create their own tag clouds. If you want to add a scoring element, you might award 20 points for the correct song + 10 points for the singer + 10 bonus points for guessing both within 30 seconds.

Hang the tag clouds on the wall after they’re solved. The song was already musical art. Now the words are visual art!

2. A collection for all of us

I’ve created more than a dozen musical tag clouds already. You can find them in the Musical Tag Clouds set on my Flickr page. If you (or your patrons) create* more, post them to Flickr and tag them “MusicalTagClouds”. There’s also a Flickr group with the same name. Toss in a hint if you think it’s warranted. Over time, our global collection could grow incredibly large and varied. The images would be available for a solo challenge or a classroom game at the drop of a hat. How fun it will be to randomly choose among them and try to guess the songs.

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* There are many tag cloud generators on the Internet. I used Wordle for all of mine because of the colorful and playful clouds it produced. If you find something better, go for it. Just have fun! Or, as the Beach Boys might say:

[UPDATE (Apr 17): I've been told that the widget sometimes says the video is no longer available. I don't know why this has been happening. If you have trouble accessing the YouTube version below, try this one.]

I first learned about them and their project last year in the blogs and photostreams of my Flickr friends. I was very happy to see their show today and meet them later. The gist of their American story began last spring when they rented a motor home and traveled America making a very entertaining film about the future of libraries. From New York to North Carolina to Nebraska to California they interviewed people on the street and librarians in their workplaces about the profession, the challenges, and the future. Cleanly edited and mixed with music, the result is slick, insightful, and spiced with humor.

Moreover, it’s good storytelling. “If books go away, what will be left?” they asked at one point. Later, in what could have easily been an answer, they said a library’s “most important collection is the people.” It was fitting that people — not the books or the technology — made up the bulk of their film.

Another wonderful line from the film was uttered by Michael Stephens of Dominican University. Asked what libraries will do for people in the future, Michael said the library “will encourage my heart.” One of his students gave a description of library openness and access that is simply too long to transcribe here but (trust me) it was terrific.

Back on the stage between clips, Erik, Geert and Jaap hosted a few audience members on their couch, offered them cookies and water, and conducted live interviews to carry on the conversation from the film. Laptops; cameras; a fish bowl; assorted coffee table clutter. It was a very casual affair to say the least. Engaging. Fun. Participatory. In my mind, it was exactly what libraries of the future should be. I loved it.

BTW: There was plenty more to tell about the day, but that’s all the energy I’ve got tonight. More later…

Blogger extraordinaire Jenny Levine [right] gave a great talk about delivering high tech & high touch for our patrons. She started out with a few images of gaming in libraries. At such events, she said, the focus isn’t the gaming, but the socializing going on around the gaming. How true! The gaming is just the opportunity, but the interaction is the draw. “It’s not the tech; it’s the touch,” she said. She continued with examples where technology is ineffective and where it is effective. Choosing the right tools, libraries can foster spaces for interaction and serendipity. The virtual world “spills over into real life.” Whether the interaction starts in Flickr or SecondLife or some other site, “these things can turn into real relationships.” Libraries “can’t keep thinking about connecting that one book to one person.” Instead, she argued, we can use tools to create opportunities for chance meetings between users and interests, provide serendipity, hi touch, and water cooler-like conversations that build relationships. (“You can’t have social networking without the social.”) Our advantage over Google is human contact, she said. “We should show the human.”

Jenny also touted Clay Shirky’s new book, Here Comes Everybody. She said she’s still reading it but had pulled several quotes from it already. I’m also reading it right now. I had it in my bag at my feet during the talk, in fact. I’ve been touting it, too!

Beth Gallaway spoke about digital convergence: widgets and the cross platform connections popping up everywhere. Libraries can embrace widgets: insert Meebo chat in library catalogs, provide Twitter applications so patrons can talk with us through their browsers and cell phones, and be available in instant messaging, direct messaging, and within virtual worlds. I most appreciated her answer to the question “Why?”: “Because one click is too many.” How true! Today’s patrons might not bother taking extra steps to reach the library.

In a very crowded room [below], Darlene Fichter and Frank Cervone [left] rushed through 24* new widgets, gadgets, and doodads that are either exciting or useful or both. Of those they described, I’m most interested in trying out PollDaddy, a free and easy survey application; Twhirl, a desktop Twitter app**; Browser Shots, a rendering of a website in several different browsers to test it’s cross-platform look; and Photoshop Express, an online photo editing tool. I’ve already tried a few others, including the Meebo Chat widget*** and MailBigFile.com. The two presenters also showed a lot of humor in their talk. Somehow how they made time for it in a very informative session.

Roy Tennant offered examples of libraries welcoming user-generated content. Whether users provide new data (e.g., images and reviews) or new descriptors (e.g., information and tags to enhance the content), more content and more access is better, he said. People browsing various sites (the Library of Congress’ Flickr page, for instance — please see my earlier post on that) have added corrections and new information unavailable otherwise. Imagine a collection of historical community photos opened to browsing and notes. Some residents would surely have details heretofore unknown to the library. Such interaction also fosters community. “Some of our systems are like fortified castles,” he said. Can we change that? Do we have the infrastructure to moderate user-generated content? These are good questions to ask. Libraries should get up to speed on how to foster engagement with their users.

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* Twenty four by my count. I might be wrong.
** I just downloaded it, in fact.
*** Notice a trend? Four of the five presentations I attended today praised the Meebo chat widget!

I made a short tutorial screencast for our staff but wanted to share at least this image with all of you.