Learning 2.0 – Library Genius 2.0 T-Shirts!

Check out these Library Genius 2.0 T-shirts for the Allen County Public Library Learning 2.0 program, found on this post from the ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology Blog. Kay Gregg designed these shirts and all the icons associated with each Learning 2.0 course completed! They will be used to kick-off the ACPL Digital Collaborative’s Learning 2.0 presentation. Here is Kay modeling one of the new t-shirts:

Look at this post from ACPL’s IT blog on Library 2.0 Bling for a closeup of each icon. and here is a picture of the Learning Video 2.0 button.

For more information on the ACPL’s Learning 2.0, check out these posts from the ACPL Innovation Through Technology blog. And for what ACPL’s Digital Collaborative is creating for Learning 2.0, check out the ACPL DC Wiki’s “21 Things“. Click on the links to see what each person has created. This wiki is a working wiki for the Digital Collaborative and is constantly being updated.

I want to be a Library Genius 2.0!

~Susan Mellott

Library 2.0 – ACPL New Books Wall Mashup and More!

Just for fun, I created an old-fashioned card catalog card for the book I had downloaded from baen.com/library using John Blyberg’s card catalog generator. You have to enter the data by hand (I copied the information from Amazon.com) but it makes a really fun graphic. With some programming, you can make a mashup that uses this. A mashup is a website or application that combines content from more than one source into an integrated experience.

Sean Robinson (my husband and head of IT Technology at the ACPL) created this book wall called Books we added to the catalog yesterday combining the new material checked in each day at the ACPL (Allen County Public Library) with data from Amazon. It shows pictures of the actual book covers for each book and if you click on a book cover, it will show you an old-fashioned card catalog for that book and information on it from Amazon (if the book is brand new, it doesn’t necessarily have review info yet).

Then you can click on “Look this up in our catalog” to see the ACPL card catalog information on that book like how many copies there are and if they are available and where they are located and do all sorts of neat things like add it to your list or put it on hold. You can also find more books by that author, more books with those topics or browse nearby call numbers (books that would be on the library shelf with this book).

Go check it out and play around with it. It is a great example of how you can combine Web 2.0 tools to create something new and exciting and useful.

For this and more innovative ways the Allen County Public Library uses Web 2.0, visit their Library 2.0 site: ACPLib2.0. ACPL Rules!

~Susan Mellott

YouTube video of ACPL Harry Potter Party

I have created my first YouTube video and it is of the community of Fort Wayne streaming into the Allen County Public Library for their fabulous Harry Potter Release party that was held 7/20/2007 from 9pm to post-midnight (at which time the lucky lottery winners could check out 1 of 200 copies of the final Harry Potter book).

It is a very sped up version of part of the people entering the ACPL when the doors opened at 9pm. The actual time it took just for the people who were waiting for the doors to open to get in was 10 minutes. I can’t imagine how many people that must have been.

Fortunately there were a lot of activities taking place on the Library Plaza (they started at 8pm) as well as inside. There was a band playing, games for the kids including the spiderweb maze, potions classes, costume shows and I believe there was even Potter Bingo.

ACPL, the community of Fort Wayne thanks you for all you do.

This is a pretty poor video, but it is my first one so I am sure I will get better. Anyway, enjoy!

People entering the ACPL at 9pm 7/20/2007 for the Harry Potter Release Party

~Susie

Diagon Alley comes to Life and the ACPL Goes all out!

Last night, the Fort Wayne Allen County Public Library held probably the most outstanding event that I remember at the Library. They recreated Diagon Alley and had so many great things to do and see and have. There was a free wand shop, free candy, tattoos, harry potter glasses and more. You could make and adopt an owl, make a clock, make a card and mail it with a special Harry Potter postmark. There was a costume show and Potions class and a magical astronomy show. You could have your picture taken with Harry Potter and Professor Dumbledore at the headmaster’s table and in the Flying Car. There was a magic show, games, fortunetellers, and so much, much more.

I videotaped the crowd when the doors opened at 9pm and I must have taped a steady stream of people going into the library for probably 10 minutes. I hope to have some YouTube videos up soon. I don’t know how many people were there, but I know there were thousands. There will probably be an official estimate soon.

Library staff (including several senior managers) became Harry Potter, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McDonagall, Professor Snape, Hagrid, Moaning Myrtle and Mad Eye Moody. They mingled and interacted with the crowd and signed autographs, posed for pictures and stayed in character beautifully.

Then at midnight, checkout opened and the lucky lottery winners checked out the final Harry Potter book. The smiles on the faces of kids and their parents and everyone who came down was priceless.

It was a wonderful, magical night. Here are my flickr pictures of the event. I hope to have some YouTube videos coming soon.

UPDATE – NEW! Here are flickr pictures of the party from the ACPL.

UPDATE – NEW! Here is a blog entry from blyberg.net about the Darien Public Library Party for the new Harry Potter release.

I hope Fort Wayne appreciates the wonderful asset the city has in the library and how much it does for the community. Go check out the ACPL web site to see some of the activities they offer. Or better yet, visit your local branch and see what is going on. You might be very surprised.

~Susie

Allen County Public Library Harry Potter Release Party!

Check out what the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana is doing this evening for the release of the final Harry Potter book! There will be festivities from 9pm until midnight, at which time the new release can be checked out since it is officially released on 7/20. It is going to be amazing, and I plan to take pictures and hopefully some videos and I will be posting them here.

This is taken from the 7/16 article by the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel and the full article can be found here.

Downtown library
Potter party central this Friday will be at the new downtown library, 900 Library Plaza. They are gearing up for a gathering of 5,000 fans, many of whom will be dressed as characters in the books.

The fun begins with a pre-event concert and activities outside on the Library Plaza. Family-friendly music will be provided by the Kid Kazooey and the Ballroom Roustabouts.

“We wanted something silly and strange and weird, and I think he fits the bill,” said Deb Noggle, children’s librarian at the Tecumseh branch and lead organizer of the night’s events.

Other activities at the pre-party include quaffle-throwing practice (a ball thrown through a hoop to score a goal in wizarding’s game of Quidditch), crawling through a giant spider web, and trading new or shiny objects with gypsies.

At 9 p.m., the main library – which will close for regular business at 6 p.m. Friday – will reopen. Partygoers stepping through the doors will find themselves in the Harry Potter books’ Diagon Alley, the wizard shopping district in London.

There, visitors can try 18 activities, including:

♦Making a Weasley family clock.

♦Visiting Ollivander’s wand shop.

♦Stocking up at Honeyduke’s Sweet Shoppe.

♦Learning the future at Trelawney’s Divinations and Fortune Telling.

♦Watching magician Jared Mason’s magic show.

♦Daring to go through the Restricted (Book) Section maze.

♦Getting a lightning bolt tattoo.

♦Having the U.S. Postal Service stamp an owl card with a special “Harry Potter” mail cancellation.

Noggle said the 18 stations will be three times the number of activities offered at the library’s last big Potter Party, which was held at the Georgetown branch for the 2005 release of Book 6, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

People also can enter a lottery to be among the lucky fans to check out one of the Allen County Public Library’s approximately 250 copies of the new Harry Potter book, Noggle said. The Bookmark bookstore also will be there selling the book at midnight.

Noggle said fans can get a jump on deciding what activities they want to try Friday night by donating an article of clothing to S.P.E.W. (Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare) barrels set out now through Friday at library branch locations. In the books, Harry’s friend and classmate Hermione Granger started S.P.E.W. to get better treatment and freedom for house elves.

Donated clothing will be given to local organizations that provide free clothing to needy people in Fort Wayne, Noggle said.

Each person who donates an item of clothing will receive an S.P.E.W. button and a library version of The Daily Prophet, the wizard newspaper, Noggle said. The newspaper will provide information about the 18 activities at Friday’ night’s party and where each activity will take place in the main library.

About 100 library staffers will be on hand to help everything go smoothly, Noggle said. Book characters, such as Professor Minerva McGonagall, Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, Rubeus Hagrid and Professor Severus Snape, also will wander the building to mingle with fans.

The event is paid for by donations from the Friends of the Library organization and the Allen County Public Library Foundation, Noggle said.

Hello world!

Somewhere along the way, a whole new (dare I say) paradigm appeared, with all the supporting jargon, acronyms, tools, languages and uses and I was busy programming business apps and missed it.

Then I started paying attention to what my husband was doing as head of the Information Technology Services Department of the ACPL (Allen County Public Library) and it blew me away. All the things I used to do that were just considered playing or obscure or geeky or “kid’s stuff”, suddenly have a real and practical (and accepted) use. And it is not just acceptable, it is valuable.

So here I am, hoping to try it all. All things Web 2.0.

Here I am – Where the Journey Starts…

Well, my first post. How strange this seems. And how strange that it seems strange. I’ve been chatting and posting to bulletin boards and email lists and groups and what not since before the internet had web pages, but somehow, Web 2.0 came along and suddenly everything old is new (and different) again. And I need to catch up.

As an example, I remember the whole “Second City” social/avatar/world thing from way back. I can’t even remember the name of the place anymore, but I remember hanging out in people’s “pads”and chatting to all sorts of interesting people (and admiring their avatars) and having quite a good time. But do I know anything about Second City and who is using it? No, I don’t.

Somewhere along the way, a whole new (dare I say) paradigm appeared, with all the supporting jargon, acronyms, tools, languages and uses and I was busy programming business apps and missed it.

Then I started paying attention to what my husband was doing as head of the Information Technology Services Department of the ACPL (Allen County Public Library) and it blew me away. All the things I used to do that were just considered playing or obscure or geeky or “kid’s stuff”, suddenly have a real and practical (and accepted) use. And it is not just acceptable, it is valuable.

And the possibilities are screaming at me. I want to learn and see and do and create and be involved in making a place and finding the opportunities in this new land. I have so many ideas that I want to implement and so many contributions that I want to make. But I need to learn the tools and words and ways to do it. It is frustrating since I have been programming all my life and there is typically nothing I want to do that I can’t do without too much trouble. So now I feel humbled by the amount of things I don’t know.

So hang with me and you can watch me on my path and hopefully we can share with each other along the way. It is a new way and a new day. It’s all things Web 2.0.