2019-10-11 SPLAT Curiosity Report: Volume 4, Issue 3

Featured Story

Bookmarks! (the online ones)

If you’re anything like me, you go through the day by opening up a few thousand tabs in whatever web browser you’re using, and tend to lose track of really cool resources that seem to only exist for a day. As information professionals, it’s not surprising that we bombard ourselves with so many cool things to read. I’ve been working on a basic solution and have found it very handy and I wanted to share it out. I’ve begun managing the way I bookmark cool stuff- either as I discover it or right before I close everything at the end of the day. All of these methods vary greatly between web browsers, but many of the ideas translate decently well. I’ve cited relevant online tutorials at the end.

Folders!

The first basic organization system is creating folders. I like to think about broad categories I will be interested in somewhat regularly. For me, alphabetically, I have Grants, MAKE, Other, Professional Development (Prof Devt), Readers’ Advisory (RA), SPLAT, Young Adult (YA), and Zombies (more on that later). As I come upon a new resources that fits into one of these categories, I drop it in there to save it for later. Over time, I organize the contents of the folder based on what I use most often, and sometimes create sub-folders. For instance, in my Prof_devt folder, I have “To read/watch” and “Watched/read”. You can probably see a slippery slope appearing… yes, sometimes, there’s a folder in a folder in a folder. Folderception, if you will.

Icons only!

Most pages you bookmark automatically import a little logo for the website as an icon next to the bookmark. In Chrome, if you erase the title of your bookmark, it will show up only as a little icon. For me, this means things I use every single day can take up less space but still be easy to access outside of a folder: stuff like our library catalog, the LiLI site, and a calendar. If your browser doesn’t support this, you can likely still give them one letter names instead.

Moving bookmarks!

I recently changed jobs and was starting to mourn the loss of my accumulated bookmarks as I lost that work email. However, I did some digging and learned that you can export and import all your collected bookmarks. This is also super helpful if you want your bookmarks between multiple browsers (like Internet Explorer and Chrome) to be consistent. At the end of the article, I have pasted a few links that should help you find a way to do this in your browser! This has been a lifesaver for me, as I know I would have lost a lot of collected information otherwise.

Braaaaaaaaiiins…

The Zombie folder is for things that I need to bury today to reanimate tomorrow. This also helps the part of my brain that really likes things listed alphabetically get along with the part of my brain that wants to put everything to do later on an outside edge; the Z means this is the last folder in my bookmark bar. This folder is where I drop important things at the end of the day if I’m in a rush or don’t yet know what other folder to put something into.

Bookmark all tabs!

This is where having a Zombies folder is super important. If you’ve been researching a particular topic all day and want to save a bunch of tabs all at once, you can! In Chrome, you just right click on an open tab and click “Bookmark all tabs” and it lets you choose what folder you want to put all of your new friends into! For me, this is usually Zombies, so I close all my normal tabs to isolate the new ones, and everything falls nicely into a folder.

Weeding!!!

Finally, as with all collections of knowledge, it’s important to set yourself up for a bit of maintenance. Set your own criteria, as the only person who has to deal with your bookmarks (probably) is you. I like to go back through every few months and see what might need reorganizing or what sources might need to be updated. Sometimes, you’ll run into problems where a website has reorganized or changed domain names, and it will look like you lost your link. Remember: if your link appears broken, you can try looking for it based on the information saved in the bookmark, like the sub-section of the website that housed it. Alternatively, you can use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to hopefully find a cached version!

Remember: you don’t have to know everything, you just need to know how to find it! Bookmarks help.

– Donovan Kay, Capital High School

Fail Forward

We’ve all been there. You pour your heart into a program, and no one shows up. You try something new, and you fall on your face. Sound familiar? Fail Forward is the place to share your failures, and give you the opportunity to share what you learned from them. Did you promote your program in a different way after no one showed up? Maybe you took a new approach to the new thing you were excited about? Awesome! Share your story via our online form so others can learn, and realize that failure is often part of the process.

Glossophobics unite!

Fear of public speaking is one of the most common phobias. Anecdotally, irrational fear of speaking in public is more common than irrational fear of death (though I couldn’t find a cite for that claim). Like many anxiety-related fears, speaking in public scares many people ahead of the speech and then we reflect back on negative public speaking appearances months or even years later. Anyway, my fail forward this week is about fear of public speaking.

I recently did a solo presentation at the Pacific Northwest Library Association on drone program planning. It’s a topic I’m reasonably familiar with, and I prepared well ahead of time. Maybe too well- it was a dense topic to begin with, and it’s never good when you switch to 14-point font in a slideshow. For fear of omitting useful information I ended up presenting entirely too much detail for an introductory 45-minute talk. Have you ever been in front of a crowd, know you’re losing their attention, and decide there’s nothing to do besides double down and talk faster? Yeah, not ideal.

Psychology Today outlines some factors that contribute to fear of public speaking, like experiencing physiological fight or flight reactions. This is great for sabertoothed tigers, but less great for library conferences. They also outline some ways to reframe those factors, and in particular shifting your focus from performance to communication. If you view public speaking as an unnatural, well, presentation, public speaking will feel artificial. Instead, focusing on communicating your information effectively helps you focus on the information, and the presentation aspect as a means by which to deliver that information.

Ultimately, I survived my presentation and it seems like folks were able to drink a little from the firehose of information I spewed at them. In my self-reflection afterwards, a common thread of advice was that cognitive reframing and gaining more experience presenting are the most effective ways to learn to present more effectively.

– Tyler McLane, Coeur d’Alene Public Library

Is there a library you follow on social media who is always doing new and exciting things? How about a blog you follow that inspires you? What about a new idea, book, or resource that you want to share? Library Crush Corner is a place for those working in Idaho libraries to share what inspires them, and who or what they’re crushing on… in a professional sense. Share your story via our online form so we can publish it in a future issue!

Beaches and Books

Beach Libraries are trending and I couldn’t be more excited! Here is one excellent example.

“On the shores of Albena, a Bulgarian resort on the Black Sea Coast, a curved shelf- made from a material that’s resistant to sun and wind- houses more than 6,000 books in 15 languages. (It’s also resistant to rain thanks to a vinyl cover.) The library here operates on an honor system, so you can borrow a book for the length of your vacation and return it at the end. You can also leave behind ones that you brought.”

https://www.coastalliving.com/lifestyle/beach-library-trend

– Rasheil Stanger, Valley of the Tetons Library

Donnelly Public Library

Donnelly Public Library is inspiring, relevant, kind and energetic! They have quickly become the community hub for kids and are always posting incredible, empathetic, FUN activities. My library is happy to have Donnelly as a relatively new partner in our county. Sherry is always willing to share with us: like the upcoming portable mini-planetarium for Summer Reading Program. Check them out on Facebook to see their new book clubs in a bag program and lots of tiny astronauts. Or stop by and ask for a cup of tea or a s’more–they are famous for that, too!

– Meg Lojek, McCall Public Library

SPLAT explores the ever-evolving library world and supports library folks as they adapt to meet the needs of their communities. Library folk throughout the state of Idaho volunteer to serve on the Special Projects Library Action Team (SPLAT). Learn more about SPLAT at splat.lili.org

SPLAT is brought to you by the Idaho Commission for Libraries and was made possible, in part, by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (LS-00-19-0013-19). The views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Institute of Museum and Library Services.