Author: Heather Braum

Twitter Daily Digest for 2011-03-25

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Twitter Daily Digest for 2011-03-24

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Guest Post: Caleb May on Kansas HB 2390 (the Kaned abolishment bill)

Update: a hearing for this bill will happen Tuesday, March 29, at 8am.

This is a guest post from Caleb May, Director of the Meade Public Library in Western Kansas. His prepared testimony comments can be viewed here online or downloaded as a PDF. Caleb sent the following email out to the KANLIB listserv (a statewide Kansas library listserv). Kansas HB 2390 that would eliminate the Kaned organization has been introduced to the Kansas House. See the KLA website for more information on the devestating impact this bill would have on Kansas libraries, hospitals, schools, and citizens. 53 Kaned impact stories are also available here.

Caleb’s letter to KANLIB, posted with his permission:

Friends,

I travelled 311 miles last night and composed testimony that I had intended to give before the House Standing Committee on General Government Budget this morning at 8:00. Though I had only had 4 hours of sleep, I was fairly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to present when at about ten after 8:00 we were informed that the meeting was cancelled. Though disappointed, I decided to use the time that I had at the statehouse to speak to the members one at a time. I was able to speak to the chairman of the committee, Representative Joe McLeland-R of Wichita, who informed me that he was sorry that the meeting had to be cancelled, but that this late in the session it is difficult to find time for everything.

I asked him if I could present my testimony next week by phone and he said that that was absolutely out of the question. He seemed to be a fairly reasonable individual, however, he seems to have an axe to grind with Kan-Ed. He believes that Kan-Ed is a millstone around the neck of the Legislature and that the initial funding of Kan-Ed when it was created was supposed to be, “seed money, ” and that they were supposed to have become self-sustaining over a period of years. His opinion is that Kan-Ed obstinately refuses to pursue alternative sources of funding and that now that most of the state’s population has access to telecommunications Kan-Ed has outlived its usefulness.

Another point of contention with the legislators is that many of them believe that there is a philosophical conflict in using KUSF (Kansas Universal Service Fund) to fund Kan-Ed. They say that our state’s regulatory fees on cellular, Internet, and phone bills are too high and that it is not right to skim money from people who can afford to pay for access to subsidise those who can’t afford it.

My personal belief is that if supporting the rural public library is not an essential function of government, what is? I think that it is wrong for government to shut-out tens of thousands of rural Kansans who would not have the ability to access high-speed telecommunications without the availability of Kan-Ed supported libraries. Access to information should not be a luxury only available to the wealthy, it is a necessity if we are to continue to have an educated public capable of self-government.

All of us need to be heard in the Kansas State house RIGHT NOW. If HB2390 (or any other bill that would sever Kan-Ed from KUSF funding and eliminate it’s budget thereby placing it’s future funding at the whims of annual appropriations battles) must be opposed by all who love Kansas libraries and believe that they are a vital component to our state’s future. Please take a moment to let your legislators know that without Kan-Ed rural libraries would see astronomical increases in FY2012 and that many would not be able to remain open to the public.

The members of the House Standing Committee on General Government Budget Committee are:

Chairman Joe McLeland-R (of Wichita)

Room: 458-W

Seat: 92

Phone: 785-296-7681

Email: joe.mcleland@house.ks.gov

 

Vice-Chair Pete DeGraaf-R (of Mulvane)

Room: 459-W

Seat: 39

Phone: 785-296-7693

Email: pete.degraaf@house.ks.gov

 

Ranking Minority Member Tom Burroughs-D (of Kansas City)

Room: 359-S

Seat: 5

Phone: 785-296-7885

Email: tom.burroughs@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Ramon Gonzalez-R (of Perry)

Room: DSOB

Seat: 71

Phone: 785-296-7677

Email: ramon.gonzalezjr@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Don Hineman-R (of Dighton)

Room: 54-S

Seat: 63

Phone: 785-296-7636

Email: don.hineman@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Kyle Hoffman-R (of Coldwater)

Room: DSOB

Seat: 65

Phone: 785-296-7643

Email: kyle.hoffman@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Jim Howell-R (of Derby)

Room: DSOB

Seat: 38

Phone: 785-296-7665

Email: jim.howell@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Ronald Ryckman-R (of Meade)

Room: DSOB

Seat: 42

Phone: 785-296-7644

Email: ronald.ryckman@house.ks.gov

 

Representative Nile Dillmore-D (of Wichita)

Seat: 76

Phone: 785-296-7698

Email: nile.dillmore@house.ks.gov

 

If you are really ambitious, it would also be extremely beneficial if you could forward you concerns to the members of the House Appropriations Committee as well since the would also have to pass this bill out of committee to the full House if it passes in the General Government Budget Committee. The members of Appropriations are

  • Chair Rep. Marc Rhoades
  • Vice Chair Rep. Kasha Kelley
  • Ranking Minority Member Rep. Bill Feuerborn

Members

  • Rep. Anthony Brown
  • Rep. Richard Carlson
  • Rep. Dave Crum
  • Rep. Pete DeGraaf
  • Rep. Jim Denning
  • Rep. Owen Donohoe
  • Rep. Lana Gordon
  • Rep. Marvin Kleeb
  • Rep. Peggy Mast
  • Rep. Joe McLeland
  • Rep. Virgil Peck
  • Rep. Joann Pottorff
  • Rep. Sharon Schwartz
  • Rep. Clark Shultz
  • Rep. Gene Suellentrop
  • Rep. Jerry Henry
  • Rep. Barbara Ballard
  • Rep. Sydney Carlin
  • Rep. Doug Gatewood
  • Rep. Harold Lane

Those of you in the Emporia area should put a lot of pressure on Peggy Mast, I spoke with her this morning and she was startled to see that the bill actually completely eliminates the Kan-Ed Fund and puts it entirely into the General Fund.

Attached please also find the testimony that I was prepared to give this morning as well as the current text of HB2390. I pray that our efforts are successful for the sake of rural Kansans!

P.S. DO NOT TAKE FOR GRANTED THAT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE IS ON OUR SIDE. I FOUND ALMOST NO SYMPATHY FOR OUR SIDE EVEN WITH MY OWN REPRESENTATIVE.

—

Caleb H. May,

Director

Meade Public Library

104 E. West Plains

P.O. Box 609

Meade, KS 67864

Caleb’s Prepared Testimony Comments

Computers in Libraries Wrapup Post

I’m at the airport, waiting for our flight to Kansas City to arrive and then we’ll get on and head back to Kansas. I’m hanging out with four other fellow Kansas librarians/tech staff (awesome!). What a conference. I think I’m going to hold off and write a reflection post this weekend about the conference, but since I blogged so many sessions, I wanted to post a recap post that pulls all my notes together, linked in one place. Liveblogging was fun. And seeing so many friends and library colleagues and meeting new ones was even better. I’ll leave the reflection at that for the moment.

Many of these posts are rough and I will go back in and add links later, and hopefully find other blog summaries from the sessions. Maybe I’ll even find the time to locate other sessions’ notes and at least read through them.

Without further ado then, here’s all the different session notes I was able to take throughout the conference:

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Keynote: Three Keys to Engaging Digital Natives

Tuesday, March 22 Keynote

Michelle Manafy

Director of Content, Free Pint Limited and editor of Dancing with Digital Natives

There are differences between the generations.

Digital natives: lifelong access to technology; nearly ubiquitous Internet access.

The term digital native was intro’d by Mark Prensky. Natively speak the language of computers, cell phones, gaming, Internet.

Mark Prensky; Urs Gaser; Gartner Group

“Digital Natives will be “the beneficiaries of hidden advantages…that all them to learn and work … in ways that others cannot.” –Malcolm Gladwell

Kids: privacy is no longer a social norm (Mark Zuckerberg). Kids are living a much more public life now.

1. Kids are all about public opinion, not private lives.

“Andy Warhol’s saying ‘everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’ has changed to ‘everyone will be famous to 15 people.'” –Tara Hunt, The Whuffle factor.

Users share a little much information.

Stupid criminals are not a new phenomenon. Police troll social media; gangs publicly post their activities, and are a font of information.

Truly communal generation: share details of all aspects of their lives.

Gives police the opportunity to crowdsource criminal investigations.

State Library of Victoria’s YouTube channel — engages the digital natives where they live. Options that allow you to blur the distinction between online and your environment.

Social Signon — instead of using an anonymous signin process, use your social media account to login to a website. Creates a sense of community engagement.

NPR does this. TakingitGlobal does this. Sharing their story on all the social networks.

Your users will become your greatest advocates…

Sparknotes.

2. Knowledge Sharing, Not Knowledge Herding.

“Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally a large group of people.” –Jeff Howe

HAUL Videos: Shopping YouTube videos.

Let’s get an idea how digital natives do innovation on their terms.

Quirky. Place for social product development. bring your proposed invention, the network votes on products, comments on them. One is selected and brought to market. (Quirky gets a percentage of sales of the invention; the people who vote on the product get a percentage of sales). This is real-time market feedback. Buzz starts to be created, while the product is being discussed before it gets to market.

Local Motors. Car designers. Every major aspect of the car designs are created in an open community process. The company makes its plan for its cars completely open.

ProPublica. Collaborative journalism. Systematize the process of crowd-sourcing. Work with readers to better inform the news.

Digitialcoo (sp?). Finland. Access to Finnish cultural heritage and documents. Users play games to help improve the search of the cultural heritage project.

Schoolsapp. Facebook app that allows schools to create private networks on Facebook. Schools are reporting a higher sense of matriculation and staying longer because of the increased sense of community.

P&G Connect. Product Development site. Over 50 percent of its initiatives involve collaboration with outside innovators.

IBM. Added a development social network portal to its development portal.

Older generations are scared of sharing knowledge. Knowledge itself is not power. Knowledge sharing is power.

Proprietary work. We ignore sharing at our peril. People focus on marketing, CRM, promoting your organization. We need to see that this process of crowd-sourcing isn’t a coffin-nailer. Science=build upon work of others. Art=inspiration from others. Innovation=gradually improving.

New era of innovation coming, never seen before?

They don’t want to just buy products and services. they want to be involved & then buy the goods and services they helped create.

Users have more trust in crowd-sourced organizations and products than the traditional model.

3. Interactions not Transactions

“For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” –King James Bible.

Digital currency. Credit cards. Virtual world economies. Social capitalism (ratings and reputation).

This generation is definitely vocal. If you don’t find a way for them to express their opinions about your product, they will find one.

Bicyclists against United.

YouTube videos about United luggage.

United: Twitter One way communication, mostly.

Not that many people have relationships with machines.

Listen. Respond. React. We talk about conversations, but people tend to forget to listen. Genuine communication is what this generation seeks. Listening, responding, and reacting all a part of this.

Threadless. products created by the community.

PBS Digital Nation project. created a conversation and a documentary in the process. It actively sought input from its community members. They continue to engage with the community.Created relationships and a stellar documentary in the process.

Submit a picture, and 6 word creativity of how digital world has changed your lives.

  1. Crawl to laptop to skype Grandma.
  2. I emailed him. He deleted me.
  3. Dinosaur. Evolving.

Library sites examples.

  • chat with a librarian.
  • Teen-specific parts of library website.
  • Library-curated areas of resources for specific demographics.
  • Hennepin county libraries mentioned.

If you give the opportunity for real-time feedback, they’ll respond.

  • Library of Birmingham in UK. International knowledge exchange. Build a community around knowledge.
  • many of these businesses mentioned, were founded by digital native entrepreneurs.
  • They create content. Share information. Provides an opportunity to listen and do business better.
  • To move forward, risk business model, do scary things.

@michellemanafy on Twitter.

 

Book: Dancing with Digital Natives.