Have you ever had a great idea or at least what you thought was a great idea? You work diligently to bring the idea to fruition. Then on the big day of the "happening," you feel like you are jumping off a cliff and wondering whether the outcome will be a hard or soft landing? Yesterday was such a day for me.
Only a week yesterday six outstanding Texas librarians agreed to help host a weekly Twitter chat for Texas librarians named txlchat. http://www.twitter.com/#txlchat. Michelle Cooper, Sue Fitzgerald, Naomi Bates, Marsha Edney, Sonja Schulz, and I launched our first chat last night. The landing? Soft as a feather bed.
Although the tweet chat was publicized on several listservs and tweeted and retweeted, we had no way to anticipate what would happen. We could be chatting among the seven of us, or we could be chatting with a larger audience. Anticipation reached a fever-pitch when 8:00 rolled around. Not more than 5 minutes into the chat, Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1) tweeted our chat. Our audience had already reached outside Texas! Can you imagine six librarians doing a happy dance? Too bad we didn't have a Google Hangout going at the same time; you would have seen the best Harlem Shake anywhere.
So the fear of failing/falling has once again been averted. My husband says I'm always happiest when I'm one step from the unknown. So, I'm almost ready to stand on another cliff...which is my natural habitat. It's the only way to grow professionally, right?
I've begun to plan summer workshops for 2013 and am so excited about how they are shaping up so far. Registration is not open yet.
June 13 - It could be named - AEIOU: Vowels in the Library. Carolyn Foote presenter will be speaking about Accessibility, eBooks, iPads, Out of the box thinking, and Unique learning spaces. But no matter the name, it's still a Carolyn Foote Workshop. Longview ISD
June 14 - Area 7 TCEA Workshop in White Oak. Several area librarians and Carolyn Foote will be presenting along with teach gurus from around the state. Diane Laufenberg will be the keynote.
July 10 - Symbaloo and You. Michelle Cooper will introduce Symbaloo and walk you through embedding Symbaloo to your Destiny page. Henderson ISD
July 23 - Unplugged Unconference: A Picnic in the Country. Rosemary Whitten, former Longview ISD Library Coordinator, will host participants at her country home in Laneville. Attendees are asked to bring a finger food for lunch, wear comfy clothes, and bring a floor pillow (if you have one) as seating will be informal. We will enjoy stimulating conversations about library issues in the relaxed atmosphere of the country. This activity replaces the annual meeting in Bullard.
Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/julesandjoe/7114527379/
Some of us consider ourselves to be pretty tech savy but have gaps in our understanding of social media terms tossed about. I'm blogging a link to an article I read that included some easy definitions of social media. Social Media Lingo. http://bit.ly/12csnea April 2, 2013.
By the way, B2B means business to business and B2C is business to consumer. Following that line of thinking, I guess librarians need more acronyms. :-) L2T - Librarian to Teacher; L2A - Librarian to Administrator; and L2S - Librarian to Student when their interactions with their stakeholders.
