At the seed library, people can “check out” healthy seeds, use them to plant herbs, vegetables and flowers, and return new seeds from the resulting plants at the end of the season. The seed check-out process is self-service and it’s explained on the Richmond Grows website. Interested people can sign up for 45-minute orientations offered at the library several times a month and/or watch a 10 minute video at their website that clearly explains the process.

This seed library is another effort that Richmond residents are making to grow food locally and build community, and Richmond’s is the first one in the nation to operate at a more traditional public library. “We put it in a public space because we wanted the entire public to have access,” Newburn said.

Link: Richmond now has it’s own seed-lending library

How did you become a high school librarian?
My early career was in a public library as a children’s librarian and then as young adult librarian. I moved on to become a Branch Librarian but knew working with teens was what I really enjoyed.When I heard about the position at Moreau Catholic High School I was attracted to the idea of having a captive audience of teens. What I soon learned was that I would have three categories of patrons – students, teachers, and administration each with different needs. Also the idea of a school schedule with a long summer break was very attractive to me as the mother of a two year old.

Librarian Susan Geiger

How has technology impacted your role as a school librarian?
The library team’s role has changed as the school embraced technology. We are first-line tech support for over 900 students and their laptops. As the only information professional in the school, it’s my job to keep teachers and administrators aware of current research, curriculum trends, and useful web tools.  My Twitter stream, blog reader, and social networks are composed almost entirely of library, education, and educational technology sources.

My staff and I do a lot of instructional and technical support for teachers. They come to us with an idea or a lesson plan, and we try to find the best technology and resources to support their learning objectives. In the process we provide information literacy instruction to their students. We create digital pathfinders using LibGuides software that allows us to embed RSS feeds, video and other media.  We do presentations on Digital parenting to help our parents understand and work with their digital native children.

One of the biggest changes I have seen since becoming a laptop school is the transformation of the library into a production space.  Students use our conference room to record voice-overs and to edit video, and it’s common to find kids filming all over the library. We have 3 flat screen TVs in the library that screen MCTV, our student run, digital TV station. We also use the TVs to run new book promotions that we create in powerpoint, save as jpgs and play as slide shows.  We have two drop down LCD screens in the main seating area that students use to give presentations. Recently the library hosted a Skype conference for an AP Government class with an alumna, Rosie Rios, the US Treasurer.

The library is a very popular place on our campus.  Students come to check out books, flash drives, headphones, and video cameras. They use our tables to work in groups, and our power outlets to charge their laptops . They ask for help in person, by chat, and even by email. They become fans on our Facebook page. The students see the library as a learning commons.

Lunch hour in the Moreau Catholic High School Library

What school projects you’ve done that you’re the most proud of?
When my school was three years into our roll out as a 1:1 laptop school, it became obvious to me that our faculty needed to become more comfortable using their laptops.  My staff and I led a “23 Things” web 2.0 staff development program using the CSLA 23 Things Classroom Learning program as a model. The program was pretty successful because we did a lot of marketing and had great support from our administration. The incentive to sign up for the 9-week program was that the participants were allowed to wear jeans every Friday. We designed a black t-shirt with the school logo and the legend, “23 Things for 21st century Learners.” Our school has a dress code and wearing jeans is a big deal.

We made a promotional video featuring teachers and administrators to introduce 23 Things and an Animoto video of the first people to sign up and create blogs.  Seventy-seven administrators, teachers and staff signed up. Every Friday was Tech Friday when my staff and I provided personal assistance and treats.  By going into the offices and classrooms of people setting up blogs and using various web tools we provided, “Roadside Assistance”.  In the process we forged a lot of personal relationships, taught a lot of people how to use their toolbar menu, and established the library as a “go to” place for technical assistance.

What was the most memorable experience you had as a librarian?
Three years , prepare for a library remodel and expansion, I moved my entire library into four storage rooms and two classrooms.  I planned the move on graph paper and had the book collection measured down to the inch on spreadsheets. We broke down shelves and then moved and reassembled all of the shelving and most of the book collection during a three-week period. I have memories of standing on study carrels, socket wrench in hand, dismantling our lovely old wood wall shelving. I still can’t believe we got everything done in time.

Moreau Catholic High School Library

What do you love and hate about your job?
I love just about everything about my job, especially helping students find recreational reading and working with teachers on making curriculum relevant and exciting. As a school librarian in an independent school I get to do a bit of everything: acquisitions, reference, cataloging, marketing, web design, staff development, and teaching. It’s very satisfying to come up with the perfect piece of research for an administrator taking a graduate course, the perfect book to hook a 10th grade reluctant reader, and the perfect resource or web tool to fit a teacher’s curriculum need all in the same period.

There has been a lot of press lately about whether schools still need libraries because of a perception that students don’t use books anymore.  I think this is a ridiculous argument because students and faculty need books, electronic resources, and librarians. What has changed is that I buy much less reference and non-fiction in print. One of our challenges is to teach students how to use databases and eBooks, which they sometimes find complex after their search experiences with Google.

The food police role is probably the least favorite part of my job. I wish we could have a library café area, but our new library is carpeted.

Are you impacted by the California economic downturn?
As an independent school we are dependent on our families being able to afford tuition.  While the school is committed to providing as much tuition assistance as possible, it’s still a struggle for many of our families. Compared to the catastrophic budget cuts affecting librarian positions in public schools, the independent school sector has been pretty fortunate.  Still, many of my colleagues and I are trying to do more with fewer resources these days.

Any advice for SLIS students thinking about becoming a high school librarian?
It’s great job because you get to do a bit of everything, but it would help to be into multi-tasking and screaming teens.

How did you decide to become a librarian?
I originally thought that I would be a journalist and I took lot of writing and media classes in college at the State University of New York at Binghamton, which I attended from 1974-1978.

In my media and society class in my senior year, I wrote a paper about the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast that Orson Welles did on Halloween night. In the broadcast he announced that Martians had invaded New Jersey. Preposterous as that sounds today, people believed him and there was widespread national panic.

The paper that I wrote was about how and why people believed the broadcast. I went to the university library looking for answers, and the reference librarian there (wish I could remember her name) told me that I could go back to the newspapers for 1938 and read the news accounts of the broadcast and the reactions to it in the editorials. I spent hours and hours in the library looking at primary source documents on microfilm – fascinated by the letters to the editors and also sidetracked by the fashion ads. I soon realized that I was hooked on the research as much as the writing. (The paper got an A).

When I graduated from college, still unsure of what I was going to choose as a career – I took a summer class at St. John’s University School of Library Science in Jamaica, Queens. The class was about the publishing industry and the teacher was Patricia Glass Schuman – who later founded Neal-Schuman publishers. I loved the class and enrolled in the MLS program in the Fall. Note – Neal-Schuman published my book Running Book Discussion Groups in 2006.

What is it like working at the Town and Country Club and what do you love about it?
The Town and Country Club is a women’s social club that was founded in 1893 by the society ladies of San Francisco. It was founded for purely social reasons – to give women a place to lunch together, rest up between shopping and social engagements and dry off from the rain in winter. But the ladies were educated as well as social and the library was there from the start. Each new member was asked to contribute a book to the library.

I get to use all of my reference and acquisition library skills as a solo librarian, but I am introduced to new members not as the librarian but as “our Lauren” as in “this is “our Lauren.”

A big part of the job is hospitality – greeting members by name, getting to know them and their reading tastes, and making people feel comfortable and welcome in the library. Another part is anticipating what they will want to read – and knowing who wants to read about the Bush family and who wants to read about the Obamas.

My favorite activity is the once a month book selection committee. Our library, which takes up three rooms on the second floor of the club, holds 10,000 volumes of fiction, mysteries, biographies, travel, and history books and has a strong California collection dating back to pioneer days. We buy fifteen new books in all categories each month  – and weed out the collection once a year. The book selection committee consists of about fifteen very intelligent, well read women. They present mini-book reports in different categories and then we vote on all of them with the top fifteen then purchased from Book Passage, an independent bookstore in Corte Madera.

I love hearing their book reports and learning about their interests which range from world travel to California history to political biographies to the latest fiction and thrillers. There was a huge debate over whether we should buy Sarah Palin’s biography–Going Rogue. (We did). Some members mail books we can’t get yet in the United States, like the Stieg Larsson (Swedish) The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest.  With some sixty books presented each time, I feel caught up on the publishing world! After book selection, many people stay and have lunch together – and I get to join them.

What made you start running book groups?
Long story short – In 2002, Susan Holmer, the then new director of the Menlo Park Public Library, asked me to fill in for a long time leader who had left. I was working as a on-call reference librarian at the time and enjoyed talking with patrons about what they were reading – and I lived within walking distance of the library, so I spent a lot of time there as a patron as well as an employee. I was also friends with the community services manager Roberta Roth, and attended and enjoyed lots of her programs. So I think I was asked because I was a chatty librarian with a good sense of the community. I didn’t know if I would be a good book group leader or not – but it was worth a try. I have been doing it ever since both at the library, in private living rooms and in community centers – all with great joy!

How has the Web impacted the way that book groups are formed?
Well for one thing, I don’t send out meeting postcards anymore! The Web and e-mail have been great for publicizing the group. Book group programs are posted right on the library Web site, and members can sigh up for e-mail updates. I also have The All Seasons Book Group blog aimed at all kinds of readers and book groups. The site is hosted on a free writer’s site called Redroom: http://www.redroom.com/author/lauren-john.

Just this year, more and more book group members are bringing their IPhones and Blackberries to book group – and are factchecking or using their devices to answer factual questions that come up. Eg. Was Doris Kearns Goodwin fined for plaigerism? Was Swedish author Stieg Larsson murdered? (he was not).

And members are not shy about dashing off notes to each other in between meetings via e-mail and the blogs.

What was the most memorable experience you had as a librarian or a book group leader?
Well the worst thing that I ever did, happened about 25 years ago when I was a reference librarian at the Price Waterhouse accounting firm in NYC. At the end of a very long day, a patron telephoned for me to look up a bond price (this was way before desktops, laptops, or online pricing services and we had to do it by hand via looseleaf services). I put the patron on hold, got distracted, forgot about him and went home. My supervisor picked up the phone when she saw the flashing light. She had a sense of humor and did not fire me.

But note that I am no longer a corporate librarian. I did, however, marry a Price Waterhouse guy who came into the library to train us on how to use Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheets. (Anyone remember those?) If you want to know what our courtship was like, Netflix the move Desk Set!

Lauren John at "leisure" in a vintage store in Half Moon Bay

The best thing that has happened has been the opportunity to lead panels and discussions with authors and readers at book festivals including Book Group Expo, The Carmel Festival of Arts and Ideas, and Litquake.

Any advice for a shy but voracious book reader to join a book group?
You could start with a book group that meets in a public place, like a library, bookstore or community center. That way, if you are not comfortable, you are not as obligated to stay through the entire meeting – as you might be if you were meeting in someone’s living room. Get in touch with the book group leader before you come to the first meeting to get a sense of the group – the demographics and their reading taste. And if you just want to sit back and listen the first meeting, let the leader know that. On the other hand, it would be great if you felt brave enough to share one our two thoughts – or as an opener – ask the group a question. If you are a good cook or baker, you can always make new friends by bringing brownies!

What do you hope to accomplish as the BayNet’s special library representative?
Well, personally, it has already been an eye-opener to see the wide breadth of librarians that are represented. I hope to visit some more of their libraries and invite members to see my library at Town and Country Club on Union Square in San Francisco. With my writing skills, I hope to be working on publicity and marketing. Also, if we could agree on a book, would love to lead a one time BayNet Book discussion!

Ex'pression College for Digital Arts. Photo by Tiffany Lo.

How did you decide to become a librarian?

I’ve always been a reader and a lover of books. At about fifteen, I decided that librarianship would be a great career for me as I knew I didn’t want to be a standard classroom teacher. I knew that I loved to organize anything I could and figure out systems of order for things of all types. I also knew that I liked helping people and loved the concept of instructing people on how to help themselves. I worked in retail bookselling, both as a bookseller and as a manager, and knew that loaning people books was more appealing to me than charging for them.

Heidi Goldstein

In between bookstore jobs, I worked in a huge mess of a vintage clothing store. I had the task of putting it in some order. I devised my own system that included: sparkly Supremes dresses, fifties daytime dresses, sixties cocktail dresses, ironic seventies t-shirts, lederhosen, and so on. It was a mental challenge and included fashion history research and I loved every bit of it. I knew that librarianship was the perfect field into which I should delve.

Also, my mother still swears that she told me, when I was about 3 years of age, that I would grow up to be a librarian. At 37 years old, I now have to agree that she was right!

In what ways is a digital arts school library different from the more traditional school libraries?

The Wintzen Library and Learning Resource Center, while not large in size, is vast in its resourcefulness. Our students tend to focus on manuals and software usage more so than the traditional academic learning institutions as many of our classes are software-based. Ex’pression College, in and of itself, is different in that we are a fast-paced, learning-intensive, 24 hour a day, 365 day a week school. Our library, currently open only to enrolled students, has over three thousand books that range from, but are not limited to: children’s books to animal anatomy, jazz biographies to Star Wars history, acoustics and physics comprehension to logo construction, and rock and roll graphic design to punk rock music history. We also have an extensive DVD collection which includes concerts, tutorials, general films that tend toward the cult classic and hyper-creative, animation, experimental, and documentaries.

The library is also where all students come to attain their textbooks. For the General Education classes, they may borrow their books for the length of the term (five weeks). For the classes that represent the respective programs, Sound Arts, Animation and Visual Effects, Motion Graphic Design, and Game Art and Design, the library gives the students their textbooks which they then may keep for their professional library. This figures greatly in the activities of the library while saving the students large amounts of money from having to purchase their books.

Our library is similar to other schools as it is a hub of information, a central location in which students may print out papers, and where tutoring occurs. As the librarian, I help students with papers, research, and writing.

Ex’pression College uses Web 2.0 tools extensively: blogs, twitter, Facebook, and etc. How has this impacted your library work, if at all?

I believe that the school’s involvement with Web 2.0 has increased our brand recognition all around. The Web has permitted a small, niche-market Bachelor’s degree-granting school to gain international publicity. The library utilizes Twitter and Facebook to communicate with Ex’pression students who might not come into the library on a regular basis. Updates are made to Twitter, Facebook, and various other school-based websites regarding new additions to the library catalog and various events that happen around the school and in the library. Communicating with students in the way they communicate with each other has infinitely assisted in increasing the library’s appeal and communication levels.

What is your most memorable library experience?

My most memorable library experience is as simple and as pure as library experiences come. A student came in to talk to me about life and some difficulties she was having. I listened and advised as anyone would. But then, I used my super-reader-recommendation skills to come up with something wonderful for her to read. Lynda Barry has been my favorite comic artist/writer for a long time. A peer of Matt Groening of “The Simpsons,” she writes bittersweet, semi-autobiographical reflections on life, adolescence, and the complicated intertwining of family, awkwardness, and self-awareness. I offered one of Barry’s books, 100 Demons, to the student who was having troubles. A few days later she came into the library, eyes glistening, book in hand. “You reminded me how much I love to read,” she said shyly, “thank you.”

More recently, I was thrown a huge surprise birthday party by one of the library assistants, who is a student here at Ex’pression. The library had been decorated, a DJ had set up speakers, many of the people in attendance wore Guy Fawkes’ masks and an Ex’pression alumnus had airbrushed a 4 foot long painting of me that lots of people had signed. At least sixty people were in attendance, food was eaten, and much fun was had. This was not the same kind of memorable library experience as the previous one…but still memorable nonetheless!

Any good advice for new librarians still looking for work?

I started out looking for a hearty, civil service job in the public library sector. I envisioned helping those who needed help figuring out how to navigate the Web, performing the hardcore reference interview, and eagerly receiving the random question. As San Jose State University is the largest MLIS program in the country and competition is fierce, acquiring a public library job was more difficult than I could have ever imagined. I ended up, six months after getting my Master’s degree, with a job here at Ex’pression College in a position nothing like that which I had expected.

My advice would be this: keep your mind open and prospects wide open. The unexpected could be better than that which you originally hoped for!

How did you become interested in working in information services?

Deborah Hunt

As an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I worked part-time at Moffitt Library as a Student Assistant. I saw how the reference librarians worked with students to help them find information and that interested me. I also took the library introduction course and found a whole new world about how libraries work and decided the information world was for me. I then applied to the UC Berkeley Library School and started my studies right after finishing my undergraduate program.

Right before I graduated from library school, there was a glut of librarians in the Bay Area and I was not able to relocate to find work. We had a “job board” in South Hall (where the library school was located) and an engineering firm had called the school looking for a student to organize their library. I called the number, interviewed and wrote a proposal, stressing that I would be graduating in 2 weeks and expected to come onboard as a professional, not as a student. I was hired immediately and began work as a consultant to this engineering firm. I was there for 3 months. Many of their clients saw my work, which led to more consulting, and I had plenty of work to launch my business.

What are the services that your clients need? Please describe a job you did.

Information Edge specializes in the following areas:

• Knowledge Services/Enterprise Content Management: providing solutions to organize intellectual content to make it findable, actionable and reusable.

• Library Automation: making externally published content findable by reviewing the library collection and organizational needs to recommend the best solution to automate access to library materials to save staff time and frustration.

• Proprietary Database Research: expert searching of millions of resources on hundreds of proprietary databases not available on the open Web. Information Edge then provides value-added analysis of content found, an executive summary report so the client does not have to comb through thousands of citations. This provides a complete research department at the clients’ fingertips when they need it.

It’s difficult to choose one job to share, but this one had lots of interesting elements to it… I was brought in as a consultant for a global architectural firm to assess their current information needs and recommend the best print/electronic software solution to maximize staff efficiency and ease of use. The client has six print and many digital library collections in each of its six offices. (There were many information silos and it was impossible for staff to find what they needed.) They wanted to be able to share, search and retrieve image and file information using an online database. They have an intranet and are using digital assets management software to manage 30,000 digital images. An inventory was needed because they didn’t know what they had in each of the physical nor digital libraries.

Information Edge (IE) performed an information audit to determine how staff find information and to ascertain where the pain points were. IE then researched and recommended software solutions and a taxonomy that would maximize ROI for finding information needed by staff to do their work. IE also recommended ongoing staffing needs to keep the system current and assisted with hiring a librarian.

As an independent consultant, what is the most important thing you are doing to stay competitive?
I try to keep my name and services in front of clients and colleagues (who often recommend my services to others or hire me). I do this by writing in the information professional and target market literature, presenting at conferences and seminars, and networking. I also stay in touch with clients by sending them unsolicited articles or information I think would be of use to them (though I do this only occasionally). I also have a new blog that I hope will provide useful information to my current and potential clients as well as colleagues.

What is your favorite (or most productive) tool you use in your work?
There are so many Web 2.0 tools that I could mention, such as LinkedIn, but a handy little tool I use when working on client projects is called TraxTime. It helps me keep track of the time I spend on projects and with clients. Those 10-15 minute phone calls and emails really do add up and if I didn’t have this tool, it would be difficult to track that time.

What has been your most memorable work experience?

Fourth Ward School

There have been lots of them. One that I think is unique comes from my time at the Nevada State Library as the Collection Development Librarian. The State Librarian’s office had received a phone call from the Virginia City School District about some books that were in the long abandoned Fourth Ward School, a beautiful structure built in the heyday of the silver rush. It fell to the Public Services Librarian and me to go inspect the building and see what was there. We were both charmed by the beautiful building while at the same time appalled at its horrible condition. Bird and rat droppings were everywhere, but vestiges of the old beautiful schoolhouse were still visible — blackboards with the letters of the alphabet over each one, a few very old desks and worn, but lovely wooden floors. The books were not much to look at but we had a wonderful time seeing this historic old building. It has now been restored.

Why do you volunteer for BayNet and other professional associations?
When I first started in this profession, I found so many mentors who freely spent time answering my questions and helping me to stretch professionally. In turn, I want to give back to other information professionals. A really good way to do that is to volunteer either in a formal capacity (board or committee member or chair) or informally as colleagues and students contact me for advice. Many of my colleagues whom I have met through my involvement with professional associations have become good friends.

Mechanics’ Institute, by rockcreek.

Housed in an one hundred year-old landmark building on Post Street, the Institute serves its members with a large general-interest circulating and research library, offering book discussion groups, writers’ groups, and Internet research classes; the oldest chess club in the United States with activities for players of all abilities from beginners to grand masters; and an active program of literary and cultural events, including author programs, film series, salons, special events and art exhibitions. Source: Mechanics’ Institute.

BayNet speaks with Sharon Miller who is the Institute’s acting library director and BayNet’s newest Treasurer.

What is one thing your library is very good at? Personalized customer service. We take pride in meeting our members’ information needs.

Is there something else about your library that most people do not know? We are a full-spectrum library, no longer training men in the mechanical arts.

Who are your most frequent types of users? We have no one category, but daily see students, retirees, workers from surrounding retail and businesses, and children who are chess players.

What do you like best about your users? They all like our library!

Sharon Miller

As a library director, what are your primary responsibilities? I manage the budget and the personnel, oversee several book groups and writers’ groups, teach classes, give tours, and promote new projects. We are busy with technology upgrades and marketing ideas, and am always looking for ways to make our facilities more useful for our library users, so I enjoy talking with people. I love listening to the ideas presented by our enthusiastic members!

What is it about your job that most people don’t realize that you do? Fix photocopier problems.

What initially attracted you to library work? I wanted to spend my days in a library.  My family were enthusiastic public library users from my infancy.

What do you like most about working in your library? Our book discussion groups are fun, entertaining, and usually a wonderful learning experience for all of us.

What is most challenging about working in your library? Convincing people the Google is not always the best place to find information.

What accomplishment at work are you most proud of? Teaching people who have never used a computer how to do so, and seeing them successfully using email and other computer applications.

What is the most memorable experience you had at work? One of my everyday joys on the job is the physical place where I work: an historical building that is both charming and majestic. It is a delight to walk in every morning.

What is your favorite way to spend time off? My husband and I spend our weekends walking all over the city: doing errands (we have no car), seeing the sights, and enjoying this terrific place.

What do you think will be the biggest change in libraries and information services in the future? Changing the way reference librarians have traditionally interacted with people: rather than waiting for people to come to us, we will be finding ways to “push” information out. Libraries will be less of a “place” — although that will always be one part of who we are — and more of a service.

Describe a little about Foundation Center’s function.

The Foundation Center’s mission is to strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about U.S. philanthropy. Our San Francisco library/learning center has been pursuing that mission in the Western region of the United States for more than 30 years. Nonprofit and individual grantseekers rely on the free training and research tools available in our library/learning center to help them find funding for their work. Grantmakers use our information and research to help guide their funding decisions and make efficient and effective use of their limited funds. As a regional hub, our San Francisco resource center provides direct service yearly to some 12,000 people who visit our library and who take part in our educational programs on and off-site.

Beyond the local presence here in the Bay Area, the Foundation Center is a national nonprofit service organization recognized as the nation’s leading authority on organized philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust.  Every day thousands of people gain access to valuable resources through the Center’s web site and in its five regional library/learning centers (Atlanta, Cleveland, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.) and national network of more than 400 funding information centers at libraries, nonprofit resource centers, and organizations in every U.S. state, Puerto Rico, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, and Nigeria. Our audiences include grantseekers, grantmakers, researchers, policymakers, the media, and the general public. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants; issues a wide variety of print, electronic, and online information resources; conducts and publishes research on trends in foundation growth, giving, and practice; and offers an array of free and affordable educational programs.  Some BayNet members may be familiar with the Center’s online subscription database, Foundation Directory Online, which provides detailed information about more than 95,000 U.S. foundations and corporate donors and 1.7 million grants. It can be used free of charge on site at all Center locations and affiliated funding information centers, known as Cooperating Collections.  To see a complete list of our Cooperating Collections, visit http://foundationcenter.org/collections/.

What is different about the San Francisco office from the others?

Aside from that pesky time difference thing, there are some things that make San Francisco an interesting place in which to do this work.  In terms of the demographics of our users, we are most similar to our New York office.  Some of these similarities include a high number of arts organizations and individual artists who use our collections, a large share of our audience that comes from both very small and large nonprofit organizations, a large number of foundation professionals working in our immediate regions, and a downtown location that attracts visitors day and evening.

In terms of things unique to San Francisco,  each of our offices often will pilot different projects we want to test to see if they might take off either regionally or eventually nationally.  As one might expect in California, a highly diverse state known for its technological innovations, some of the recent initiatives we have piloted here have focused on either using new technologies or serving under-served communities, or both.  In 2007 we were the first office to begin a Philanthropy Chat podcast series, in which we interview and record philanthropy and fundraising experts.  This effort rapidly proved popular with our audiences and today all Foundation Center offices around the country are also producing podcasts, which are available free of charge at the Events Archive on our web site or via iTunes.  When I checked our “ratings” or statistics midyear, I was pleasantly surprised to see that more than 20,000 people had accessed the podcasts produced by our San Francisco office this year.

Another example of a local pilot that is now being replicated elsewhere relates to our Spanish-language outreach efforts. Soon after the publication of the Foundation Center’s Spanish-language proposal writing handbook, Guía para escribir propuestas, we distributed copies of the book free of charge and provided free proposal writing training in Spanish throughout California, with support from the James Irvine Foundation. This project attracted the attention of other national funders, and the Center is now in the process of providing free, Spanish-language fundraising training and distributing the Guía in Texas, Florida, and Philadelphia with their help.

The San Francisco office also benefits from having many authors, thought leaders, and philanthropy experts who make Northern California their home.  This is a boon for us because we often invite guest speakers to present on panels or at educational events and there seem to be more authors who live and work in Northern California than anywhere else in the country!  We have a very popular “Meet the Author” series of events, and it’s generally fairly easy for us to secure an author to speak at these events since we have so many to pick from locally.

What kind of requests do you often get from your clients?

The number one question we always get, whether in-person, online or via chat reference, is “how do I find foundation funding for this XYZ cause or organization?”  Though fundraising is a profession and there are many savvy development professionals with years of fundraising experience, there are many small and grassroots organizations who lack access to this expertise, as well as volunteers, who rely on our free programs and free reference assistance to learn the ropes of securing foundation grants, or getting boards involved with fundraising, or generally developing their fundraising plans.

Beyond fundraising, given the current economic conditions, other frequently asked questions we receive include those related to jobseeking and job transitioning, assistance with scholarships and financial aid, and questions about obtaining or tracking stimulus dollars.  While our expertise is in securing foundation support, because of our audience’s current interest in tracking stimulus dollars, we have started looking at the reach of stimulus dollars in the field of education.  A new web portal, Foundations for Education Excellence, developed by the Foundation Center with a grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, was launched in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education. It connects foundation funders in education to information and tools that will help them support American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s education reform goals.  For more information, visit:  http://foundationcenter.org/educationexcellence/.

Janet Camarena

How did you become interested in this type of work?

I think I was destined for this work.  Like many librarians, I spent much of my childhood in libraries, so one of my favorite aspects of my work is the opportunity it gives me to see first hand the power of the library institution.  I grew up next door to a public library and soon became a regular user, library lover, and volunteer.  Being a first-generation Mexican American whose language at home was Spanish, the library was really an important window on understanding a new culture, language and traditions and many transformative hours were spent in my local library.  Later on, I attended Mills College where I majored in English and Communications, and actually worked my way through college as a library assistant at the Berkeley Public Library.

After completing my undergraduate degree I realized I was still passionate about libraries, and was even more intrigued about librarianship having learned about the flexibility of the degree in terms of the variety of institutions that employed librarians.  At that time I thought I might end up working in an academic library, which is actually a good way to think about what I do now, since the Foundation Center regularly issues original research and provides many educational programs.  During my time at San Jose State University’s library program I held an internship at the Exploratorium’s wonderful special library and one of my assignments while there was to research grant funding for the Exploratorium using the Foundation Center’s databases, and I remember really enjoying the assignment and the power of quickly being able to identify potential sources of grant funding.  From my early experiences I had always known libraries held the keys to the knowledge universe, and this database seemed like one more piece of tangible evidence of the power of libraries.  At that time, the Foundation Center’s database was only available online to DIALOG subscribers, and even then I was impressed with the information it contained and the funding it enabled us to research.  I am proud to work in an institution that today provides free access to its funding databases in more than 400 locations nationwide.

What was the most memorable experience you had at the Foundation Center?

An anecdote I frequently like to share because it illustrates the diverse communities we serve here at the Center is something that actually happened on my first day at work at the Center.  One of my first patrons at the reference desk was a Roman Catholic nun looking for funding for a humanitarian mission to a developing country.  Immediately after assisting her with identifying how to research faith-based funders as well as those interested in international work, another patron was waiting for me.  This next patron was a young woman who was seeking support for unionizing sex workers in San Francisco.  That’s when I knew I was really going to like working for the Foundation Center!  I thought, what an interesting special collection that can assist both of these constituencies!  This connection to the great variety of nonprofit groups is one of the many things that continue to keep our work vital and interesting.

What do you think has had the most positive and negative impact on the information services in the nonprofit industry?

As a publisher of nonprofit information, we have found similar challenges and opportunities to publishers in other fields.  Specifically, in this new online information marketplace, our audiences expect more information, more rapidly, and they expect it to be cheap or even free.  On the positive side, innovations in technology have made it possible to be more creative and innovative in the way in which we collect and present information and interact with our audiences.  For example, our educational services have greater reach now that we are offering our educational programs via webinar, since anyone, anywhere can access these sessions provided they have internet access.  And today many foundations are starting to electronically report their grants to us, instead of making us wait for the year-end tax form that contained this information, thus greatly expediting the currency of our data.  And recently we have launched a new data visualization tool, Philanthropy In/Sight, which is a one-of-a-kind data visualization platform designed for those seeking to understand the reach of philanthropy throughout the world. Users can quickly create customized Google maps to explore giving patterns, emerging trends, and funding relationships globally, nationally, or at the community level.

We are continuing to explore other ways to harness new technologies as well as social media to better accomplish our work.  Some of the projects under development include Grantspace and Glasspockets.  Grantspace is a web platform that will, in essence, be a virtual field office, where grantseekers around the country can build community by networking with one another and tracking their learning progress online.  Glasspockets will be a new web platform dedicated to foundation transparency and accountability.  The purpose of Glasspockets will be to provide factual information about foundations, aggregate lessons learned from philanthropic efforts, provide an overview of how philanthropy is impacting some of the major issues of our time, and inventory ways in which foundations are being transparent and accountable.  I think this kind of capacity to adapt, re-invent, and re-think the ways in which publishers and libraries collect and present information is essential to surviving and thriving in the future and I’m proud to work at an organization that is not afraid to tackle new ideas, new technologies, and new approaches.

Patricia A. Elliott

United States Combat Systems (USCS) is a part of BAE Systems Land & Armaments Group. USCS develops and produces a full spectrum of gun systems, weapon launching systems and containers, as well as armored combat systems, i.e. Bradley Combat System, and next-generation systems for manned and unmanned ground vehicles. USCS also develops technologies in the areas of composite materials, hybrid electric power systems, integrated vehicle survivability, crew station design, and training systems. USCS employs more than 7000 people and has locations in Alabama, California (Santa Clara), Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, South Carolina.

USCS is the sole-source prime contractor on several programs comprising critical elements of the U.S. military force structure and have produced more than 100,000 combat vehicles.

USCS has three physical libraries — in York, PA, Santa Clara, CA and Minneapolis, MN. We’re in the process of making all three libraries into one library, with the best aspects of both the physical and the virtual library, to serve users at all locations. The Santa Clara library is 100% virtual.

Who are your library users?

The main users of the Santa Clara’s library are engineers: mechanical, electrical and software. They are located in Santa Clara and San Jose, CA. However, US Combat Systems is part of the Land & Armaments Group, which serves quite a few locations, too many to list here.

What are the main services that you provide for the users?

The main services I provide include web-based access to various resources including Knovel and I.H.S. standards and specs, NERAC and Dialog. I locate hard-to-acquire military documents that require a contract with organizations such as DTIC (Defense Technical Information) and NTIS (National Technical Information), and access to information from various associations, such as IEEE, SME, SAE, etc. Because of the unusual nature of the library, I manage a collection of “technical reports,” internal documents written by our engineers, as well as a collection of about 150 boxes of archived material stored off-site on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

And, of course, I answer any reference requests that may come my way, which might include questions like, “I know there was something written on wheeled versus tracked vehicles in a magazine. I can’t remember the title, but it was a couple of years ago and there was an armored personnel carrier on the cover.” Or questions like “Does the library have a book on Java?”

What is the most interesting and little known fact about this library?

I think one of the most interesting facts about the library is that it continues to exist in one form or another. Before my time, the then “Ground Systems” library had a physical collection of over 150,000 books and Army technical manuals and a periodicals collection of 70 titles. In those days, there was a staff that included a business reference librarian and a technical reference librarian.

I was the Reference Librarian at Ground Systems from 1993 through July of 2000. By then, staff was down to two librarians and one staff person. I was a solo librarian during my last two years there and continued to maintain a physical collection.

This is my second tour-of-duty here at the library. In my 8-year absence from 2000 to 2008, the library was transformed into a virtual library and we don’t even work tor the same company we did back then! That the library continues to exist at all, in one form or another, is a testimony to the resilience of libraries and librarians in general. We grow, we change, we adapt – but the one thing that doesn’t change is we continue to meet the needs of our users

When did you decide to become a librarian?

I decided to become a librarian when I worked at Indiana University of Pennsylvania back in 1982. I transferred to the University library’s Circulation Department and became a Stack Supervisor of about 30 student assistants, just to see if I’d like working in libraries. It was love at first sight. In those days, I wanted to become a Special Collections librarian in an academic library. However, getting that second master’s degree precluded my doing that. Fresh out of library school, in 1992, I went to work at FMC Corporation’s Ground Systems library. A defense library couldn’t have been farther from my original idea of where I wanted to work. But I’ve learned over the years that it’s not about the type of library, it’s about information, how to get it and how to make it available. The research methods remain the same.

As to what I prefer to be called, a librarian or information specialist: those outside the profession seem to resonate more with the title “librarian” because, of course, they are still thinking about books and they picture me stamping those books for checkout. I prefer the term “Information Specialist,” because it’s closer to what I do.

You identify with other solo librarians. Why?

Well, I finished my last two years here (the first time!) as a solo librarian and I know how hard it is when you’re on your own. Solos don’t always have colleagues within the company or library to bounce things off of or collaborate with. They have to be their own trailblazers and fight for their own budgets and collections, but there’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction to be had in both the independence and freedom that come with being a solo librarian.

I’m fortunate that, while I’m a “solo” here in Santa Clara, I’m still part of a larger library with sites in York, PA and Minneapolis, MN. I collaborate weekly with Dianne Bare in York and Crystal Clift in Minneapolis via telephone and online events where we share a desktop. I tell them they are my sanity check. Their resources and availability as consultants, colleagues and mentors is invaluable to me!

To stay in touch with the “outside” world, I am a BayNet member, and subscribe to the OPL Plus blog, the InfoToday blog and the Library Stuff weblog. I am a member of SLA (and the Solo Librarian San Andreas Chapter) and have been to several yearly conventions. This year I plan to attend Internet Librarian, an annual conference in Monterey, CA. I receive email pushes from LAC (Library Associates), Libgig, and Information Today. I maintain contacts with a number of librarians I’ve worked with over the years. And some of my friends outside of work are librarians.

What was the most memorable experience you’ve had as a librarian at BAE Systems?

One of my most memorable experiences is an open house we hosted back in 1994. We were the Ground Systems library of FMC Corp. then and had a physical library. We had a tradition of hosting an Open House every year around Halloween with a Halloween theme, and invited vendors from Dialog, I.H.S., and Dow Jones. Our Halloween costumes were “librarian stereotypes.” We dressed in long skirts, “sensible” shoes, cardigan sweaters, glasses hung from eyeglass chains and hair was sprayed with gray coloring. I was a new graduate of library school, so being involved with all the planning and execution of an event like this one was pretty exciting! While some came purely for the food, all went away with the knowledge that they had a library with resources available to them – the most important reason for the open house.

This year I staffed a booth at our annual Diversity Fair, right beside the Indian engineers group. We handed out library pamphlets and brochures from vendors. To receive a mousepad with library contact information and a list of resources, the attendees filled out a four-question survey. Being virtual doesn’t necessarily mean being invisible!

Peter Nguyen

What do you do as a YA librarian and teensRearch Coordinator?
I initiate and oversee teen programs and maintain the teen collections at my branch library. I also recruit and manage teen volunteers and give them opportunity to be involved in library programs and services.

What do the teens often do at the library when not volunteering?
Teens love to hang out with their friends and do activities together such as homework, playing games, using the computer and reading. Because of this, I am glad that there is a large teen room at my library to accommodate them and facilitate their activities.

What do you like best about your users?
I like their loyalty. Many of them have been proactive supporters of my library for years. They are longtime users and they continue to refer their friends and family members to visit my library.

What initially attracted you to library work?
I enjoy helping people and I love technology. The library work environment is a place where I can experience both; it is a place where I can assist customers, teach them how to use technology and learn to use new technologies to help meet customer needs.

What do you like most about working in the library?
I like giving teens an opportunity to to volunteer at the library. By giving teens this opportunity, this would enable them to have a positive experience at the library, develop new skills and gain confidence that would help them be successful in their life. This also helps them stay out of trouble.

What is most challenging about your job?
So far, I find it considerably challenging to anticipate the interests and needs of users because they often change depending on cultural trends and socioeconomic condition.

What was the most memorable experience you had at work?
The most memorable experience I had at work so far was initiating and facilitating the very first Teen Talent Show at my library last spring. I was inspired by the variety of skills and talents that was demonstrated by the teens from the community. I also had fun working with my teen volunteers and got to know them better.

Is there something else about your library that most people do not know?
My library now has Text a Librarian service. Customers can now text message their questions directly to a librarian and receive their answers as a text message. More information about this new service can be found here: Text a Librarian.

What is one thing your organization is very good at?
SALIS is very good at efficiently finding the most reliable, and objective information concerning alcohol and other drugs. Together our small group is made up of most of the alcohol and other drug librarians in the Western world; many of us have been doing work in this specialized area for more than 25 years. In the Resources section, our web site will point you to a range of alcohol and other drug data bases, a comprehensive list of the journals, and a “new books” list.

Is there something else about your organization that most people do not know?
We are an international organization with members mainly from the US, Europe, Canada and Australia, however we do have a few members from Africa, Russia, and India.

Who are your most frequent types of users?
SALIS has a private list which is only open to SALIS members. The queries brought to the list come from our members who are asking for assistance usually on more difficult questions. Since we have members from all over the world, who provide services to a variety of users, I don’t think there is a “frequent type.”

Together we have all types from the medical professional, research scientists, county and other government officials, administrators, school teachers, students, to the person who is suffering from an addiction of one kind or another.

What do you like best about your users?
The fact that they come from so many academic disciplines and professional groups challenges the librarian or information professional to view the world of addiction research through a variety of theoretical windows. It teaches one to constantly ask “From which viewpoint does this emanate?”

What is it about your job that most people don’t realize that you do?
Running a non profit has many responsibilities, just as running a library. There are legal matters, financial matters, keeping up with technology, keeping the members (audience) needs front and center, keeping up with technology, running an annual conference, producing a quarterly newsletter, monitoring Website needs and changes, keeping up with technology.

What is most challenging about working in your organization?
Juggling and keeping up with technology.

BayNet Strategic Planning 2008. Andrea is second from left.

What’s one thing about you that few people know?
I happen to be one of those people who loves books, likes to have them around me and prefers to read their contents by holding them close.

What do you think will be the biggest change in libraries and information services in the future?
Change is the operative word, and it is the constant. How do we manage the inevitable change which is going on all around us day after day in our work as information professionals?

One huge change at the moment is digitization of our libraries. Creating digital libraries, so that all information is readily available is a worthy venture. However, I’m not sure about the way it is being done, nor if we have considered fully the costs to the benefits.

One of the current debates in the library world is how much a corporate entity, i.e. Google, should gain off the back of the public good, and perhaps be allowed to control and profit from digitizing most of the world’s books. What we face as information professionals is asking ourselves how much we want the future of information access to be controlled by corporate giants. The idea of a digital public library, such as it is viewed by Brewster Kahle and others at the Internet Archive, is what inspires me. If the courts decide in Google’s favor, we may see a very different future for access to information.