Mishaps and Successes:
Experiences with Media and Technology in Texas Libraries

When we first started to circulate videos, we quickly learned that cockroaches like to live in those cases. Even though they circulated for only three days at a time, we’d check in returns and get some unwelcome guests along with the videos. One of our users also learned that putting videos in the oven (or maybe the microwave) is not a good idea – the video was returned but the case had melted around it!

We used to have a lot of 16mm film use by fundamental Christians who didn’t want their children watching TV. We were very hesitant to recommend anything recent and usually referred them to the old comedies – Laurel & Hardy, Keystone Cops stuff, etc. Unfortunately, we discovered this was not always safe.  Charlie Chaplin goes into a bar and orders a drink! You just can’t win…

We had some Cousteau films on 16mm film. We did not preview films before putting them into circulation. Some of these circulated for months before someone finally told us that they had been printed incorrectly. Each frame had what should have been the bottom half of the previous frame at the top and the top half of the next frame at the bottom. Cousteau’s feet in fins would be swimming away on top while his head and breathing apparatus were looking around on the bottom. Needless to say, after that we double-checked all of our new films for printing errors.

Our biggest successes: HALS (Houston Area Library System) created rotating packets of feature films on VHS to get the libraries on the “bandwagon. ” They were very successful and our personal success was getting the libraries to rotate their packets on time and to process their own videos.  The computerization of the film booking system (although some of that certainly falls into disaster and funny too) was a major step forward in service to our users.

HALS also created Spanish language feature video rotating packets.  That was a real eye-opener for some of our members who did not think they had a need for Spanish materials at their libraries.

A purchasing disaster was ordering exercise videos that people insisted on but hated in reality. We never had the one that was in demand at that moment! The patrons had good intentions but the body was weak.

About this Round Table, the AV Round Table turned into M(RT)2 at Annual Assembly one year when Dale Fleeger, Pat Tuohy, Peggy Rudd, and I were together in one of our rooms at the Hyatt Hotel. We were working on revising the Bylaws. We felt that AV was an outdated term and we wanted to be able to talk about equipment- video projectors, computer editing, etc. We also wanted to make it clear that we were not about automation. After much back and forth, we finally came up with “Media and Related Technologies” Round Table. We particularly like that because related technologies (RT) and round table (RT) gave you “RT squared. ” I don’t think it was as successful as we were hoping. Not many people really got the “squared” bit but that’s what happens when you brainstorm at Assembly!

My most disastrous experience happened when I first rejoined Library Services at Education Service Center Region X. I was training for the Texas Library Connection and was demonstrating how to use a government document search. Somehow my fingers did not type in a “g” but a “l” and on our large training screens appeared a LOVE CHAT ROOM. I turned red, my fellow librarians laughed and we discussed how this could happen to anyone and how to handle it.  When I do presentations now, all websites are bookmarked on my computer or saved to a disk before I begin the session. 

  My funniest experience has been the repeating of certain phrases as I train using media. The main words I seem to repeat over and over are:

1. Most of the time…. . 

2. It usually works…. . …

3. It should be a quick search…. . 

4. It is somewhat dependable…. . 

I sound like I did when our three daughters were small and would perform in public- just the opposite of how they acted in private. 

My finest success was the summer that several librarians in Region 10 joined in a week-long workshop. Web page development was to be a simple two-day section. The librarians became so excited over the similarity of MARC and HTML (each code is so concrete) that we spent the whole week creating their own library web pages. I spent my evenings just staying ahead of their needs. To work one week with librarians who wanted to push that mark and learn how to have creative sites for student use was a perfect joy to me. 

In the category of innovative: I was to do a training class, but all the participants had their backs to me because they were facing their monitors that were facing me. I could see the screens but not the participants. I made name badges for everybody and stuck them on their backs so I would know who I was talking to and they would know as well when I called their names. I also used my laser pointer to point out things on their screens from behind them. This setup was different but it worked. We had a good time with it. We had to make sure we removed all the name badges from each other’s backs so we didn’t go in public wearing them. 

In the category of funniest experience: I had gone through my introduction and was beginning to demonstrate one of our online databases. I was moving the mouse when the top button just flew off my suit coat. The buttons on that coat were fairly large so when it fell, it made a noise and everybody heard it. Some saw it fall. I said, "Oops”; picked it up, put it in my pocket and went on with the training.  A little later, my second button flew off and hit the floor with a ping. I couldn’t believe it. I bent down and picked it up and said, “Well, I’m just so proud to be here, I’m popping all the buttons off my coat. ”We all had a good laugh. 

In the category of finest experience: I was new on the job. I was training on computers. This was my first training. I was scared and had stayed up all night long preparing and studying. When I arrived at the training site, the room was huge. About 100 people had been expected. I got set up and was ready; I even had a remote microphone. I was so keyed up. I went through the training with flying colors and when I was through, the audience gave me a standing ovation. I almost started crying.  No one in that room had any idea how much that standing ovation meant to me. I haven’t gotten a standing ovation since, but I will never forget it. It reminds me that I can never put too much effort into preparing for a training class. Hard work does pay off!

In the category of most disastrous experience: I was supposed to give a demonstration of one of our online databases at a conference. Two librarians from different locations were serving as coordinators of the event. Since I was one of the presenters, they asked me about my equipment needs. I sent them a memo outlining what I needed and communicated with them several times via email. Each one had assured me that they would have an LCD projector and computer set up for me with a phone line to the Internet. I had it in writing!

I arrived two hours early and went to check out the designated room. It was not what I had envisioned. The room was huge and vacant. The chairs were stacked in the corner of the room and nothing was set up. I went to find the two librarians who had promised me help. When I finally found them, each one told me they thought the other one had taken care of the equipment for me. It seems they had not been communicating with each other about who was doing what and somehow each one thought the other was taking care of me. NOT!

They both said they had no idea where I could get any equipment. I raced to my car to get my laptop. Now this was in the dead heat of summer and my car was parked in the farthest parking lot that seemed like a mile away. When I got back to the center, I frantically began to ask around to see who possibly might have a LCD project I could borrow. In the meantime, I had engaged a couple of gentlemen who began setting up the chairs. I located one man who worked at the center who told me he knew where a projector was that I could use.  He got it and began setting it up. I proceeded to get my laptop booted up with the intentions of connecting it to the projector. Just about the time we had everything connected a second man came in and said he had to have the projector for his presentation and, quick as a wink, he disconnected it and took it away. 

The first man said he knew where there was another projector; but it was an old clunker and he wasn’t sure if it would work or not. He went and got it and we again frantically began setting it up only to discover minutes later that it would not work with my laptop. The two pieces of equipment did not like each other. Compatibility is a big thing when it comes to computers! Also, in the process of all this, I had discovered that the only phone line in the room was not a live line. I had to find someone who had some authority to get it turned on. By this time, the audience was slowly dribbling in and taking seats and staring at us in our equipment frenzy. I tried to remain calm and professional but it wasn’t easy. I was already pouring sweat, not only from my brisk walk to the car and back, but because of the pressure and the predicament I was in. 

A man came into the room whom I recognized as one of the presenters. I had seen him giving a presentation upon my arrival at the conference.  I remembered he had been using an LCD projector! I nervously asked him if there was any chance I could use the projector he had used. He said there was, but that he had already put it back in his hotel room that was about two miles away. He said he would go get it. 

The room was about half full by now there was only about 15 minutes left before the start time.  I started greeting people and handing out the materials. The two librarians appeared and asked me if I had been able to get things worked out. I told them, “No, but I am still working on it. ”They apologized profusely to me about the mix-up and sat down on the front row waiting eagerly for my presentation to begin. I kept watching the door for the “Good Samaritan” to walk in any minute carrying his projector. The room was full to standing room only by this time – about 75 people. I stalled a little and then began the session about five minutes late. I explained that I was waiting for the man to bring the projector. I kept talking. FINALLY, he appeared carrying the projector in his arms. What had seemed like hours to me was, in reality, about twenty minutes. 

I kept on talking while he set up the projector with my laptop. Hooray! At last everything was connected and working. It took him about five minutes. By this time the phone line was working too. I signed on to the database and began the demonstration. All things considered, we had only lost about 15 minutes max. of presentation time. 

Of course, after every presentation, we trainers always collect evaluations. Some people had the “nerve” to put on their form that they thought the trainer should have arrived early enough to get her equipment set up. Little did they know what I had been through the past two hours! A lot goes on behind the scenes that few people realize. Trainers can be compared to ducks… calm and collected on the surface but paddling like crazy underneath. The learning situation here was for me to make sure, very sure, that any promised equipment is actually going to be there as expected. 

A middle school mathematics teacher, seeking an easy day, spotted a listing for “The Lottery” in the Education Service Center catalog. As a lesson on statistics was ahead, he booked the video.  On the day for class viewing, he popped in the tape and exited the room for a break.  To his surprise, parents were camped on the principal’s doorstep about the use of this video.  The lesson was not about statistics but was a dramatization of the Shirley Jackson short story.  Once again we observe the adage about reading the annotation and always previewing any piece of media. 

April 26, 2002