Pinteresting...

NB23 have asked that we look into Pinterest, create an account, and follow other people in Pinterest.  I was a very early subscriber to Pinterest when you had to wait until you were invited.  I love Pinterest and I firmly believe it is very helpful for library work.  I personally have 48 boards, 2,431 pins and 77 followers.  Most of them have to do with library service within my workplan as well as service to all patrons in the library setting, as well as my own personal development.  I have public boards, private boards as well as secret boards.  I also have group boards with other members of my team within the library and also within the department. 

For the group boards within our library setting we have boards set up for renovation ideas we began a few years ago when we began the process of renovating our library.  Staff who had Pinterest accounts joined and we divided it up into Teen Public Spaces, Staff Only Library Space, Children's public Space, among other boards.  It really helped and allowed staff to brainstorm while on the site.  This worked really well.  We were able to find concepts, other library spaces, furniture, signs and general ideas that really helped the creative process.  Another set of group boards we have in the library as a whole is Children's Programming ideas, Crafts and Reading. 

The smaller groups of boards we use together in the library are, specifically to my position, Library Display Ideas, Reading, Celebrations, Reading, Infographics, Blogs, Social Committee, Teen programs, ansd even YA Summer Reading Club.  We had never actually had a YA Teen SRC before, but I have have been building a board that has 150 pins in it that I can now use this summer as we are having our first regional YA SRC in 2014! 

I also have a secret board that I have with a colleague.  We jointly create displays and whenever we have a secret idea or surprise for staff or library displays we house it in that board.  Only we can see it so it is fun to have a few ideas that maybe no one else has viewed before!

I have even used some of my personal boards to create great passive programs in the library.  As my blog states, I do love knitting, so last year during Work Wide Knitting Week I printed off some great simple copyright free patterns from my Knitting Pinterest board, brought wool and various needles in and for a week we had a knitting book display and a guest sign in while patrons dropped by (and a few employees) and knit a large piece of artwork that we will someday display to the public (as soon as our renovations are complete in the library!)

Pinterest is an extremely helpful tool for libraries today!  I am also supposed to get fancy and post pictures and pins etc.  I tried, and failed.  I am having a great deal of difficulty posting things to my blog.  I want NB23 to know, though, that I have attempted everything I was supposed to this week, I just wan't able to complete some of them.