Languages, Mangoes and Awesomeness

I'm sure anyone reading this blog right now is going "What on earth do Mangoes and languages have in common?" No, I haven't lost my mind - these are just some things that have helped me recently as we look at what we do in the Library and how we make a difference.

I have been writing a lot lately about the budget and the challenges we face, and I'm getting tired. I have been working on things to help my staff handle their jobs better and to stay focused on what they can do, and how to keep thinking about the good things and how they make a difference.

It is harder sometimes to keep oneself on track this way, so I have been trying a number of other things to keep ME focused on what we can do and the good things that libraries do all the time.

I have started following a couple of new blogs for inspiration and I have to say that both of them are great. 1000 Awesome Things is my current optimism favorite. Everyday this great blog points out yet another Awesome thing. Today it had to do with words, and how when you learn a new word you start seeing it everywhere. I love learning new words (I have actually enjoyed reading sections of the Oxford English Dictionary. I know - I am a geek and a real library geek at that!) And it is Awesome when you start seeing and hearing the new word.

On the subject of words lets talk a little about Languages. How we learn them and how libraries can help people learn languages. There is a great company that is working with libraries to provide online language learning tools - Mango Languages. I was sure that there would be no way that we could afford anything like this at our library, but our Mango Rep came out and talked to us, demoed the product and offered us a free trial. The pricing is EXTREMELY reasonable for a city the size of HB, so we are going to use the free trial to see if this is something that the community wants. We will be covering the library in "Try Mango" signs, to encourage everyone to try it and let us know if they like it.

Mango offers 36 languages, including ESL. If we get positive feedback, we will look at our budget and see how we can afford the subscription cost. If we can help people learn languages, that is pretty AWESOME.

Back to blogs and inspiration - The other blog that I've been following is the Art of Nonconformity. The founder of the blog writes about "unconventional strategies for life, work and travel". Definitely inspirational; definitely challenging; definitely different and encourages you to look at things differently. And that is important.

The Art of Nonconformity builds on a book that I've used over the years - the Art of Possibility by Ben and Rosamund Zander. The Art of Possibility is also about training yourself to think differently. Just remembering that it is ALL INVENTED can really help you reset your perspective. And that is important.

So there it is - I need to remember all the Awesome things I get to do as a Librarian, like Mango Languages and helping people learn a new language. I need to stretch and look at things differently, and revel in nonconformity.

A much better perspective, don't you think?