As Michael Stephens recently noted, he and I had the pleasure of keynoting the St. Joseph County Public Library's staff in-service day. We had a great time, and I was very impressed with the events the staff committee had planned for the day, the staff in general, and their willingness to explore new ideas. Plus, I got to watch Michael return "home," which was a special pleasure unto itself, and watch him hit some real high notes in the presentation.

Yesterday I received a really nice thank you letter from the SJCPL Staff Day Committee in which they mentioned a few different things they have implemented because of our talk. In addition to the fact that it's letters like these that make it all worthwhile, I want to highlight the fact that SJCPL's Circulation Department is running with the idea of a "no log," except they have taken it the next step and turned the log into a wiki. Why? To let the entire staff easily and efficiently "log service problems and work together toward positive, creative ways to address these issues." The Department even received a special "Rewards & Recognitions" Team Trophy for their proactive approach - like this one - to meeting challenges!

If your library wants to try something like this, you can do it for free using PBWiki. You can even password protect the wiki so that only your staff can see it. It's a great example of a way to learn about some of these new online tools in a "safe" way. (Just remember not to put private patron - or other confidential - data on a third-party site.)