Reflections on Hyperlinked Communities

Last Fall, I attended the annual Future of Libraries 2024 – Pacific Library Partnership.

The theme was: Navigating Change – Tools for Conquering Contemporary Challenges. I look forward to attending these conferences and listening to library stories out in the wild. The conference location is at the Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library.

The conference began at 9:00am with welcoming remarks and an agenda:

  1. Between the Lines: Decoding and Defying Censorship in Libraries
  2. Future of the MLIS Degree
  3. Networking Event
  4. Serving a Multilingual Community
  5. Sustainability Programming & Projects
  6. Closing the Day

In the fourth segment, Serving a Multilingual Community, a librarian named Richard Le took the stage. Richard is the North Beach Branch Manager with SFPL and he has a warm and friendly personality. He stood at the podium and asked the audience: Has anyone been to SF Chinatown? Has anyone ever had Chinese food? Do you know the origin of Chinese food? Dim Sum? Has anyone investigated their family history?

Richard then begins to tell a story about one day in 2008 when an elderly patron approached him at the reference desk with a question. The patron wanted to find the phone number for his long-lost college roommate; however, it had been 40 years, and he did not have a location, a full name, or an age—the only information he remembered was that they spent one year together in the dorms at Brigham Young University.

Richard shared his thought process: Let’s start with yearbooks. He found a photo, the major and graduation date. Richard also found a donation to the school in the name of this long-lost classmate. And finally found a voter registration record. After 30 minutes of research, Richard tracked down the roommate!

Richard found his purpose—helping library users find long-lost relatives, property records, or military records. Rather than showing his patrons how to use the database or scour newspapers, he takes groups on walking tours. They meet outside the library, and they head out to Chinatown. Along the tour, he tells stories about the area, even ghost stories about the secret alleyway, buildings, and ethnic groups. He introduces them to dim-sum and its origin. He smiles as he explains that we all love to eat and share recipes. He confesses that he relies on the community to tell the stories.

When the tour ends, he brings the group back to the library where he connects them to their programs. Richard does this outreach every month, including tours of the North Beach neighborhood, and he has been doing this since 2010.

Richard inspires us to adapt and innovate. And he shows us how it’s done: food + storytelling + activity = learn by doing.

You take something, like genealogy. You fuse it with a fun and meaningful experience. And watch connections happen as strangers open up about their challenges and triumphs.

The moral of the story is how will you build your own hyperlinked communities?

“Our role extends beyond providing resources—we become facilitators of dialogue, creators of inclusive spaces, and active participants in the lives of those we serve”. —Michael Stephens

How can I apply this strategy to my own practice? How can I foster genuine connections within my community? In what ways can the library serve as a platform for shared experiences and collective growth?

Assignment X: An Afternoon Adventure at the Exploratorium

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Last weekend was Father’s Day and the kids took us to the Exploratorium! There is so much to see.  They have galleries such as the Human Phenomena, Tinkering, Seeing & Reflecting, Living Systems, Outdoor Exhibits, and Observing Landscapes. On this visit, we spent our time in Adventures in AI.

My favorite part was participating in a round table discussion. The facilitator from Paradox Lab presented the ground rules (e.g., respect for each other, respect for the inquiry, being honest about their uncertainties) and then presented us with this question: “What would it take for a machine to genuinely see that a person is moving in front of it?”

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

The Hyperlinked Library model and participatory service concept is what came to mind as I explored this space with curiosity. The common denominator from the early modules points to emotional intelligence as the quotient that persuades people to work toward a common goal.

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

“Think about how you might encourage people to learn and be curious, to show them how things work, and show them how to find their way.”

—Michael Stephens

 

This theme stands out to me because I know how it felt to work in a command-and-control and toxic environment where the staff kept their heads down to avoid trouble. I am an Asian American female and grew up in San Francisco, and I have witnessed systemic unfairness.

Daniel Goldman (1995) describes in Emotional Intelligence of a survey of 250 executives written in Fortune in 1976 that most felt their work demanded their heads but not their hearts.” Many said they feared that feeling empathy or compassion for those they worked with would put them in conflict with the organizational goals (p.149).”

In the last four decades, I have seen examples of failed organizations and boiled frogs such as retailers like Blockbuster, Radio Shack, Blackberry, Toys R Us, or Borders. The good news is that workplace cultures continue to change, innovate, and stay relevant, including many libraries that are cultivating good relationships and values such as diversity, equity and inclusion.

The MLIS journey has provided me an opportunity to develop personally and professionally. Last semester, I had the privilege to work with my fellow MLIS classmates in writing a manuscript on the state of Artificial Intelligence in Public Libraries. This experience resembles what Mathews (2012) describes in Think Like a Startup: “with innovation it’s iteration, iteration, iteration. Your outlook should be to grow your idea by constantly building feedback into the developmental process”. Looking back on our ad hoc group, I learned the nuances of coordinating a team, building trust, being leaders, and seeing things from another perspective (as far as South Korea), and how those feedback loops created social harmony.

A tenet of the Five Laws of Library Science by Ranganathan states that the library is a growing organism, which highlights the need for libraries to be highly adaptable.

“This law acknowledges that libraries must continually evolve to meet the changing demands of society, whether through the adoption of new technologies, responding to shifts in user behavior, or expanding their services. It also speaks to the future of libraries, where flexibility and innovation are crucial in ensuring their relevance in an ever-changing information landscape.”

My adventure at the Exploratorium opened my mind to the possibilities for public libraries with an innovator’s mindset. This coordination requires initiative, self-motivation, and self-management, which are aspects of emotional intelligence. Their mission, vision, and values state:

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

 

Our mission is to create inquiry-based experiences that transform learning worldwide. Our vision is a world where people think for themselves and can confidently ask questions, question answers, and understand the world around them. We value lifelong learning, curiosity, and inclusion.

 

 

I interact with the public daily in my role at the library. I engage in conversations with library staff, too. I hear stories all day long about the lives and goings-on in my community. Yes, library 2.0 is about humans and storytelling, because it is a living organism. In Cluetrain Manifesto, Weinberger (2001) stresses that “stories are not a lot like information. But they are the way we understand”. In the same way, Casey, M. E., & Savastinuk, L. C (2007) instruct that “your organization will keep the Library 2.0 momentum going by encouraging your staff and customers to be a part of the process on a continual basis.”  Mathews (2012) also agrees that this continuum requires “feeding the feedback loop”.

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

Adventures in AI at the Exploratorium, San Francisco

Remember the Paradox Lab question?  “What would it take for a machine to genuinely see that a person is moving in front of it?”  The way I see it, to “see” requires more than sight. Sometimes we hear, but do not understand. In the same way, seeing sometimes requires multiple senses and intelligences to understand and make sense of the world. This idea shapes my perspective on libraries, learning, and community.

 

 References:

Casey, M. E., & Savastinuk, L. C. (2007). Library 2.0: A guide to participatory library service. Medford, N.J: Information Today.

“Five Laws of Library Science.” (2025). Lisedu Network. Retrieved June 22, 2025, from https://www.lisedunetwork.com/five-laws-of-library-science/

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam Books.

Mathews, B. (2012). Think Like A Start Up.

“Stephens, M. (2016). Chapter 1: “The Hyperlinked Librarian: Skills, Mind-Sets, and Ideas for Working in the Evolving Library” in The Heart of Librarianship: Attentive, Positive, and Purposeful Change

Weinberger, D. (2001). “The hyperlinked organization” in The Cluetrain Manifesto

Hello from South City!

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A little about me . . . I grew up in San Francisco and currently live in South San Francisco, the birthplace of biotechnology. I graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California with a graduate degree in Leadership and undergraduate in Management. My thesis focused on stay-at-home moms—inspired by Marilyn Waring’s work who “demystifies the language of economics by defining it as a value system in which all goods and activities are related only to their monetary value. As a result, unpaid work (usually performed by women) is unrecognized while activities that may be environmentally and socially detrimental are deemed productive”. I applied a methodology called cooperative inquiry.

I worked for many years in the finance world and then took a long sabbatical (read: raised my babies). The kids turned out alright and now my husband and I are empty nesters. I often dream of all the corners of the world that I will visit when my husband retires.

In the meantime, it’s a brave new world and AI is here. My husband is the president of an environmental and power company that builds datacenters, and it’s been quite busy.  My reason for pursuing the emerging technology pathway is because I love technology. I currently work at the South San Francisco Public Library as a Library Assistant II, focusing on STEM-related programming. We have a Makerspace and my goal is to empower girls to code and pursue STEM careers. My hobbies include tinkering on my 3D printer and Cricut, gardening, motorcycle riding, hiking, and gaming.

Here is a photo of us at my son’s wedding in Stowe, Vermont in the fall of 2022. Left-right: My daughter is the Director of Omnichannel Marketing/HCP & Patient Engagement at Gilead Life Sciences (she is also an elite bodybuilder), my husband, my D-I-L serves as a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Forces Committee and works at the Pentagon, my son is an account manager in GovTech at AWS in D.C., and that’s me. Not pictured is my stepdaughter who graduated two weeks ago at WestPoint Academy.

Family photo at a wedding in Stowe, Vermont

Family photo at my son’s wedding in Stowe, Vermont.