goblin cartoons

Life has kind of been kicking me in the tush lately (which is one of the primary reasons I haven’t blogged much lately), and to be perfectly frank, I wasn’t looking forward to Tech Day this year. I just wasn’t feeling up to it. I was actually feeling pretty blasé about libraries in general (which is another reason why I haven’t been blogging much lately).

I’m happy to say I had a terrific time at Tech Day, and I’m very, very glad I went. In fact, I think this was the best Tech Day I’ve been to yet. Props to Sharon Moreland, newly established in her position at NEKLS, for her first time at organizing Tech Day. I expected Michael Porter to give a good keynote, but it was even better than I thought it would be, full of inspiring enthusiasm, curiosity and love for libraries, freedom, open source technology. Power to the people!

I had a good time hanging out with my coworkers and friends like Bobbi Newman and Royce Kitts (who deserves many congratulations for finishing library school and getting the job of Director of the Tonganoxie Public Library–both at the same time!), chatting with librarians from all over Kansas, playing video games and talking about the future of libraries. Tech Day was exactly what the doctor ordered for me.

Amy Kearns had an idea yesterday. I think it’s an interesting one.

What do you think of some sort of WORLDWIDE, 24/7, 365, volunteer, independent TWITBRARIAN or something like that (name can be something else)?

What I mean is – what I’m thinking is we are all on Twitter all (much) of the time. I know some of us are working – sometimes we’re not working – and I know it is also a source of “fun” and/or pleasure, socializing, etc., and not necessarily work, or a place we would want to end up getting work from…But – I can’t help but think of what an incredible social resource we are – all of us LIBRARIANS from all over the place on TWITTER…

Cindi Trainor has thought about it some more and put forward some good ideas (and possible pitfalls). I definitely think it’s an idea worth considering and brainstorming about. To that end, Amy has written more about her idea on the Library Society of the World wiki, created a wiki just for this idea, and reserved a couple of domain names (just in case). So let’s get crackin’!

I’ve been excited about the possibilities of unconferences and other nontraditional ways to gather professionally for a couple of years now. So when two of my more brilliant library pals said to me, “We need to have an unconference here in Kansas!”…well, I did a little dance, and then offered my assistance in getting it started.

Getting an unconference set up turned out to be bigger and more complicated than I thought it would. Luckily, there’s no shortage of whipsmart people here in Kansas, and thanks to the efforts of a whole lot of inspired, dedicated library folks, Library Camp Kansas is a real event! It will be this coming March 19th, 10 am-4 pm, in the Hale Library of Kansas State University. We’re going to have free wi-fi, some laptops for those who don’t have (or can’t bring) their own, and the potential for some outstanding conversations, discussions and debates.

I’m monumentally jazzed about this! If you’re in Kansas–or can get to Manhattan, KS on March 19th–and want to participate in the first Kansas library unconference, check out the official invitation to participate, get yourself registered online, and start adding to the wiki. This is going to be fantastic!

I thought I was done talking about this year’s Internet Librarian, but then Meredith Farkas (who I didn’t get to hang out with nearly as much as I would’ve liked to) blogged about it, and I feel the need to comment on some things she’s said.

I really do enjoy Internet Librarian, but so much of the material covered in the conference is a review for me. While I always get some insights and inspiration from the sessions, I find that I get the most value from the conversations that take place before and after the sessions.

I feel the same way. I learned about some new software apps at IL this year, but I didn’t leave feeling we’re on the cusp on much newness. It felt more like people were hammering away on the Library 2.0 basics. Which is fine, but I think I’m ready for the more advanced courses now. But between sessions, I spent a lot of time talking with my coworkers and with other conference attendees, and those conversations really felt like something special to me. (Much like when I was an undergrad, when what I talked about with my fellow students outside the classroom was generally far more inspiring and educational than what was covered in the classroom.) (Come to think of it, grad school was mostly like that, too.)

I come back to work with a recognition that I’m not alone in this, that there is a huge network of other librarians struggling to create better subject guides, better information literacy tutorials, better communication tools. The reality though is that we shouldn’t need a conference to share that information.

Yes! And this is something I’m hoping to present on at some point. Conferences are expensive to go to, and not all librarians can take the time to attend them. The internet gives us the ability to network and engage in professional development 24/7. Does this make professional conferences obsolete, at least in some ways? I don’t know, but I believe it bears further thought.

It stands to reason that if the discussions are the best part of the conference for some people, then perhaps more of the conference should be dedicated to those informal conversations. Interested in subject guides? Get a group together to discuss that. Interested in Facebook and MySpace? Form a group to talk about that. People can submit what they would like to discuss and other people can sign up if they’re interested in talking about that. The person who proposed it isn’t the speaker or even the facilitator; it’s just a free and open discussion. Everyone is simultaneously the teacher and the learner.

This is one of the niftiest things I’ve read in a while. I’m all for looser, more free flowing conferences and gatherings.

I also would love to see conferences designed for those of us for whom Internet Librarian is a review and Code4Lib is way over our heads.

Oh boy, yes! Like I said, I’m reading for the more advanced courses. I’ve had enough theory for now. I don’t want to study blueprints, I want to start building gadgets and gizmos.

I have more to say about this, about conferences in general, but not tonight. Let me sleep on it, and I’ll get back to you later.

My coworker Erin has started a new blog, schooling.us. If you’re interested in the intersection of schools, education, libraries, and technology, check it out.

I had a great time in Monterey at Internet Librarian this year, but boy, there sure were some aspects that I found frustrating and infuriating.

Let’s start with the internet access. Why am I blogging about the conference after the fact? Because I wasn’t able to access the free wifi at the conference, not once. Other attendees told me they also had a lot of trouble using the wifi. Apparently, the wifi couldn’t handle so many conference attendees using it at the same time. But I did see people online, and I could never get the wifi to work for me. Could it be because I was using an Ubuntu Linux-driven laptop? Maybe. But at an “Internet Librarian” conference, that shouldn’t be a reason. (Also, I was using my Ubuntu laptop last year and was able to use the conference wifi, as erratic a signal as it was.) Because I rely on my laptop to keep me connected, I missed a lot of opportunities for spontaneous socializing and conferencing; I couldn’t use Twitter, I couldn’t IM, I couldn’t keep up with other people’s blogs. The only internet access I could get around the conference area was in my hotel room (hi-speed cable access, for $10 a day), which was far from convenient and far from immediate. Frankly, I’m appalled at the internet access problems at a conference called “Internet Librarian.” It’s as if the conference organizers don’t take the name and focus of the conference seriously.

This flows nicely into my next point of frustration. Let me first say that I don’t want to harsh on the work the presenters put into their presentations. Some of the presenters are friends of mine, and all of the presenters I saw did at least a good job of presenting at a conference (and some did a great job). But…at a conference called Internet Librarian, I was surprised and frustrated at how many of the presentations were lectures based around offline Powerpoint slides. I’ve seen videos of TED presentations, and compared to that, Internet Librarian generally looks like Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs. I appreciate that the library profession as a whole isn’t rolling in money like Scrooge McDuck, but as many of the presentations I attended pointed out, even on a shoestring budget, you can make dynamic, networked presentations. If I’m attending a conference called Internet Librarian, I don’t just want to talk about the internet, as if the internet were Shangri-La, I want the conference to be a part of the internet, a part of our everyday librarian lives.

So, while I had a great time and would go back to Monterey in a heartbeat to interact with these dynamic, inspirational librarians, I’m seriously on the fence about attending the conference again until Internet Librarian really starts living up to its name.

Did I have a good time at this year’s Internet Librarian conference? Boy, did I!

For one thing, I got to spend more quality time with some of my coworkers, who were at IL for the first time. We hit the aquarium, which was mindblowing. I think my jaw was in a state of perpetual droppedness as I took in the jellies, kelp forests, touch pools, and more. We ate some great food together (including a wild drive to Salinas to eat at In-N-Out Burger, which was even tastier than I dreamed it would be). And best of all, we had spirited conversations about what we love and hate about our profession and where we’re going as librarians.

Another great part was getting to see online friends again: Sarah Houghton-Jan, Meredith Farkas, Steven Cohen, Michelle Boulé, Jenny Levine, Michael Stephens, Michael Porter, Michael Sauers, Beth Hoffman, Rachel Singer Gordon, David Lee King, Tom Ipri, and Dave Free. As an added bonus, I got to hang out with one of my good friends from library school, Mandy Tuthill, who is one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. I also got to meet more online friends in person for the first time: Karen G. Schneider, Laura Carscaddon, Jenica Urbanek-Rogers, Cindi Trainor, Holly Blosser, Steven Kaye, Jason Griffey, Chrystie Hill, Ruth Kneale, Robin Hastings, and more people I’m probably leaving out (for which I apologize). Seriously, the social networking is one of the best aspects of conferences. I mean, that’s why we blog, IM, use Twitter and Flickr and Facebook and all that other jazz, right?

I attended some very good sessions, too. One of my favorites was Jenny Benevento’s snarky “How to Lose a Tech Librarian” and the companion presentation by Sarah Houghton-Jan and Michael Stephens onstaff technology training. I also liked Michelle Boulé and Karen Coombs’ presentation on free e-learning tools, not just because it was educational, but because Michelle and Karen present well together, like a classic stage duo. Paul Pival and Chad Boeninger are another great presenter pair who gave a great presentation on “Tech Tools for Library Outreach.” They threw out the Powerpoint, talked casually, and provided a Meebo room for backchat. Joe Janes’ Tuesday morning keynote speech was hilarious, thought-provoking, and inspiring. And the Tuesday night presentation by the Dutch “library boys” of the Shanachie Tour was so brilliant and joyful, I almost cried.

I left Monterey early (I mean, really bloody early) Thursday morning feeling energized, enthusiastic, and inspired to dig into more great library work with my brilliant fellow librarians. For all of that, Internet Librarian was a success.

My teammate Amy is a wizard. Today, she added a line of code to our Library homepage so that when you go there, you can add our Library catalog to your IE7 or Firefox search box. Go ahead, try it. I’ll wait here.

Back? Good, because there’s more. She also created a widget for your iGoogle page which also allows you to search our catalog. There are now two ways to search our catalog without having to go to our site at all. Pretty nifty, eh?

I love that I get to work with people who think great thoughts and want to put them into action. (That would be the blogger, not Sir Ken Robinson. Sir Ken’s speech is great, too, and I encourage everyone to watch it, but I don’t work with him.)

It’s a funny ol’ world, isn’t it? Just when you think an idea has run its course or become so commonplace that it’s nearly invisible, it comes back into the spotlight, like John Travolta.

There seems to have been a resurgence of blog posting and discussion on Library 2.0–what is it? is it meaningful or just empty rhetoric? is it a definitive state of being? do you have to be for it or against it? Don’t call it a comeback, but all this 2.0 cogitating has got me thinking, and if I’m going to discuss this elsewhere, I feel I need to set my thoughts down on the topic. Of course, I’ve posted some of my thoughts on Library 2.0 before, so some of this will be covering old ground–a review (or a relapse).

What is Library 2.0, Mr. Smartypants?

I’m going to go with Darlene Fichter’s Einsteinian equation: Library 2.0 = (books ‘n stuff + people + radical trust) x participation.

Does Library 2.0 involve new technologies? Y’know, like Web 2.0?

I don’t think so, no. I think a library can use new technologies and tools (like blogs, wikis, IM, SMS) to achieve “2.0-ness,” but only if those tools are the right tools for the job. The job being: incorporating the ideas and concepts behind Web 2.0: the library as an interactive, user-friendly platform; an architecture of participation that encourages users to add value to the library as they use it; social networking; perpetual beta.

But if Library 2.0 isn’t inherently about technology, isn’t it just a buzzword for what libraries have always done?

To a certain extent, yes.

Wait, let’s back up a bit. Have libraries always been user-centered, open, interactive, responsive? No, not at all. Libraries were traditionally about exclusivity, closed and guarded materials, librarian-centered collections. That’s why Andrew Carnegie started building his public libraries, to open library collections to all social and economic levels of the public and make libraries more democratic, more user-centered. Throughout the 20th century, libraries have become increasingly user-centered and responsive. So in that sense, yes, Library 2.0 isn’t new. Of course, Tim Berners-Lee has questioned the concept of Web 2.0, since he always intended the World Wide Web to be like this. “If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.” At the same time, I personally feel that using the Web in 2007 is different than using the Web in 1997. The basic principles haven’t changed, and the basic technologies and techniques are the same, but there are new features and new ways of using these technologies and techniques. (I’m typing this post on my laptop, which runs on Ubuntu 7.04. The browser I’m using is Swiftfox version 2.0.0.3. These aren’t radically different from previous versions, but there are noticible differences between the latest versions and the previous ones.)

Library 2.0 = (books ‘n stuff + people + radical trust) x participation, where the “books ‘n stuff” are different than they used to be, now including downloadable audiobooks, podcasts, online digital videos, video games, and more. The “people” are changing, too. We have new ways of interacting with each other, new ways of getting (and disseminating) information, new ways of using technologies both old and new. And “participation” is changing. The basic concept of modern libraries may not have changed, but there are noticible differences in the things that make up that concept. (If you don’t agree with me, keep in mind that you’re disagreeing with something I wrote and published in a way that wasn’t possible, and was scarcely imaginable, when I was a kid.) These changes are generally due, at least in large part, to changes in technology, so if people make Library 2.0 sound like it’s about technology, it’s maybe understandable, no? But I still think it’s entirely possible to have a library be about (books ‘n stuff + people + radical trust) x participation without using Web 2.0 technology.

Hey, wait! Earlier, you said “achieve ‘2.0-ness’”! Do you think Library 2.0 is some sort of “state of being” that one reaches?

No, I really don’t. It was just a convenient way for me to phrase what was in my head. Basically, I think Library 2.0 is what libraries have been for a while now, but acknowledging and being excited about the fact that the times they are a’changin’.

I don’t know if that’s all clearer to everyone else, but in the process of writing this post, I’ve made my own thoughts clearer to myself. I will now treat myself to an ice cream bar.

That’s all, folks!