Jason Puckett.net

Man, am I tired.  I think I did more stuff at this conference than any I’ve been to previously.  Still recovering.  Some standouts:

Win: Preconference on “Library Instruction 2.0” presented by Karen Munro, Anne-Marie Dietering and Rachel Bridgewater was one of the best conference sessions I’ve ever been to.  I came away with a ton of ideas.

Win: BIGWIG Social Software Showcase was not only interesting but fun.  I spent the whole session with Cindi Trainor’s Libguides discussion group since I had some experience with it and felt like I could contribute.  (Libguides seems to be a theme for me this summer.)  I’m so glad that groups like BIGWIG are experimenting with new presentation models like this.

Win: I got to meet Cory Doctorow, my technology activist hero!  The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom had him, Beth Givens and Dan Roth in a fantastic panel discussion on privacy Sunday afternoon.  After hearing this session, I’m planning to create a guide to online privacy tools for students.  Win: Trading Twitter messages with Jessamyn West during the session.  Fail: The session was poorly publicized (last-minute addition?) and therefore poorly attended.  This should have been a centerpiece of the conference.

Addendum: Jessamyn’s blog post about the session, Jenny Levine’s post at Shifted Librarian, Kate Sheehan’s post at Loose Cannon Librarian.

Fail: The (paid) speaker at the LIRT session “Energizing Your Instruction” included ads for his wife’s (?) weight loss business in the handouts and opening slides.  That’s the tackiest and most inappropriate thing I’ve ever seen in a presentation and it put me off even before he started.

Win: Meeting (”meating,” as my friend Amy would say) some online friends and acquaintances in person for the first time: Karin and Cindi, great to meet you guys at last!  Fail: Logistical confusion ensued when some of us split off from the Twitter meetup at dinner and I didn’t get to hang out with Colleen and others I wanted to.  Can we try again at Midwinter?  Win: Made some unexpected new friends as well as seeing some old ones.

Win: I’m now the co-chair of Library Instruction Roundtable’s Teaching, Learning and Technology committee — we had a great discussion at our meeting and it looks like we’re going to do some sort of project based around reviewing/analyzing Libguides and its open-source competitors.  (Is there a name for programs like Libguides?  Research guide creator software?)

Cindi Trainor included my “How to make a Libguide” page on her Librarian’s Guide to LibGuides in the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase.  Thanks, Cindi!

Here’s my intended ALA conference schedule as it exists right now, Monday morning afternoon.  I haven’t filled in all the gaps yet, but if I don’t post it soon I won’t get around to it.

Thursday: Airplane!

Friday:

Library Instruction 2.0: Building Your Online Instruction Toolkit preconference (all day)

Maybe: LITA happy hour in the evening.

Saturday:

8:00: Try to catch the first hour or so of If We Don’t Call it Distance Learning, Does it Exist?

All morning: Library Instruction committee meetings.

1:30-3:30: LITA Social Software Showcase.

4-5:30: Science Fiction and Fantasy:  Looking at Information Technology and the Information Rights of the Individual (Cory Doctorow!)

Sunday:

8:30-10:00: The Highly Effective Job Search

10:30-12:00: Energize Your Instruction: Keep The Magic Alive for You and Your Audience

1:30-3:00: Either LITA Top Tech Trends or Privacy: Is it Time for a Revolution?

Monday: Airplane!

I am a big fan of Cory Doctorow, author/blogger/activist.  I’m very excited to see that he’s appearing at ALA Annual in Anaheim this year, but I haven’t seen a lot of buzz about it in the biblioblogosphere yet.  So I’m, um, buzzing.

As far as I’ve been able to tell, he’s got only two appearances on the schedule.  If I’ve missed any, please comment and let me know.

Science Fiction and Fantasy: Looking at Information Technology and the Information Rights of the Individual
Saturday, June 28
4 p.m.-5:30 p.m.
Anaheim Convention Center 304 A/B

Distinguished science fiction and fantasy authors will discuss the visionary nature of their craft, how speculative literature suggests new ideas and technologies, and the possible impacts these developments could have on society in the future. This year’s authors are Cory Doctorow, Eric Flint, Vernor Vinge and Brandon Sanderson, experts in the field of information technology, access to information, and the rights of individuals, along with just being really good authors. Come to listen, ask questions, and enjoy!  Speakers: Cory Doctorow, Tor Books; Eric Flint, Baen Books; Vernor Vinge, Tor Books; Brandon Sanderson, Tor Books

Privacy: Is it Time for a Revolution?
Sunday, June 29
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
201D, Anaheim Convention Center

Protecting reader privacy and confidentiality has long been an integral part of the mission of ALA and its members. Should it continue to be a priority? In an age when people increasingly use social networking to expose intimate life details, does privacy still matter to information seekers? Does anyone care if their library records and online searches are being tracked? If they don’t, why should they? A panel of thought leaders from the information economy including author Cory Doctorow, Wired senior writer Dan Roth, and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse director Beth Givens will debate the importance of privacy and what’s at stake if the persistent erosion of privacy continues unchecked. Join us for a provocative examination of a librarian’s role in the future of privacy.

My colleague Rachel Borchardt and I are giving a session at the GOLD/GALILEO Users Group Conference on August 1st in Athens, GA.  Our presentation is:

“Let Your Audience Hear You: Creating an Instructional Podcast”

Interested in publishing an instructional podcast at your library? Learn the steps to design, plan and produce a podcast for your students using inexpensive hardware and mostly free software. We will discuss both instructional design and technological how-to, drawing on our experiences producing Woodruff Library’s Survival Guide podcast for undergraduates. We will include topics such as technology tools, publicity, “iTunes U”, and involving tech-shy colleagues.

I attended this conference last year and it really rocked — I came away with more ideas and contacts than I usually do from a day at ALA.  I’m particularly excited to be co-presenting with Rachel, since she and I have been working on this together for quite a while and it’ll be great to share some of what we’ve learned doing it.

Since this takes place about a week before I finish my MLIS degree, the timing seems particularly auspicious.

I’m attending the Atlanta Area Bibliographic Instruction Group 2008 mini-conference in two weeks, “In Queue - Getting Online with Instruction” (even though I don’t know what the “in queue” part means).  Remarkably, I’m  actively interested in all three presentation topics.  We don’t have distance education students at Emory, but I’ve been kicking around the idea of offering an experimental online workshop so I’ll be interested to hear about that.

If you’re in the Atlanta area, it’s free!

No, no major news on the post-MLIS career opportunities front at this point. But I’m very pleased about two developments: I have accepted my first ALA co-chair position: the LIRT Teaching, Learning and Technology committee likes me, it really likes me.

Also, I’ve been invited to give a presentation on instructional podcasting at the GALILEO/GOLD conference in August with my friend/colleague/co-podcaster Rachel.  Details will follow in case any interested Georgians are reading this.

Thanks to The MLxperience for spotting this new blog:

Library Professional Development

They post conferences, CFPs, workshops, webinars and so on.

(Also, much credit to MLxperience for the tagline “libtechedtrainfotainment”.)

Looks like I’ll be at Educause in Seattle next month.  I’m happy that my boss singled me out and said “you should go to this,” but not thrilled about a 4-day trip in the middle of the semester.  Oh well.

Anything I should look forward to at my first Educause, and/or anything cool to do in Seattle near the convention center?

Diane Kresh, Director, Arlington County Public Library
Keynote presentation, GALILEO/GOLD Annual Users Group Conference

(Introduction featured Librarian 2.0 Manifesto video by …, which obviously some in the audience had not seen before — laughter at “some of my colleagues will be resistant,” “I will not fear Google,” and “I will encourage my library’s administration to blog.”)
This is the beginning of a sea change in libraries

[slideshow link will go here]

“When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you,” the church and the library — Keith Richards

Libraries do what they have always done — collect, describe, preserve materials; provide free access, support lifelong learning = serve the public good

What will libraries do? Users/needs are changing, so change already — “Dot. Period.” You don’t have to know all the answers; be comfortable with your discomfort re change, but accept it.

Ask the users what they need so that we can help them

Themes:

• Content
• Context
• Community

Content:

We are all creating content: e-mail, text if nothing else

Young users text like crazy; librarians need to be comfortable with it (85% of college students use text messaging)

Context:

70% of Americans extremely or very satisfied with public libraries

92% believe libraries are needed in internet age

People are doing research on their own, though, without the library being in the loop

Crowdsourcing: put questions out to the web for collaborative answers instead of going to an expert

Libraries can do this — again, don’t have to have all the answers

Some change drivers: ubiquity of communication tools, new workplace structures, blurred distinction between production and consumption of information, changes in other media industries

Evolving workforce: preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist

People don’t care where the information came from — they just want the info, now. They are willing to settle for less, and want self-service. “Find it, get it, get out”

So who needs libraries?

OCLC 2005 study: People are as likely to trust search engines as libraries

Libraries must be willing to complement what people are finding on their own

Millennials Rising (author Neil Howe?)

Millennials expect instant gratification — library web sites are very organization-driven, and millennials will give up if they can’t find what they need right away

We are stuck in ruts about how we find information

Google gets it — feeds the information addiction, gets all the media attention. This cannot be said about libraries that are doing many of the same things.

Wagging the long tail

• make everything available, more choices
• centralize inventory, control costs
• cut the price
• Libraries must help “find it”
• Amazon: personal recommendations are excellent, and libraries should learn from this

Cool stuff

• open worldcat meets google
• creative commons
• 43things.com
• LibraryThing
• Social Networking
• These are things that will influence future library services

What would happen if Dewey disappeared? Arizona library that has removed the Dewey decimal system

Change the paradigm

• lose the insularity, scan the horizon
• keep what works, chuck what doesn’t

Community

Discussion of Arlington programs; Arlington Reads, partnerships w/ public schools, local businesses — don’t do it all ourselves, but start with a vision

Your customers: we think a lot about what our patrons need, but we’re not so good about asking them

Communicate with them in spaces they use: blogs, IM — but it’s not the right fit yet; young users won’t want to communicate  with librarians

Find out what you’re not doing

• Stalk the non-consumers
• surveys, focus groups
• Local media reports
• Walk and talk
• test, try, transform
• Do what they (google, amazon) can’t do
• find the white space and fill it

Library as third space

• where people can gather, hang out, engage in community

Library as destination

• amenities
• support local business
• improve accessibility
• change with the calendar
• community and “place making”
• Co-location, co-location, co-location
• Be a catalyst for creativity

Competitors: they’re offering different services from us, and there’s room for both

Brand your library, identify partnership, be opportunitstic, assess progress continually

Take risks, try something new

New job skills, customer focus, technology awareness, risk tolerance

Staff development: encourage experimentation, find growth in failure

Technology is the easy part

Little Richard: “It’s not the size of the shp, it’s the size of the waves”

Dilbert: “Change is good; you go first”