Category: presentations

This was more of a traditional session than my first one – it was a panel (2 academic library folks and me) and we all gave a brief intro to our organization, then discussed the ways in which our IT departments are changing/have changed in response to changing technological realities. Carole and Terry – my co-panelists – gave interesting discussions on how their IT Departments have evolved with the times. Carole’s library began a formal Project Management procedure that sounded quite interesting. Terry’s library reorganized and reformed to improve how they serve their customers. I wish I could be more specific, but I was on the podium and listening, not taking notes and the whole thing was a long time ago…
My presentation was on the Web2.0ification of our library’s IT Department. We have made some changes in how we do our basic functions (offloading some of the work – such as web updates – to non-IT people, outsourcing some functions – hello Google Apps for Domains!, etc.) and we’ve made some changes in the way we think about things like security and privacy (not in a bad, way, though – I promise) in order to facilitate our patrons and staff in their use of Web 2.0 technologies.
We went a bit long and didn’t have much time for questions after, but several people came up after the session ended to chat more about what we were doing – and what was more interesting (at least for me) – what they are doing! The session was a great way to find out what IT departments, in different types of libraries, are doing to react to Web 2.0, greater customer service demands from our staff and opportunities that are coming our way!

This was really fun! We gathered in a room that was WAY too small and proceeded to chat with each other about our various topics. Jason Griffey recorded the whole thing – it’s up at UStream already, with my little intro to my topic, OpenID, at the 13:45 minute mark. I was in the back, so you can’t actually see me, but I’m also a total loudmouth, so you can hear me just fine… My table was not exactly overrun with folks, but I had a steady stream of people asking excellent questions about implementing OpenID for themselves! The two hours FLEW by and I just about talked myself hoarse – which was uncool, seeing as how my second presentation of the conference was just a half hour after the showcase ended…

Once again – I’m blogging without Internet! In my own hotel. Where I’m paying $10 a day for Internet Access. This sucks. Oh well, so far, before the session has started, I’ve gotten a picture of the three lovely ladies leading this session (any alliteration is purely coincidental, don’t flame me in the comments for it). Jessamyn West, Sarah Washburn, and Louis Alcorn are all going to give us tips on Public Computer access in a 2.0 world.
Sarah gave an introduction to the MaintainIT project, going into the cookbooks, the webinars, and the cookbook bookclub. They will be starting “train the trainers” sessions to show trainers how to use the cookbooks to train their staff. She then introduced the other speakers, starting with Jessamyn, then Louise.
Jessamyn’s talk – “6 things you maybe didn’t know about rural technology” – came next. She started with a description of her job, then introduced her talk by saying that she’ll be talking about how to get effective tech into rural libraries – both what works and what doesn’t work.
1. Digital divide “the poor are always with us”
a. Rethink the divide – not just about hardware, also about access & nohow to make use of the network
b. It is real
c. It’s not what it used to be
d. Landscape has changed
e. 23% of Americans have no access at all to the internet/web
2. Donations “hey it’s free”
a. Blessing/curse
b. Open source is not really on the table
c. Based on old ideas of what has value
3. Grants “hey it’s (sort of) free…”
a. Some really help & level the playing field
b. Time limits… “please make yourself obsolete”
c. Hardware/software lock-in
d. Reporting requirement are onerous
4. Tech Education
a. Websites don’t fix this
b. Paper and people are what cost $$$
c. Multiple problems per patron
d. What is a “real” safety net? – figure out the safety net for digital needs as wells as food/medical/etc.
5. Patron Needs
a. Someone in their HOME
i. Encourage them to buy laptops – bring their computers in is almost as good
b. Someone close when they LEARN
c. Someone to help them SHOP
d. Someone to SUMMARIZE
6. What Works
a. 23 Things (LL2.0)
b. Googling error messages
c. Consortia & Leadership
d. Tracking & Counting – as if it counts, because it does
7. Try. Try Again. Advocate. Illustrate. Persevere. Succeed.

Louise Alcorn
Public Computing in a Library 2.0 World
Some rural broadband activism, like in Vermont, but a distrust of consortia, so not much working together
wilboar.lib.ia.us – Overdrive project
Told story of wireless access coming via the state-wide bike tour

Online Tools For Training
• Why Online Training (webinars)
o For participants requires only (mostly) a broadband Internet connection
o Reduces lost staff time due to travel
o Can “send” more staff to training
o For trainer/host, no need to worry about location issues
• Web conferencing services
o Horizon Wimba’s Live Classroom www.wimba.com

And at that point, my laptop went into hibernation. Louise continued discussing various other training/web conferencing services, then they took a few questions. I don’t remember exactly what was asked – sorry! The presentations are up at http://librarian.net/talks/ala if you are interested in checking out more about what these talented ladies are doing!

Mixing It Up: The Mashed Up Library (OCLC Symposium)

Lots of round tables (easy laptop blogging – if there was free wireless) and people in a big room. Sitting down, we each got an OCLC bag – way prettier than our orange ALA bags – and a packet of information. Andrew Pace started it off with an introduction to the speaker and panelists as well as the concept of mashups. He pointed out to us two cards that are labeled “Resource” and “Challenge” in our packet o’stuff – we are to jot down all of our resources & challenges that we can think of as the speakers talk, then we can share them later.
He discussed some mashups (Dewey + John Ashcroft = Sienfeld’s Library Cop; OCLC Connection + WoW = WorldCat of Warcraft). Finally, he introduced Michael Schrage to start off the “official” part of the afternoon.

Michael Schrage:
Institutional Innovation, Mashups and the Library Future
• “the content of the audience is more important than the content of the talk”
• Institutional Innovation
• Operational definition of Innovation – conversion of ‘novelty’ into ‘value’
o Novelty – to whom? Value – for whom?
• Innovation is a means to an end
• Innovation isn’t what innovators offer – it’s what customers, clients & users adopt
o Cell phone example – only 10% of users use more than 50% of features – those features aren’t innovative, they are wasteful
• From ‘creation of choice’ toward ‘value from use’
o Make innovative focus value, not novelty
• “What’s the most innovative thing you think we do?” – start innovation process with that question
o What is the perception of *you* on an organizational level
• Institutional side
• Intelligence is wildly overrated as a virtue
o Self-delusion is biggest obstacle to innovation
• Wikipedia: Mashup definition
o Brings same interoperability to data sets that Internet brought to networks
• Interoperability
• The most important product of the mines…
o Is the miner
o Frederick Le Play
o Human capital most valuable product
o “The most important product of the network is the networker”
o The kinds of networks we build, depend on what kind(s) of Networkers we want people to be
o What is the most important product of the library…?
 “A scholar is a library’s way of creating another library” (Daniel Dennet)
 What should the most important products of the library be?
• Libraries = Gyms for the mind
• Competition – like innovation – is a means to an end
• Competition is about perceived value from choice
• How do you users and user communities brand you as a competitor
o As info access providers, we are in most competitive industry in the world
• 4 things as takeaways
o Learning from our ‘lead users’ (who are they? How do we know?)
o With whom do we want to collaborate to create value? Why?
o Marketing our best internal arguments/disagreements (transparency is good)
o Establishing ‘liberatories’ that attract talent and inspire hypotheses (liberatories = library + laboratory)
• Success comes not from taking the path of least resistance, but the path of maximum advantage…

Questions:
Mention of Adaptive Path & “experience is the product” – could our library’s product be the experience we provide? Michael thinks that is a great answer – but what group(s) of people will define the notion of experience? Who is the experience economy “person” at your library? Is your board capable of overseeing quality of experience? What institutional investments can you make?
Making the library better = letting our users/patrons create in our library (reviews, tags, comments, etc.). Michael suggests encouraging or even forcing them to produce content so that the more the library is used, the better it gets

Panel: Libraries In Action – David Lee King, Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran, Susan Gibbons

Climbing out of the box
• Intro to his daughter’s “outside the box” experience – took a box and made a 2 story dollhouse with attic window and porch swing.
• Intro to his library’s website (very cool stuff…)
o Meebo widget – used by PCC patrons so they don’t waste computer time
o They have a bookmobile/gmap Mashup too!
o Physical/digital library mashups
• Poking holes in the box
o Patron comments to library’s site (most pages)
o Original content by patrons (teen poetry & articles written by patrons), videos by patrons
• Outside the box (mashing up our community)
o Go outside the library
o Bookmobile, google blog search alerts/technorati/twitter, etc.,
• Comfortable with 2.0?
• Community brainstorming session
• Books + people + 2.0 = ?

Mary Beth Sancomb-Moran
Map MashUps
• Minnesota Sesquicentennial banner and journal
o Banner traveled through state to public libraries
o Routed through 11 counties & 35 public libraries in southeastern MN
o Created google map to show when/where banner would be visiting near patrons
• Advocacy
o Library legislative day
o Getting their attention & informing them
o Useful for legislators & patrons
o Read posters with each legislator’s picture for their office
o Created map Mashup for each legislator with list of libraries in their area

Susan Gibbons

 CoURses System – mashing registrar course data w/ best library resources
o Voyager data
o E-journal list
o Database list
o Librarians
o Course, not subject, guide
 Course guide – section by section introduction, mashed up information from lots of places for each course
 Mashing up people
o Writing consultants/Student Advisors/Librarians – cross training so the librarians can do some writing consulting or student advising – and vice versa
o Most valuable staff on campus

Q&A time
Andrew asked about letting others use our data in mashups
David said that his RSS feeds are getting scraped with minimal credit, Mary said that they are moving that way – cautiously, Susan said that they would, cautiously – for noncommercial purposes only!!
Who is creating the widgets for David’s library & what kind of training do they get? Web dept, Meebo widget was very easy, no training required, Google Map widget is similar, not much training required – they figured it out without training.
Michael brought up the point of widget makers (Meebo, Google) having access to your patron’s info and may monetize it.
Can we make available data that we lease, not own? Susan said it’s probably already happening…
Are Tech Serv (catalogers) involved in these innovations? How are you managing staff time to prevent backlogs? Mary Beth just played to figure out and gave to web guys to implement, no tech serv folks involved. Susan said that looking for automation possibilities or find efficiencies in the process. David said that they organize around the work, not the department. One tech serv person is in charge of MySpace, one is Second Life person, etc. If they want the project, they get it, whether it “fits” their department or not.
Battery’s going – have to shut down!

I’ve arrived and settled in! I registered today, got me one of these neon orange (actually it is safety orange, I believe) ALA swag bags and checked out the conference area. I’m about a mile out from the conference, but it is a nice walk (and they have lots of shuttles running as well…) so it won’t be too bad. The hotel is nice – except for the lack of a refrigerator to store my required Diet Cokes and the fact that internet access isn’t free. The service has been phenomenal, though! The Hyatt Regency has some of the nicest and most helpful staff I’ve seen in a while – and they are all ALWAYS smiling. It’s been a treat!
I’ve pretty much figured out my schedule for the conference – except that I have lots of double- and triple-booked slots of time and a few wide open times.
As I said on Twitter earlier – I’m here to meet all you Netizens whom I’ve interacted with but not managed to meet face-to-face yet (and some that I have met face-to-face before as well!), so DM me on Twitter (goes directly to my phone) or drop me a line and suggest a time/place – I’ll do my best to make it work!