Archive for » March 21st, 2008«
Academically speaking
Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving two talks at the University of Nebraska Council of Libraries Spring Staff Development Meeting, Let’s Get Social and Library 2.0. (The linked Library 2.0 presentation is a slightly older version than the one I gave yesterday but the differences are minor.) My presentations and points were, judging by the lunchtime and end-of-day comments, well received and it sounds like I’ve given the University of Nebraska librarians a lot to think about and discuss amongst themselves.
One interesting suggestion I heard about over lunch was that they hire a "librarian at large" who would not be tied to working in the library but would make themselves available all over the campus in a roaming manner; today in the student union, tomorrow in a dorm lobby, the next day in a popular eating establishment near campus with free WiFi, etc. I’d say this is a wonderful idea and even know someone locally who I think would be perfect for the position. If you follow through on this idea please let me know.
At one point during my Library 2.0 presentation one librarian who stated that he was a fan of Andrew Keene and was a self-described "elitist" do make the argument that in some cases we’re dumbing things down to meet the needs of newer students. (Please keep in mind that I’m paraphrasing here but I believe I’ve got the gist of his statements right.) I don’t want to continue the debate here but I do have two short follow-ups. One, I am rarely in support of bringing things to the lowest common denominator and you can ask several of my co-workers for confirmation of this. However, I don’t believe that offering such things as IM-based reference (the topic I was addressing when the issue was raised) would be considered dumbing things down, merely opening an additional access point for a different type of library user. My second follow-up is to point those interested to this blog post in which I respond to the writing of Mr. Keene in some detail. (Also, I just found a blog post by Librarian In Black Sarah Houghton-Jan regarding her attending a recent symposium which included Mr. Keen.)
I’d also like to point out that I attended the other two talks of the day one on Mary Bolin’s project with Open-Access Online Peer Reviewed Journal "Library Philosophy and Practice", and Paul Royster’s Digital Commons project which is the university’s institutional repository. I’d previously not known much about either of these topics but from what I can tell both of these projects should be considered as models for other institutions interested in pursuing either of these types of projects.
Unconferences Rock!
Two days ago I spent an amazing day in Manhattan, KS with about 99 of the most amazing professional colleagues at the Library Camp Kansas unconference. What’s an unconference you ask, it’s the best parts of the conference and nothing but. There are no presentations, there are no people spending a half-hour just talking about what they do at their library, just conversation, conversation, and more conversation. Topics were suggested by the attendees in advance but the first business of the day was to decide, on the spot, what we wanted to talk about. There were three sessions, morning, lunch, and afternoon and in each case there were 5-7 topics to pick from. As a topic suggester, I got to be the leader of the morning talk about "cheap and inexpensive tools" (unofficially known as "cheap & inexpensive with Michael") and the lunchtime discussion of Creative Commons. In the afternoon I participated in the discussion of "2.0" issues. For those that didn’t attend, most of the notes from the sessions have been posted on the unconference’s wiki I’ve already linked to. Photos from the event can be found in flickr of course. If you’re looking for other blog posts and media from attendees search your favorite places for the tag "libcampks2008".
There is no real way to express how fun this was and how re-energizing the whole experience was for me. For my readers in Nebraska, keep an eye on the NLC blog as there’s already a small group working on bringing such and unconference to the state in the Fall. Once it’s announced sign up fast as space will be limited.
