Cornish: "The systematic exploration of what might happen, so people can decide what they want to make happen"

wild cards: unexpected events that carry major consequences, whether catastrophic or benestrophic

scenario building is journalism in reverse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
George Needham, OCLC
Joan Frye Williams, Consultant

George started and listed the 10 things Google has found to be true

Joan noted it's really easy to be a library futurist because libraries lag so far behind "real world" trends
there are lots of right answers and lots of possible futures

George: Five Landscapes, Three Dominant Patterns
1. self-service (which is not the same as no service)
- self-sufficiency
- satisfaction
- seamlessness
2. disaggregation
3. collaboration

Joan: civilians want us to set up the candy store, using all of our expertise, and then get out of the way so that they can do what they want and play with what they want to play with
they want us to set them up for success, not failure
meanwhile, we're all locking things up, keeping control, insisting that we be needed
users are voting with their feet, though
we need to cultivate a sense of "enoughness" - enough of us to help them how they need it
ready reference questions, which we positively count as statistics, are a failure on our part that allows users to be successful on their own

convenience AND quality
- my time
- my place
- easy to use
- no barriers

civilians are looking for opportunities to intuitively find answers
they want using us to be part of an active lifestyle; it's not ignorance that they choose things that are easier and more convenient
education of the "true" thing will not solve the problem
easy is not the same as dumb; making something accessible doesn't mean dumbing it down
we have to let go of perfectionism

simplified wayfinding:
- reduced clutter
- consolidated desks
- "situational" directions ("get answers for your homework" instead of "EBSCOHost")
- natural language catalog
- prepackaged tips, shortcuts, FAQs
- all staff capable of assisting with basic navigation and end-user tools

"bookends" service
- offer tools to get me started
- check my work when I'm done

options to consider:
- self-check as primary checkout
- OPAC toolbar
- touch screens
- roving support staff with wireless
- online fundraising (online is not a problem, even though it is in the physical world)

George:
the average wait time for getting your boarding pass at the airport is 70 seconds; lets the employees concentrate on those tasks and problems that need attention
think about that in the library context

disaggregation
many of the intermediary steps between the idea and publishing the idea have been removed (blogging, IM, RSS, etc.)

big publishing is still using the "least publishable unit"
iTunes/iPod is the future

Joan: services for hunter-gatherers
we're not the beginning of these folks' search and we're not at the end - we're one point on the spectrum
we're not the only game in town anymore

options to consider:
- metatagging
- podcast programs
- USB flash drives and personal servers
- searchable desktop
- "life caching" ("trickle up technology")

need to let users "carry something away with them"
your next tech trend is what people are asking for for Christmas

george: collaboration

it's simply easier:
- for people to connect
- for technologies to connect
- for economies to connect

collaboration creates new patterns
"it's time to disintegrate the aggregated library system"

OCLC has been experimenting with social software

Joan: mass collaboration
change in the "politics of identity" - it's now easier to find other nuts just like them
so there are communities of identity on the web that cannot be enabled in the physical world in the same way

thinks libraries are good at cooperating with people like them, but not with others
mass collaboration is inherently anti-institutional
it's going to be difficult for those of us brought up on authoritative sources to be okay with non-authoritative sources
the locus of trust has changed, the sources have changed

suggested every library put an entry about themselves in Wikipedia because that's where people are looking for information

continuous partial attention
was "multitasking"
in the library world, we don't deal well with CPA; our policies force users to dial out everything else and concentrate on library stuff
but that's not how people work anymore
(think cell phones)

told a great story about a young person who answered his cell phone in a job interview; didn't stay on the phone, but all of the older people interviewing him were shocked; his response was "I didn't take the call"

what they saw as rudeness in the interview is what google is cultivating as productivity
all of the research shows these kids are doing just fine - they can do this
people coming to us will feel oppressed if we don't let them use their full abilities
if you must limit them to one thing at a time, you're asking them to give up a style of work that is very effective for them
you are the one that can't focus in a disaggregated world

options to consider:
- other people's blogs, vlogs, wikis (move your library stuff out to where people's stuff already is)
- collaborative filtering
- participatory websites
- mashups (wonderful examples of how we shouldn't try to control information so tightly)
- less reliance on content resellers

don't start a new blog on campus - put your posts where the users already are (the campus blog for users)

George: The Perceptions Report

Joan: the biggest implication of the Perceptions report is the end of adult reference as we know it
stand-up question-answering is dead
there is no other profession that puts its best people behind a desk
people associate quality with a style other than the one we use
we're deploying librarians like secretaries
and now we know people don't start with us anyway

options to consider:
- proactive reference
- virtual reference
- social network reference
- extreme googling
- reference by appointment
- "on call" instead of "on the desk"

George ended by talking about how libraries have never been the number one source people turn to for information (showed data from a 1947 survey), but how we've made great strides since then
we don't have 5 decades to get it right this time

fundraising online - http://midhudson.org/funding/fundraising/online.htm
movielens - http://movielens.umn.edu/
Platial - http://platial.com/
OPAL - http://www.opal-online.org/
podcast information page - http://www.lansing.lib.il.us/podcast.html

Technorati Tags: ala06, ala2006

Searching & the Online Journey - John Horrigan, Pew Internet Life Project

showed various Pew statistics for broadband subscriptions, internet use, and online searching

41% of *all* online users conduct a search on the average day (September 2005)
54% of high-speed internet users search on an average day
for "high-powered" internet users, 91% do an internet search on an average day

50% of searchers could go back to their old way of finding information
...but 32% say they can't live without search

searching is part of an online environment that:
- reduces uncertainty for users (particularly in regards to medical information)
- empowers them with more information
- serves as an outlet and source for creativity (50% of users have posted some kind of content to the internet)
- helps them make every day decisions
- helps them maintain and cultivate social networks

internet is a "Swiss Army knife" information tool
- particularly for young users
- the long tail
- does the long tail thicken the leading edge?

internet will increasingly be embedded in things (RFID, ubiquitous broadband internet)
attention will become a scarce commodity in the digital world
- trusted helpers to connect people to what they want

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who's Out There and What Are They Doing? - Roy Tennant

Generations:
millennials & gen Xers are:
- not you
- not homogeneous
- they share a lot of your core values (not sure who "your" refers to)
- communication power users, very connected
- big collectors (tunes, videos, links, photos)
- big sharers (tunes, videos, links, photos)
- content creators
- serious multitaskers

typical 18-year old:
- has never known a time without the internet
- never purchased a record
- thinks the president must be named clinton or bush
- can't understand why anyone would want a landline phone

typical 12-year old
- was born after the web
- has never known a time when the U.S. was at peace with Iraq
- believes a cell phone to be a God-given right
- has never purchased a cassette tape
- doesn't understand why we say "dial" a phone number

what are they doing?
- instant messaging (in a year or two, it will be all of us); the channel matters... if someone wants to connect with us this way, we need to be there
- MySpace; really like sharing about themselves; showed his Flickr account; his own unalog; showed his last.fm account
- reviews
- tagging
- YouTube

they're doing all of this on cell phones
we have to get really good at delivering content to cell phones

showed his Google Analytics account, which tells him what terms people are searching in Google to get to his sites
libraries need to monitor this for their sites and use this information more efficiently

showed various statistics from the OCLC Perceptions report

how can we attract and support these users?
they shouldn't have to darken your door to use your services

- use what they use, e.g. MySpace
- benefits: know more about where they're coming from, figure out new opportunities, get new ideas for positioning your services and collections; let them choose the channel that floats their boat

- be where they are
- online (web, IM, etc.)
- available by phone
- mall outlets
- bookmobiles
- community events
- physical as well as electronic; wherever our nonusers are

- be discoverable
- make sure you are crawled by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, etc.
- pay attention to the titles of your documents and use descriptive words
- make it easy for people to link directly to what they want
- make sure sites that should link to your site do

- be usable
- only 15% of respondents said libraries are easy to use; 85% said online searching is easy to use
- do a needs assessment
- build collections and services that align with your customer base
- do usability testing

what to do: summary
- start and end with your clientele
- learn the technologies available to you that are appropriate to your mission
- imaginatively apply those technologies to serve the unique needs of your users
- provide easy access to what they want, how and when they want it
- market those services well
- rinse and repeat (forever, for the rest of our professional lives)

in the end...
- it's always been about the user, but we seem to have forgotten how to focus on their needs
- it doesn't matter what you think they should do, they will do what they want
- work to give them what they should have in a way they want to have it
- never stop learning, thinking, striving to do better
- if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right

Technorati Tags: ala06, ala2006

Stephen Abram and Joe Janes, moderated by Roy Tennant

flipped a coin and Stephen won, so Joe went first

Roy: will search services offered by large commercial companies such as Google, Microsoft, & Yahoo replace the need for libraries?

Joe: more than anything else, that's a market
they will if libraries let that happen
if their services are sufficiently powerful & ubiquitous, then people will go there
if the millions of searches going to them came to us, we would be overwhelmed in 20 minutes; we can't do anything with most of those services
"we don't call it adult services anymore since the internet" - search that phrase and you *won't* find your local public library, although that might be a market we want to branch out into
he's not sure it's an altogether bad thing?

stephen: wrong question, who cares? no one comes to libraries to search
users come to us for learning, community, and services
the top 10 websites provide a good community experience
we should be more worried about MySpace and Facebook, not the search engines
40% of all internet traffic is in MySpace - what is the potential that those folks have to do?

joe: points are well taken, but can't just dismiss search
a shared notion that algorithmic search will only take those services part of the way, so they are scrambling to add more on top of it
they've also tried Q&A services, but none have had enormous amounts of use, although it is acknowledgment that human beings can answer questions
search was *one* of the reasons people came into libraries
search was never the point, it's a means to an end, but it was a big point

stephen: ask yourself who is paying and who is the customer?
people think the sponsored links in commercial search engines are better because they are sponsored
noted differences between commercial search engines and library search
are we going to let them win or are we going to start building community and search

joe: can win where popularity kind of relates to quality
haven't done a good job of educating people that quality information is worth it
3 years ago, Google couldn't get to certain things for search, but now that's not so true
if they can figure out the invisible web, what's left?

stephen: what does search do well and what does it do badly?
they can answer who, what, where, and when, but not how and why
have to be able to sense the context of the user to do that better
we're not a scalable solution, but we're probably pretty scalable on how and why
the reference question is dead
we're going to have a world within 5 years where there will be 75 million books converted for online and search
the problem of the future is winnowing, not searching and finding

roy: what qualities would Google Scholar, MS Live Academic, or similar free commercial search services need to have before libraries abandon the creation of their own metasearch services? Or has that point already been reached?

stephen: we tried to teach patrons boolean logic - didn't we learn that doesn't work?
at some point, we need to build more intelligence into the interface
millennials are moving into a world where facts don't matter (a half-life of 8 years)
the commercial services can create an immersive environment, but not one in which people come together in community and work as teams
they are about bringing things to the individual

joe: doesn't disagree, but the team thing comes back to the social connectivity idea
one of the things these guys are in the business of working out is the importance of the social network
Microsoft hammers on the social network piece, which Joe doesn't really use
it's not much of a reach to think about how you mash all of those social services together in an organizational team work environment, which hasn't quite happened yet
the world is ahead of all of us, the search services and libraries

stephen: with a bunch of North Americans on the panel, we're all just sharing our ignorance
teams are contextual
people work in teams on things they can't work on alone
Google, Yahoo, etc., are in the 20th century mass market model that TV was in
libraries create relationships with small groups of teens
libraries need to step up to the plate and stop trying to be about search and start trying to be about learning and community

joe: yeah

roy: the idea of communities has been bouncing back and forth in my head
Google and Yahoo have our users' eyeballs
libraries have the advantage of having their actual bodies/feet coming into our buildings - community

next question: should libraries cooperate with commercial companies by giving them our metadata and/or content?

stephen: if we're not about search, who cares?
our competitor is ignorance
I want their hearts, minds, souls, inspirations, not their eyeballs - libraries transform lives

joe: makes me think of the whole access versus ownership thing
I guess we're just going to keep fighting this with ourselves over and over again
used WorldCat as an example - the value the rest of the world could add to it could be a transformation of knowledge (or not)
- make WorldCat open source
"make things available and things will happen" - libraries have always said this, but we haven't been able to do this on a large scale until now
it's scary for librarians to think about making it *that* available, though

stephen: in the battle of the river and the rock, the river wins

joe: that's deep

stephen: it's all there already in Open WorldCat
they don't find things through metadata, but rather through algorithmic ranking
no boolean overlap between our value systems of our users and the value systems of librarians
our value system is actually getting in the way of us delivering what the users want
where is the middle ground?

joe: it would be terrific to be able to keep more patron data, but what happens when homeland security knocks on the door?
means we can't understand what people really want
there are legacies of a century of protecting patron privacy, even though users (especially younger users) are less concerned about this
one of the few places left that you don't assume will just "give you up" is the library and that comes at a cost

roy: will libraries incorporate some of the better dot-com search technologies into their own search products, such as tehir catalogs?

stephen: they already are
aquabrowser, endeca, etc.
it's an issue of how do we get people to understand what this does?
visual interfaces work best for most people, but not for librarians, who are the ones making decisions

joe: not adding these things soon enough
"what the hell gives?"
when you think about people who got into the library business are people who love to search - Dialog was like porno for us because it gave you incredible power and control (it was incredibly rewarding)
it bespoke a certain professional knowledge set
the way library catalogs have been designed bespeaks these same things, in part because information is hard
algorithmic ranked search makes it look easy, which fries our collective cheese because it takes away our power and control (or at least the illusion of it)
if we come up with easy-to-use search tools, they'll need us even less (some people think)

stephen: we haven't had an open debate in librarianship about how librarians killed Dialog
there is nothing wrong with the OPAC - it does what it needs to do as an inventory system for librarians
Karen Schneider is the only one asking the right question - it's the user, not the OPAC
can we frame the question for what is the right user experience?
I can assure you it's not the OPAC
we're going to fix the problem focusing on the user, not the OPAC
what do users need to learn, what experience do they want in their community?

joe: the OPAC isn't going to change because the MARC record isn't going to change
there just isn't that much you can do with them
can't just slap an algorithmic rhythm on top of MARC records because there's nothing for it to search

stephen: that's because we're trying to retrieve pointers (as librarians), not the objects themselves

joe: we get stuck in ideas and traditions
we have to be small-c conservative because we've got the human record at stake and you kind of have to be careful with that
anytime we try something new, it becomes about the problems
sometimes we don't have to think about 100 years

roy: what is your worst nightmare and your finest vision for the future of library search services, and what is your level of confidence in achieving either?

joe: was once asked what would perfect search look like?
it was no search at all, the lightest weight search at all
the web tool is always easier and lighter than the library one
my worst nightmare is that nothing changes, we stay the way we are, we're happy with it, and we wither and die
my level of confidence is higher than I'm comfortable with - a collective lack of initiative to make changes that are scary and uncertain
the finest vision - maybe we put Google out of business
what we do is "good enough" (and it's a good enough world) that people forget about free services and come back to us in the experiential way that stephen talks about
level of confidence in that... go ahead (to stephen)

stephen: worst nightmare is that everyone in the field keeps looking at the other and saying your side of the boat is sinking
we're perceiving millennials wrong
we're fighting internally (school libraries aren't teaching the kids properly) instead of banding together to fight the external problems (like politicans who cut funding)
we have to get better at advocacy and be willing to say cutting library funding is stupid
brought up Gwinnett County as an example of what we can't let happen
want to see transformations, not transactions
build community and learning, talking about the tipping point we're at (we've adapted to technology, move forward)
confidence in doing this? have to stop being so control-oriented, liberate the energy of the new librarians who are really good
create a passion and fire in them and let them create the world that needs to be
thinks we can do it

audience question: libraries are so tied to the publishing industry
so much more is being created now, beyond just publishing

stephen: we have to be prepared to allow tagging on every single catalog record, user reviews, post-it notes all over websites
need radical trust with our users - need to explore this more
there are conversations about web 2.0, library 2.0, and librarian 2.0 about how this new world will look like when the user becomes predominant
we're going to have to trust our users to lay paths for multidisciplinary work (no longer just silos)

joe: when you look at human history, it all boils down to individual people standing up and saying I was here and I mattered
that is our business - we are in the business of helping people matter and hear the stories of the people who went before and mattered
that creative process of telling our stories of what we mean and what our story means, is important
used to have to be published to do this
to be heard, you had to be there
now that equations has changed in the last few years
easier to speak and much easier to be heard now
we could only deal with publishing, other than "ephemera" - the vertical file, which we now call "the internet"
wrapping our collective professional mind around how we support those creative processes of our users and how we support telling those stories is the central issue of librarianship in the 21st Century
it's about books and it's not
it's about audio and it's not
it's about video and it's not
it's about all of it

audience question: what is a quality result for a typical library search and how do we program that?

stephen: who makes the judgment is what makes a quality result - it's the user

joe: what does relevance mean and who got to judge it?
in any kind of mediated service, the best you can hope for is to move them forward because a lot of things don't have answers
Wikipedia is good for how and why
so the ideal result is that the person that posed the question is further along in their quest for the answer, and only that person can decide that
it's a much more authentic way to say how we're helping people, transforming lives, experiences we created

stephen: we're not acknowledging that the reference questions have gotten harder
haven't adjusted how we evaluate harder reference questions; we need to get better at understanding our contribution to the person's question, not what we're getting out of it

joe: and being inserted at the proper moments of the question

audience question: we have an incredible consumer orientation
things are important to us because we bought them
how do we do more local stuff?
we're making media consolidation worse

stephen: people come in and don't talk about the tools (hammer, saw, etc.), but rather about what they want to do and feel (family room, comfortable, etc.)
we need to do more to tell stories about how people feel on our website
we need to create experiences

joe: and that experience has got to be personal
"understanding" - people, lives, communities, etc. - it's very difficult, if not impossible, to emulate

wrap-up

joe: we can't do everything
the information environment wasn't that competitive in the past, and we served that niche well
we can't do that anymore, we can't be one size fits all anymore
some groups/companies are going to do some things better than we do
we have to not be afraid of the idea that libraries occupy certain niches in the information economy and that's okay because we do them well and no one else does them
figuring out what librarianship is for in the 21st Century is the central question
what do we not do and how do we use freed up resources to do something else?
there's a lot of everybody we're not serving, but we can do some things incredibly well
we should focus on those and do them well

stephen: the why we know, but the how is harder because it centers around our capacity for change
build team-based approach (no one person can answer a question end-to-end)
build cross-generational respect and start to visibly see what the next generation of library workers bring to the table
don't need to repair them or dampen their enthusiasm
can't feel guilty about play - we learn more from networking, coffee breaks
put a list in 43Things.com and spend 15 minutes a day working on them (you AND all of your colleagues)
in 6 months, the capacity of the library profession will be through the roof to understand what is happening in the outside world
we expect to be trained, but that's not how you learn - PLAY
adapt to the changes that are overwhelming us

Technorati Tags: ala06, ala2006

David blogs at Two Cents Worth - http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

Started out with an elephant on a trampoline video (this is what we need to make schools do)

Handouts will be at http://handouts.davidwarlick.com/
Showed his blog and wiki as the handouts

If you blog about his session, please include the phrases "flat classroom" and "david warlick" so that your post becomes part of the wiki/handouts.

"collaborative notebook" - someone in the audience registered on David's wiki page for this program while David was talking about it :-)

talked about using a wiki for a study guide for a history class in which the students build the guide, not the teacher

talked about bloggercons, unconferences, and PodcasterCon
the shape of information has changed - took a picture of a podcaster, who put the picture on his blog, which David then reblogged, which got picked up by Dutch bloggers

showed Bloglines - it brings things to me

the number of people who have access to broadband internet in their homes increased 40% in one year
assignment: how long would it take a family to pull in their school library over that broadband connection?

- this year, China will pass the U.S. in broadband subscriptions
- U.S. has fallen to 19th in household broadband penetration
- this year, we will be passed by Slovenia
- in South Korea, every house has broadband because someone made a decision that it was in their national best interest to do this
- here in the U.S., we made the decision several years ago that every child should know how to read

what's really changed with the web? what are the new characteristics of information?

1. networked - it's not just can you read, but do you have the skills to expose the truth
2. digital - new skills to process digital information
3. overwhelming - can you express an idea compellingly to an audience, not just can you put together a coherent paragraph

showed a tag cloud for a Technorati search for Thomas Friedman's "The World Is Flat"

"The Creative Class" book

showed his son - iPod, Xbox, online gaming (collaborating to accomplish a goal), laptop with IM
pictures of his son in his "cockpit"

we look at this picture and we see the technology
if we asked his son, though, he would talk about the information - he's focused on it as the story, the interaction - he buys the story when he buys information (we need storytellers)

Wikipedia
we were taught to accept the authority of what was handed to us (being a reader meant being able to understand what you read because you assumed it was true)
in the 21st century, being literate also means being able to prove something is true, so we have to teach kids when to go where and how to prove things

showed BuzzTracker.org (geography of news)
showed his own HitchHikr.com - can come here and register a conference

THE PROBLEM:
Too much information

probably 1/4 of the audience knew what RSS is!
showed an aggregator called NewsFire (Mac); the news comes to me
we're training the information to find us, to follow us around
this is information literacy, folks
it takes a whole new set of skills today to find information

showed his "personal learning network" - people who can help me do my job
George Siemens - "connectivism"

quote that today children think everything is "clickable," including their parents
what does a clickable library look like? what are learning environments that are that responsive like?

the audience as the source of wealth
walls don't mean the same thing to kids that it meant to us because they can talk to anyone on cell phones, play games with anyone, they're writing blogs/MySpace, etc.... all through the walls
they have tentacles to these things that take them where they want to go
and then they walk into the classroom and we cut off those tentacles
these kids are living in learning engines
we get them in the classroom and we try to make them into the kids we want to teach, rather than teaching the kids they are

remix culture
told a story about his son creating machinima with Halo
showed a video his son created and noted how he puts these out there on his blog

David, I'd like a copy of the video you showed at the beginning! :-D

Technorati Tags: ala06, ala2006

I've tried to highlight "Library 2.0-ish" jobs when I come across them, because I think they're an indication that libraries see value in people who can translate what is happening in the outside world to our own. Most recently, I missed a fascinating Electronic Services Specialist job at the Redwood City Public Library in California (sorry, already closed), the "didn't-think-I'd-be-seeing-that-job-title-quite-yet-but-hooray" Wiki Analayst one at EBSCO, and the Nebraska Library Commission's Technology Innovation Librarian (which I almost applied for just for the job title).

However, now I get to highlight a NEW 2.0-ish job, and I am particularly excited about it because it's going to be MY new job at the American Library Association! I think I have the coolest job description ever!

"Responsibilities: Focuses primarily on content extensions and optimization of 24/7 content delivery and marketing (e.g.RSS); new product development; strategic planning related to new technologies; personalization features; further integration of online communities; and, investigation of new technologies for knowledge transfer and exchange. The overall responsibility is to provide vision and leadership regarding emerging technologies, development of services and their integration into the ALA environment. Specific areas include: 1) content extensions and optimization of 24/7 content delivery, 2) new product development, 3) strategic planning related to integration of new technologies, including ways to reach members and/or customers- current and potential, 4) strategic planning and implementation related to use of new technologies to reach and involve members and 5) further development and integration of Online Communities.

Requirements: Masters of Library Science (MLS or MLIS) from an ALA accredited program. Knowledge of 2.0 technologies and concepts. Ability to work in a complex organizational environment. Strong communication ability (written and verbal). Comfort with rapid prototyping...."

I’m not sure what I want to say about it at this point, except to thank everyone at ALA who made this possible. I can't wait to meet more of the staff and start working with them! Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote about changes I saw happening at OCLC and how this was affecting not just my opinion of the organization, but also its usefulness to me. Lately, I have found myself saying the same things about ALA, and not just because I write for the TechSource Blog or because I helped teach an online course for them. I really like the thought of being part of the continuation of that trend and of helping our professional organization grab hold of the place it should occupy (and lead from) in the online world.

What does all of this mean for my blog? At least initially, not much. I’ll be adding a disclaimer to the site that the opinions expressed here are still my own (just making it more explicit). I’m not suddenly going to start blogging private, internal information, so don’t look for that kind of stuff here. I plan to keep writing about what I’ve always written about (ideally more of it than I’ve been able to manage this last year), hopefully using ALA projects as examples and models, just as I used to do with my MLS libraries. I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid, as I plan to still offer constructive criticism of my employer when necessary, but also praise when it is deserved.

I should probably also note that if you've got me booked to speak at an upcoming event, I need to ask you to change my affiliation from "Metropolitan Library System" to "American Library Association." My job title should also be officially listed as "Internet Development Specialist and Strategy Guide" (yay!). And at least for the near future, the best way to reach me is on IM (cybrarygal on AIM) or via my home email address (jenny@theshiftedlibrarian.com). I'll post about my spiffy, new ALA contact information after I start work there.

To my former MLS libraries, I want to offer a very heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you. Over the years, you've all been wonderful guinea pigs, in some cases letting me lead you, and in other cases leading me with your own great ideas. While there are so many projects, ideas, and opportunities I will always regret not being able to implement for you or help you with, I will always look back on what we’ve accomplished together with great satisfaction and pride. We’ve done things no other library system in the State has done, and the rest of the stuff we often did first. Last year, the Illinois Library System Directors Organization did a survey of member libraries’ knowledge of technologies in which MLS libraries came out far ahead of their colleagues because you've been so willing to listen to, think about, and most importantly, try new things. I have full faith in you to continue being creative and innovative, and I look forward to seeing the wonderful new things you’ll come up with in the future and adding more of your projects to my presentations!

Finally, while I won't be saying anything about the fact that my position at MLS was eliminated last week, I want to say to my friends (family, really) at the former SLS Headquarters that I truly will miss working with all of you. Even more than our members, you’ve been willing to experiment and try new things with me (especially those of you that had to learn HTML back in 1997!), and you helped make us the best system in the State! You always helped make my ideas a successful reality, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. It has been a joy and a pleasure working with all of you for the last nine years. I wish you continued success and I know how lucky the members are to have you!

I'll be attending the ALA Annual Conference (I'll be in New Orleans for a whole week, through Leslie Burger's inaugural), so if you're there, stop me and say hi! I have a press pass thanks to TechSource and a whole bunch of new insider colleagues (hi, ALA staff!), so I'll be pretty busy while I'm there, but I plan to blog and Flickr as much of it as possible. I'm also hoping to get to the bloggers' salon Saturday night to catch up with all of my biblioblogosphere buddies.

I will officially start at ALA on August 1, and I'm very much looking forward to it. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful support this last week and as I move forward on this new adventure!

Update: Thank you to everyone for your wonderful comments and emails! I'm trying to respond to all of them, but it's been a bit overwhelming and I still have to pack for New Orleans! Please be patient as I work my way through email - I really appreciate all of your well wishes!

A Personal Touch

"The Homer Township Public Library is now trying to show the personal side of what it does. Library Director Sheree Kozel-La Ha initiated a Flickr account in which the library posts pictures of its many programs, building, and staff.

'The Flickr account is a creative way to encourage the community to know what we are about,' Kozel-La Ha said. 'Pictures are placed into sets and show customers enjoying programs, collections, and more.'

The library was recently awared a Target Family Art grant and pictures on the Web site now show one of the programs, a family quilting class that it funded.

'We see more than 600 library visitors each day and have so much going on,' she said. The Flickr page is at http://flickr.com/photos/homerlibrary/.

The redesigned Web site is what is known as a blog, where pertinent information is constantly being added and patrons can choose to have this information sent directly to them via an RSS feed or email mailing list. New features also include a daily coming event area, the library photo area, and how to instant message to the library.

'We have savvy patrons,' said Adult Services Director Brian Smith, who manages the web page content. 'We are always trying to add convenient features that our community can use.' The library's general web page can be visited at www.homerlibrary.org." [The Homerian, May 17, 2006]

This is exactly what I mean when I talk about using Flickr to humanize the library and show online some of the vibrancy that goes on within the four walls. It's easier to cut our funding when we're just the nameless, faceless "library" than it is if they see happy, smiling taxpayers. Even the small, local paper realizes this. More screenshots for my presentations!

A special shout-out to the Prairie Area Library System for installing Feed2JS so that Homer could display local RSS headlines on their home page!

Check out the IM presence indicators on Homer's site, too, as well as all of the RSS goodness. As a patron, I love how I can use the advanced features while others can come to the website as they normally would.

I'm really proud of my home library and how far Sheree has brought it in the last six years. She's made it a great example of how a small library can use these new tools (like blogs, RSS, IM, etc.) to offer services on par with large libraries but at little or no cost. Way to go, Sheree! :-)

When I talk about Flickr in my presentations, I always show the Librarian Trading Cards pool, in part because I think it's a great way for librarians to market a new image. In fact, I've encouraged some folks to try these out as business cards, something I might do for the ALA Conference next week.

The folks at the Gould Library at Carleton College sure get the concept...check out their Trading Card Gallery - I love it!

For those readers who were at my presentation for SLA yesterday, a copy of the Powerpoint file will soon be available on the SLA Conference Blog, not the http://www.mls.lib.il.us/ URL I gave out during the session. I apologize for the confusion about this.

You were a really great crowd (and I do mean crowd!), and I appreciate everyone's patience while we changed rooms. Your enthusiastic response made my day!

Please feel free to contact me at jenny@theshiftedlibrarian.com (again, this is a different email address than what was on the slides) if you have questions about the content, either now or down the road.

Special thanks goes out to Paul, Vicki, Robin, and the A/V guys, as well as Chris Curry, who tried to podcast the session (unfortunately, his MP3 player experienced a "hard drive failure" during my talk). And Von, next time I want to chat!

Update: Aw shucks, Don - thanks! :-)

Second update: Thanks to Ruth, too!

Third update: You can finally grab a PDF copy of the presentation at http://theshiftedlibrarian.com/presentations/2006/20060613SLA.pdf.

"Cypress Barrett told me that a resident volunteered to donate land in Caledon for a library branch. If you have not been to Caledon, please go. It is a new sim and is a nineteenth century atmosphere. There are people walking around in clothing from the nineteenth century and all the houses and shops must have this look too. I have a friend who recenty rented a house there - and there were people waiting in line to buy land and rent there. It is very charming.

This is the challenge: how would you build a nineteenth century library in a twenty-first century digital world?

I think this is fascinating - but I need to work on getting our main library up and running. Is there anyone or any group that would like to work with this concept as a branch? Let me know." [An email to the Second Life Library Google Group]

I'm having trouble keeping up with all of the great stuff happening in the Second Life Library project because there's just so dang much of it. The international collaboration, community, and conversation that is building around this is phenomenal. Besides the pure people aspect of it, the fact that Ebsco, OCLC's QuestionPoint, and TechSoup are all experimenting with the group signals how much gaming has hit the library world over the last year. It's fascinating to watch, and I hope it continues. I couldn't see the images in this video, but I'm guessing it gives a good summary of what has happened in just one month.

I hope to start joining in the fun in a couple of months when my travels slow down a little for me. It's been a grueling year so far; Michael Stephens and I counted up dates yesterday, and we think we'll each have given 28 presentations/talks in the first six months of this year. One of my goals at this point is to relax a little after June and have some fun playing in Second Life by just hanging out in the public library there!

Meanwhile, if Lori's challenge sounds interesting, be sure to contact her!"

Only a week left - please take Michael Stephens' Social Software Survey!

Karen Schneider: The User Is Not Broken: A Meme Masquerading as a Manifesto

So good, it's already been translated into Portuguese!

See also Peter Bromberg's L20 Manifesto.

As Michael Stephens recently noted, he and I had the pleasure of keynoting the St. Joseph County Public Library's staff in-service day. We had a great time, and I was very impressed with the events the staff committee had planned for the day, the staff in general, and their willingness to explore new ideas. Plus, I got to watch Michael return "home," which was a special pleasure unto itself, and watch him hit some real high notes in the presentation.

Yesterday I received a really nice thank you letter from the SJCPL Staff Day Committee in which they mentioned a few different things they have implemented because of our talk. In addition to the fact that it's letters like these that make it all worthwhile, I want to highlight the fact that SJCPL's Circulation Department is running with the idea of a "no log," except they have taken it the next step and turned the log into a wiki. Why? To let the entire staff easily and efficiently "log service problems and work together toward positive, creative ways to address these issues." The Department even received a special "Rewards & Recognitions" Team Trophy for their proactive approach - like this one - to meeting challenges!

If your library wants to try something like this, you can do it for free using PBWiki. You can even password protect the wiki so that only your staff can see it. It's a great example of a way to learn about some of these new online tools in a "safe" way. (Just remember not to put private patron - or other confidential - data on a third-party site.)

I'm late to the game on these, but I want to make sure I highlight a couple of really great initiatives from incoming, blogging, and Flickring ALA president Leslie Burger (and yes, it still feels good to be able to use all three of those adjectives in regards to the ALA President!). Less than a month to go!

1. "ALA President-Elect Leslie Burger will host a gathering for bloggers in her suite at the Hilton on Saturday June 24th after the Scholarship Bash (starting around 10:30 pm and going until midnight). It will be an informal event, great for networking, unwinding and catching up with bibliobloggers both old and new." [Library Garden] Click on the link to RSVP in the comments or via email!
2. Leslie has also asked me to help publicize her call for stories about libraries transforming their communities (her theme for the year). From her letter:

   "Libraries Transform Communities is the theme I have chosen for my presidential initiative. We know that when libraries are transformed either by new service programs, renovations, or new buildings that the communities they serve are in turn transformed. Part of the initiative is to create a Transformation Tool Kit, which will have tips and ideas for how to transform your library, and stories from libraries that have been transformed.

   This is where I need your help, send in your transformation stories and photographs. Explain briefly how your library been changed? How have your library users and community been transformed? The stories and photographs that you submit will be featured on my website, http://lb.princetonlibrary.org.

   Send all materials to Romina Gutierrez at rgutierrez@princetonlibrary.org as soon as possible.

   I hope you share your transformation stories with me and with the library community!"

I'll be in New Orleans for this month's ALA Conference (conference wiki here), and I hope to blog quite a bit from it, including from some of Leslie's events.