LITACamp09 Keynote: Joan Frye Williams
“You guys have been doing information hookups. Don’t you feel cheap?”
–Joan Frye Williams
LITA Camp gets off to a good start with a introductory keynote for library futurist Joan Frye Williams. Technology always runs the risk of being alienating, and social media hopefully provides the opportunity to address this issue. But because this stuff is so easy to use, it can also call attention to the walls we create in the library meatspace.
A brilliant illustration of the power of the personal connection emerged from an exercise Williams led, of which you can see the video below:
Contrasting this exercise with our standard “read X resource for Y piece of information” transaction raises a number of questions. We call ourselves professionals, yet we’re reluctant to give out our names. (Would you go to a doctor who doesn’t give out their name?) We’re beholden to building up our numbers for reference transactions, but we don’t really have metrics for the relationships we build. How do we address this? Can we make all of our spaces more personal - and improve our profession in the process?
Williams certainly seems to think so. But to do so, we’ll have to go long. The recession gives us a unique opportunity to accomplish this, as it can make those who are more wary of change a little more receptive to new possibilities.
View Williams’ slides in PPT.
Notes after the jump. My commentary is in italics.