The social anthropologist in maintains the belief that community develops one step at a time. What steps are you taking to establish the library within your core population? My talk at ALA focused on the what we’ve been able to accomplish with our public at MPOW; I’d love to hear what else all of you have done. Please leave notes, stories and suggestions in the comments.

Here are the slides from my portion of Sunday’s panel. If you go full-screen, you can see my  (somewhat vague) notes on the whole spiel.

I wasn’t originally going to go to ALA this year. I feel like it’s easy to get tunnel vision from hearing only the library’s perspective time and again. Since MPOW’s travel budget is relatively limited, I figured I’d let other staff members get the opportunity to check it out.

But then 2 things happened: fewer people than normal expressed a desire to attend this year (a phenomenon likely attributed to PLA); and I got an invitation from David Lee King to join his panel on Designing Digital Experiences. I certainly wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to present alongside David, Bobbi Newman, and John Blyberg. I’ll gladly be the weak link in that chain. Hopefully I’ll see you all there on Sunday, from 10:30-noon.

But I’m keeping my “official” ALA schedule somewhat open. I’m going to look at a number of new products, drop in on a few workshops, and share meals with a number of friends, colleagues, and people I’ve been dying to meet.

I’m also going to be drumming up interest in Crave Libraries, a new semi-secret project I’m brewing up with Daniel Nguyen. (A debt of gratitude is also owed to Jason Kucsma, who coined the phrase and has graciously allowed us to run with it. Jason, look me up at ALA, as I owe you a cup of coffee at the very least.) We’re playing a few things close to the vest for the moment, but if you can track me down at the conference I might give you some buttons like the two above.

If you’d like to get in touch with me, the best way to do so is probably via Twitter. Any @ or D message will ping at least 3 places, so it should be pretty easy to track me down. Hope to see everyone there!

What are the key concepts for libraries in the near future? I’ve boiled it down to the following 6 concepts:

• Consolidation – Using APIs and open access to push data into the stream, and making it easier for patrons to use our resources
• The Cloud – Ubiquitous access and synchronous editing changing the way people are learn and work
• Compression – Devices getting smaller, smarter, and more powerful provide us with more opportunities for service at point-of-need
• Control - Gesture-based interfaces offering a whole new way of examining and manipulating data
• Copyright - Digital distribution models will bring publishers to our door closer than we think
• Creation – Our responsibility toward curating user-generated content, and fostering healthy discourse through media

Please view the slides in fullscreen to see my crib notes. What do you think the technological game-changers will be?

Here are the slides, if you’re into that sort of thing:

Was there a handout, you say? Was there. (PDF) I’ve also made a list of all the relevant links on my Delicious page.

All in all, I think it was a pretty successful program. Lynn Dennis from Roselle Public Library discussed the ins and outs of her library’s Ning network, which has managed to weather the initial burst of enthusiasm and become a site with a core user base and real longevity.
Jonathan Bullington and Katie Cousino from Triblocal helped to highlight ways libraries can leverage hyperlocal media to raise their profile and identify new community stakeholders.
And Bill Pardue of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library wrapped things up with his thoughts on “predatory reference,” taking a more active stance in pursuing reference service beyond the walls of the library.

It also marked my first attempt to do a talk using Prezi, the nifty Flash-based presentation software. In addition to looking nice (looking at all the slides at once – click the circle below to see the birdseye view – looks almost like certain Andy Goldsworthy pieces), I found the design and navigation interface to be fairly easy to use. Check it out below.

Because it’s true. Like Soylent Green, it’s the individuals within the institution that make it great. A big part of my job is harnessing these online resources to bring that same level of personality online. I’m hoping these slides serve as an crash course in many of the tricks of the trade.

Be sure to click on the links in the presentation for other relevant resources. And please share your strategies for organizational identity management in the comments.

The handout for the presentation can also be found here. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions after the fact.

These slides have seen a lot of mileage – my co-worker also used them for a public class. Twitter gets around.

Clearly, it’s something on the minds of quite a few people, as we went for far longer than the alotted 5-minute lightning talk. Maybe we could call it a thunderstorm talk!

“This is an unconference. We can do whatever we want.”

–Mark Beatty

So I’ve traveled deep into the belly of the beast (the OCLC conference center in Dublin, OH) for the inaugural LITA unconfrence. Working under the theme of “The Everywhere Library,” we’ve assembled to share what we know and (hopefully) push the state of library technology forward. I’ll be posting my notes here over the next couple of days, with additional bits of context and commentary as events warrant. If you have any questions, or anything you’d like me to ask about, please post a comment here.

You can keep track of #litacamp09 activities on Twitter, and also check out the Camp wiki for more information.

Presented at the Reaching Forward conference, May 1st 2009. Many thanks to all who attended, and to everyone on the conference planning committee for inviting me to participate.

In the interest of keeping things paper-free, I’ve posted the handout here. Please right-click save-as to enjoy.