Infotoday Blog

See You Next Year

Don Hawkins — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:43:19 +0000

IL 2009 is now history. We learned a lot, enjoyed networking with our colleagues, and making new friends. Be sure to mark your calendars now, while you are thinking about it, and plan to attend IL 2010. Signing off on behalf of the entire Il 2009 blog team and all the other bloggers that were with [...]

Mobile Gadgets

Marydee Ojala — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 23:34:38 +0000

The closing session featured a Bluff the Internet Librarian game, modeled on NPR’s Wait Wait don’t tell me. Aaron Schmidt introduces game host Jenny Levine. The panel is Megan Fox, Barbara Fullerton, and Joe Murphy. Each panelists tells a story about a new gadget and the librarian has to decide which is true and which [...]

Drupal For Libraries

Don Hawkins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:06:01 +0000

Drupal is a popular open source content management system for websites that is being used for a wide variety of applications. In the library world, it has been used for Intranets and even public websites. Angela Boyd and Karen Coombs talked about some of their experiences with Drupal. Angela described Project Drupal at the University of California Santa [...]

Mashups For Libraries

Don Hawkins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:29:30 +0000

Nicole Engard, author of Library Mashups: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Library Data (published by ITI), reviewed the current state of the art and showed us some great examples of mashups, and even did a live demonstration to create one. One of her favorite sites is ProgrammableWeb, which has lots of mashup examples. Nicole’s reasons to [...]

Library 101 Launches

Marydee Ojala — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:27:23 +0000

The Connecting Through Lights, Cameras & Action session started with Allen County (Fort Wayne, Indiana) public library’s Sean Robinson showing a video he made, called Vade Mecum, about a woman becoming engrossed in a book by Amy Tan. It has a happy ending. Next up is Michael Porter and David Lee King showing their Library 101 [...]

Open Access Alternatives to A&I Databases

Paula Hane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:24:25 +0000

How to function in tough times was certainly a major theme at the conference. And the ideas and tips from many presenters were well received by the many librarians struggling to cope with tighter budgets and restrictions of all kinds. Peter Jasco, a well-known expert reviewer of abstracting and indexing databases gave his suggestions for [...]

Rockin’ Battle Decks: Dealing With Digital, Now and Beyond

Don Hawkins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:05:53 +0000

Tuesday night was the first ever Internet Librarian “Battle Decks Spectacular”, and it drew a large crowd. This was a contest in which 5 contestants had 7.5 minutes to give a presentation live and in real time based on 15 slides they saw for the first time. They were judged on these criteria: The contest requires [...]

Tools for Tough Times

Paula Hane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:34:02 +0000

Usage is up and funding is down. How to cope? The dynamic duo of Frank Cervone and Darlene Fichter offered some great suggestions. Here’s a brief summary. Darlene says one of your super heroes in tough times is your web presence—your virtual presence matters more than ever, and it often doesn’t take much investment. Bump up your [...]

Making a Case for Tech During Tough Times

Paula Hane — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:28:32 +0000

An impressive group of movers and shakers from the California library world were on a panel on how to make a best case for boosting technology efforts during tough economic times. These are clearly unprecedented times—we’re all having to do more with less. It’s often not just a director that is needed for approval of new [...]

Growing & Grown-up Digital

Marydee Ojala — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:48:44 +0000

Stephen Abram explains this panel of high school students and community college students. He asks, for ethical reasons, that bloggers and Twitterers not mention the students’ names. First question, what was the last music you listened to and on what device? Answers are pretty wide-ranging, lots of different types of music and devices go from record [...]