ALA TechSource Blog

Private Parts?

Kate Sheehan — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:30:08 -0700

2008 has been my introduction to ALA’s conferences. Philadelphia, PA was my first mid-winter, Anaheim (“it’s a dry heat”), CA my first annual. The size of the conference made for difficult decisions, including pitting LITA’s “Top Tech Trends” against OIF’s “Privacy: Is it Time for a Revolution?” I chose celebrity over friendship and went to gawk at Cory Doctorow.

Once there, I cheerfully sat at the blogger’s table, not realizing it was an “official” position and not just a table with a power strip (thanks to Jessamyn and Jenny for letting me crash). My front row seat afforded me a close view of the passion the panelists clearly felt for their subject. Dan Roth, senior writer for Wired, Beth Givens, founder and director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and Cory Doctorow, author and Internet celebrity were vibrant and engaging speakers.

Librarians have always been committed to privacy within the context (and walls) of libraries. The global perspective offered by this session confirms my suspicion that library conferences should feature more non-library speakers - and I don’t mean more authors to reminisce about their warm fuzzy feelings for their childhood libraries.

Each speaker offered a barrage of startling and depressing quotes and statistics on the worldwide state of privacy today. The situation is bleak. As any librarian knows, most people don’t think about privacy. We’ve all encountered surprise when we inform a patron that we don’t keep a record of everything they’ve ever checked out or even outrage when we won’t disclose the titles a spouse or child has checked out. We may pride ourselves on our commitment to privacy, but we’re not doing a good job of selling the value of that commitment to our patrons.

Even when we acquiesce to popular demand, it can backfire in unexpected ways. At a former place of work, I happily turned on an OPAC feature that allowed patrons to opt in to save their reading history. Most patrons were thrilled, but many were unhappy that it did not retroactively recreate a list of everything they had ever checked out (which would have been a neat trick, since that data didn’t exist). Many more were displeased that it was data only they could access- it didn’t live in the library side of our ILS, only in the patron’s. “I’m protecting your privacy” doesn’t go over well as an answer to “but why can’t you just look it up for me!?”

Doctorow exhorted librarians to demand just such “zero knowledge solutions” from our vendors. Libraries are in a tough spot. We want to engage our users online, we want to have social features on our websites and we want to offer the best service we can, but we don’t want to be invasive or paternalistic. And for the most part, we have to negotiate with our vendors to meet those needs.

Education (for patrons, vendors and librarians) about these issues is clearly of paramount importance. Dan Roth offered a hopeful analogy to the green movement. Several years ago, when environmental concerns came up, businesses and many consumers didn’t care, but now companies use green to be competitive. Privacy could follow in the environment’s footsteps. Roth also called this time a “golden age” for privacy, since businesses are collecting an appalling amount of data about their customers, but don’t know what to do with it. We may be on the brink, but we can still step away safely.

Should libraries be responsible for that education? Can we push our users to contemplate privacy issues and hold ourselves to a high standard? Beth Givens’s Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, offers resources for educating consumers and helping them manage their privacy, all easy enough to pass along to patrons. However, Doctorow proclaimed that “libraries have a moral duty to boycott technologies that invade their patron’s privacy” but he also pointed out that libraries are the last bastions of DRM materials that are very invasive. Should we drop anything with DRM attached?

This type of dilemma isn’t new for libraries. When Open Office came along, some libraries were able to switch all of their public terminals to Open Office and drop at least a few Microsoft products. For other libraries, that wasn’t realistic. How can we as individual organizations and as an industry balance our user’s needs and desires with our own obligations to ideals like intellectual freedom and privacy?

The suggestions offered by the panel ranged from the soft sell: online games that reward privacy rather than demand information, to the startling: a robot that grabs unencrypted passwords as they’re transmitted on a network, rolls up to the owner of those passwords and shows them everything they’ve unintentionally revealed.

Libraries have an obvious self-interest in educating their users about these issues. We are one of the few organizations in people’s lives that adhere to a standard for privacy. If we want to be seen as ahead of the curve rather than hopelessly behind it, informed users are the path to an improved image.

Our patrons have a vested interest here too (as do we as individuals). Roth pointed out that companies collect far less information from their European and Canadian customers because the EU and Canada have strong privacy laws. It would be more cost-effective to treat American customers in the same way, but companies go out of their way to collect more information about U.S. customers. There’s clearly a benefit to corporations but what is the benefit to the citizenry?

Libraries have given up a lot to protect privacy. As we start to offer things like reading histories and as we engage our users online and off, we are learning to use the data we have access to in careful, considered ways. All of that work will be meaningless in a larger social milieu that doesn’t value privacy.

The panelists exhorted librarians to lead the charge in the privacy wars; not just in our own institutions. Should we heed their call?

The ALA Annual Tweet-Report

Michael Stephens — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:28:14 -0700

First up, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Folks at ALA 2008 in Anaheim, California were all “A-Twitter!” Of course there was also much Flickring, texting, blogging, IMing and any other 2.0-ish, social-networkey “ing” you can name going on as well. Twitter, however, seemed to be on everyone's mind and at many people's fingertips -- amongst what I heard referred to as the Twitterati.

And, I must confess: I thoroughly enjoyed participating in the ALA Annual 2008 Twitterverse that sprang up for those few days in late June. It fascinated me to see the power of such a simple and, yes, overburdened, tool. Micro-blogging has found a place amongst LIS workers and even through outages and downtime, the tweets from ALA marched on. “I credit Twitter for helping make this my best ALA yet. More connected. Too many people to see, places to be, but I read tweets,” responded Brenda Hough to my tweeted requests for “interviews” for this post. The call via Twitter and at TTW prompted many useful, hilarious and telling responses. Others helped out via comments at TTW and in personal email.

Looking at the tweets and responses, patterns emerge of how the tool was used and how people responded to it. The functions of Twitter at a conference such as ALA include:

Reporting on Sessions:

Matthew Hamilton, Marketing and Promotions Coordinator at the University of Colorado noted: "I liked using Twitter to see what other folks were doing and enjoying at the conference, but my FAVORITE moment was when Joe Janes said "there are probably folks twittering right now" while I was mid-tweet!”

Others agreed. Rochelle tweeted: “Twitter kept me in touch with my group of friends & colleagues and was able to know whether a workshop was good, crowded, etc.”

Kenley Neufeld, Library Director at Santa Barbara City College, utilized Summize for search and Tweetscan for search and RSS as well as Hahlo on his iPhone and Twirl on his laptop played the role of citizen journalist. “For the Science Fiction Panel, I pulled quotes from the speakers, such as Doctorow, and put them on Twitter - maybe about a dozen. This allowed those who could not attend "hear" some of the nuggets. After, I heard from a couple folks who really appreciated this because they couldn't be there.” One of his favorite tweets? “Doctorow: 'If we allow copyright to govern our decision making process about our knowledge society our descendants will curse us.'"

For some, Twitter was the mechanism for straightforward, from the hip commentary on sessions. Gina Persichini chided an ultra-prepared with a question audience member.

Other folks enjoyed the extra layer of participation and commentary: “Being able to twitter during that particular program was like having a simultaneous micro-program going on,” Tony Tallent told me via email about his tweets during a particularly rousing session.

Meeting Up & Making Plans:

I did some of this myself, announcing via Twiiter that I was at Booth 2828 at the LIS education pavillion. I was curious to see who might be following and find their way to me to say hi. A few minutes later, Jezzmyne appeared to say hi!

Others reported launching impromptu dinner gatherings, trips to Disneyland and meet ups via the Twitter site.

Aaron Dobbs reported the ease of meeting up as well as the feeling of tweet overload: “The question "Where am I likeliest to run into my tweeps?" helped me catch up with several people I might have otherwise completely missed,” he said. “Being inundated by the tweet txt flood was a bit much at times (and I forgot to switch to "unlimited" for the week, ouch) but all in all a handy way to keep up with my people.”

Commentary & Transparency:

Tweets emerged from meetings and the exhibit hall as well. Helene Blowers passed through the exhibits and observed that some ILS vendors weren't very busy, while David Lee King reported from his “first ever committee meeting” receiving twitter help from Jenny Levine about conference schedules. He also noted that at one point the LITA National Forum group voted to use new technology, prompting Twitter observer Jill Hurst-Wahl to wryly tweet: “Voting to use technology....seems so last century."

Following from Afar:

It wasn’t just folks at the conference, but libraryland watched the tweeted events of ALA from afar. “Don't forget the effect for those of us who aren't there but who are following a bunch of you who are,” said Candy Scwartz, Professor at Simmons GSLIS. “I love "seeing" two of my friends hooking up with each other for lunch, or getting blow-by-blows of events. I also love how it gets suddenly quiet at around midnight Boston time.” Amy Rasmussen agreed: “I am not there, but I have LOVED reading the tweets about ALA conference: networking, session info, etc. I will be at ALA next year, and I can't wait! Reading the Twitter comments has made me very excited.” El i Neuberger concurred : “ALA tweets let me keep up with what was going on and being talked about at Annual even though I couldn't attend this year.”

Iris Shreve Garrott from McCracken County Public Library said “ I could follow along with the fun and work for all those lucky enough to be in Anaheim... of course Flickr helped too...Not that I joined in, but that I could eavesdrop to find out what to read more about via the details or links included.”

Katie Bunker reported: “I'm fairly new to Twitter and follow a few US library-Twitters. Although I wasn't there- I loved the Twitters about sessions, hotels, feelings- it connected me in some small way (and I don't think I would have got ANY of that any other way) Loved the immediacy of it.” Australian Kathryn Greenhill echoed the sentiment: “Also great to get a sense of speakers and thinkers who are worth following up later. I used to read live blog posts after conferences, but I usually find that the twitter coverage, as an aggregation from a few people, covers the same ground.”

Finding New Ideas:

Candy Schwartz also reported: “I am getting well informed on things YALSA, even though that's not one of my interests. So ALA Twitter is exposing me to other specializations (wish someone would Twitter the ones I AM interested in).” Toby Greenwalt discovered a way to experience the essence of the conference, its spirit if you will: “I like the idea of having an instant zeitgeist to tap into. it works for finding new ideas, and getting answers.”

Simply Fun Observations & Connections

Many folks tweeted their fun, silly and ironic observations of the conference. There were almost too many to choose from, from comments on meeting room temperature, food and drink, exciting or dull as dirt programs, Disneyland attractions, Anaheim transportation options, and reports of the effect of the 23,000+ attendance on the city, including the insights of David Lee King's cabbie.

It will be very interesting to see how Twitter, Friendfeed and other aggregating micro-blogging applications impact our future conferences. I see great potential for these apps. I will certainly advocate for more reporting, more wry observation, playing nice and much more fun for sure. Thanks to all who contributed to this lengthy and link heavy post!

Illustrations:

Craig Anderson: http://twitter.com/LibraryGuy/statuses/847107513

Jill Hurst-Wahl: http://twitter.com/Jill_HW/statuses/846962598

Tony Tallent: http://twitter.com/yestoknow/statuses/845780161

David Lee King: http://twitter.com/davidleeking/statuses/847720144

Helene Blowers: http://twitter.com/hblowers/statuses/845791491

Gina Persichini: http://twitter.com/GinaMLS/statuses/847094724

Best in Show(case)

Cindi Trainor — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:00:41 -0700

The adage, of course, is that a picture is worth a thousand words. What picture could sum up the best of ALA 2008 for me? After combing through the more than 1,400 photos I took at sessions, on the exhibit floor and inside and outside the hotels and convention center in Anaheim, one moment stood out for me: the BIGWIG Social Software Showcase. You'll notice I'm even in this photo, which means, of course, that I didn't take it--Tech Source editor Patrick Hogan was on hand for the session and was kind enough to snap us goofing around together afterwards. Read on to see why this photo encapsulates the best of ALA '08 for me.

At this year's American Library Association Annual meeting, I attended several LITA programs, met up with (and took lots of pictures of!) friends from libraries of all types, made some new friends and connections, and spent some time in the exhibits scouting for new ideas and interesting photos. What I've come back to time and again is that what makes a conference remarkable for me is making connections with other people and learning their stories. I did attend several panel sessions, at which I gleaned several ideas and generally had a nice time, but the un-conference approach to the Social Software Showcase (and to a lesser extent, the experimental technology used in the Top Tech Trends panel) went well past the "sage on the stage" approach to sharing and learning about technology. The presentations that were made available before the conference were meant to be introductions; the informal discussions that took place at the Showcase were conversations during which everyone's experiences and questions were welcome.

I wanted to highlight this program, which got a good writeup on Library Journal's LJ Insider blog recently, because it's done a bit differently, and it's not about the shiny bits, it's about people, and it's about change. Can you feel it? If you attended the BIGWIG session, what did you get out of it? Would you attend other library conference sessions set up this way? What about an entire (un-)conference, where the topics discussed are chosen after the participants show up?

Confessions of a First-Time Exhibitor

Tom Peters — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 10:55:27 -0700

After attending 20 ALA Annual Conferences (Dallas, New Orleans, Atlanta, NYC, shaky LA, Chicago...) as a rank-and-file librarian, I arrived in Anaheim late last month as a first-time exhibitor. It was an interesting experience, to put it mildly. I opted to start with a regular 10 x 10 booth exhibit, rather than a table. Because it was all new to me, I had to learn about costs, conference service providers, and generally how not to make a fool of myself. I think I succeeded, but I have my doubts.

I ordered a single Internet line into my booth, which cost me more than I ever have paid in a year for a DSL connection (from AT&T, no less) or my current satellite Internet connection from Wild Blue. That's right--for three and a half days (28 hours, really) of Internet connectivity in my booth, I paid more than my usual annual cost of a good Internet connection at my home-based business. The connection worked quite well, I have to admit. I was able to demo the online stuff I was vending (I won't mention the names of the products...this isn't an infomercial), check my email during the "trances in the blast," and even upload some video files. There was a general problem with the Internet connection in the exhibit halls during the first half hour that the exhibits were open on the third or fourth day (I forget which), but the folks from Smart City quickly fixed it.

Everything about exhibiting at a major conference like this was surprisingly expensive. The two chairs that I rented for 3 and a half days could have been purchased in the Midwest for less. Maybe next time I'll bring my own portable lawn chairs, but then the airline will charge me for excessive baggage.

People warned me about the rigors of exhibiting at ALA. They said my feet and legs would become sore. I mentally scoffed. The training webinar for exhibitors, which was very informative, cautioned against the negative impact of sitting in a booth. To be open to interacting with people walking by your booth, you need to be standing. Because I operate a one-person company (and one dog, if we count Max), I planned to be a solo exhibitor, which meant I was going to be standing there most of those 28 hours. Well, my feet and legs became extremely sore. On the final morning of the exhibits I would "sneak a sit" during the lulls in the traffic.

As an exhibitor, all I really wanted to do was talk to conference attendees about my products, and demo the products to them. The first hurdle to overcome is establishing eye contact. Many librarians in the exhibits seem to avoid looking at the exhibitors. As I stood there (on increasingly sore feet) thinking about this, it dawned on me that I did the same thing for 20 years as I made my way through the exhibit halls. My goal was to learn about new products, services, and trends, without really talking much to the exhitors, unless I initiated the conversation. Avoiding eye contact is a great way to avoid a conversation.

If you stand still in one place for a considerable period of time, you begin to notice things that you don't notice when you are moving. Maybe that's why sharks are so dumb. Lots of interesting people walk by over the course of a day. There were some fantastic outfits and hats. One woman walked by dressed as what I assumed was Little Bo Peep. She may have been on her way to some vendor gig. Anyway, she was a large-boned young woman, so, truth to tell, she was Big Bo Peep.

Speaking of big, Kareem Abdul Jabbar walked up and down our aisle several times on his way to and from signing copies of his new book. He didn't establish eye contact with me, either, although I think he had his own reasons, learned long ago during his playing days, for avoiding eye contact with his fans.

The strangest character I encountered, however, was a guy in a monkey suit who was helping promote the products at the IBISworld exhibit in the next aisle over. That suit must have been hot, because every hour or so the monkey guy need to be escorted to an outdoor area for some fresh air. One morning I spotted him alone and untended in the open-air food court, with his monkey head lifted just enough to let in some fresh air. I asked him if I could make a video interview of him with my Flip video camera. He replied (in a nice tone) that I would need to ask the manager of the IBISworld exhibit. So I did ask Harvey from IBISworld, who readily consented to an interview.

I captured the interview in two parts (three really, but consider this the director's cut) and uploaded Part 2 and Part 3 to YouTube. The next time I exhibit, I may hire Go Bananas to help out. With his monkey head on, there's no possibility of establishing eye contact.

Reflecting on Annual

Daniel A. Freeman — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 08:58:07 -0700

Now that we’ve all recovered from the conference and our California suntans have faded away, we’re ready to share our conference experience with the rest of the world.

The 2008 ALA Annual Conference was a huge success. Attendance was excellent, the programming was outstanding and the technology available to members was unprecedented.

In the coming weeks we’ll be taking a look back at the conference as our bloggers reflect on what they saw and learned. We’ll also be posting links to some of the presentations, audio, video and photos from the conference, so if you weren’t able to make it, you can still get a taste of what you missed.

American Tech Idol

Tom Peters — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:07:38 -0700

Remember David Cook? He was the guy who won the American Idol competition last month. Throughout the merry month of May the citizens of Beautiful Blue Springs, Missouri were all a-twitter (in the pre-Twitter sense of a-twitter) about David Cook's candidacy, because he is a graduate of Blue Springs South High School. Most of the local businesses had "Vote for David" signs prominently displayed, and several local charities were auctioning off David Cook memorabilia even as the memories were forming.

Until May I was a denizen of Blue Springs myself, when, in a move totally unrelated to the David Cook craze, I pulled up stakes and moved east a few miles out into the country on the eastern slope of Monkey Mountain. It was surreal watching a national TV phenomenon play out locally. Even some of my local BBQ haunts jumped on the David Cook bandwagon -- or chuckwagon. You couldn't buy a bag of mulch in Blue Springs without being reminded that David Cook was a local lad who had achieved fame.

The craze got me thinking about the nature of fame. Even information technology seems to experience something like an idol syndrome. We have our top tech trends discussions, which draw huge crowds yearning to learn more about the current tech idols.

Some tech trends become idol darlings before they're hatched. For example, it seems to me that for almost a decade now e-books have been striving to live up their premature idol status. The quiet adoption and diffusion of technology throughout a population always has interested me more than the rattle and clang of bleeding edge tech idols. Many technologies never achieve tech idol status yet profoundly affect many lives. Consider the lowly overhead projector. Perhaps I'm too young to remember the idol phase of the overhead projector. By the time I was in grade school in the 1960s it had diffused into almost every classroom.

In libraryland, many technologies and technological developments profoundly influence our services without lots of hoopla. The Plinkit initiative is a multi-state collaborative effort using open-source Plone-based software to create and or substantially improve the websites of small public libraries. A co-recipient of an ASCLA award, the project has received a little attention otherwise and has no hope of achieving tech idol status. When the rage over Library 2.0 concepts is becoming old hat, the idea of quietly helping small libraries imrove their websites is no hat at all. Yet the impact is enormous.

Of course, this idea-- that largely unnoticed activities ultimately may more profoundly affect people's lives than the more publicized events-- is not new. Poets and prose writers have been reminding us of these obscure destinies for years. Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" comes to mind, as well as Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight", with its wonderfully quiet imagery of the "secret ministry" of frost.

Information technology is important, perhaps in ways and channels we cannot completely fathom. Idolatry and fame undoubtedly have their place and role, and I certainly don't begrudge David Cook or any tech trend their 15 minutes of fame. But stay tuned also to the quiet and unseen tech trends.

Where Librarians Are Made?

Cindi Trainor — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:54:50 -0700

What sort of technology would you expect to find in a library school?

University of Kentucky, Lexington.

Anticipating Anaheim

Jason Griffey — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:16:14 -0700

Every year my preparations for going to the ALA Annual conference go through a series of stages. First, the "Oh, I guess I should buy a ticket and find a hotel room" stage, which fades into the "yes, I know it's coming, but there are still weeks to prepare" stage. Then at some point I start getting emails reminding me about this meeting, or that meeting, or I see a note somewhere about a program I really don't want to miss, and amidst all this I think "I should start planning my schedule."

Then, about a week before I leave, I actually try to do it.

This year, I'm over scheduled to the max, but the tools I used to find that out are the interesting part. A few weeks ago, as part of the experimental site YourBIGWIG, I put up a Google Calendar and asked anyone who wanted edit access to just let me know. I added everyone who asked...and we had a complete LITA schedule added to the calendar in hours. Every single program associated with LITA added to the calendar, public, and available for anyone to use to plan their conference (at least as far as LITA is concerned). Take a look at the way it works, then tell me that it wouldn't be great if every ALA division put one of these together. Here is it:

The other brilliant piece of the planning puzzle came via a great suggestion by our very own Cindi Trainor. She was frustrated with the available maps of the conference, as they didn't list a large number of restaurants and other things that might come in handy during our time in Anaheim. So she did something about it in the same sort of way I did the calendar. She turned to Google Maps, created a new map, and asked people to help her fill it in. A day or so later, we had this:

View Larger Map

Which turned out to be as detailed a map as I think you could get of the area as far as where things are that conference-goers need: hotels, convention center, restaurants. You can even click through to Google Earth if you want, and see the high-res satellite imagery so you know exactly how many streets are between you and that Indian restaurant you want to try.

So for those of you looking for some help planning your Anaheim trip, take a look at these two tools. Even if you aren't a LITA member, maybe you want to collaborate with friends to plan your schedules together...Google Cal will easily let you do that. Want to make sure that you can find a breakfast place that's equidistant between your and a friend's hotel? The Google Map will do that. Use these tools to make your visit to ALA Annual a good one. I'll see you there!

YouTube and the Library World

Daniel A. Freeman — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:30:49 -0700

Earlier this week, some of our colleagues at Booklist became Internet celebrities when the video “Booklist Editors Read for Fun 2007” became a spotlight video on YouTube.

This video got me thinking about how YouTube has the potential to be a powerful vehicle for Reader’s Advisory and for library services in general. As it turns out, libraries all over the country are way ahead of me, and are already using YouTube to post book reviews, book discussions and even guides to Reader’s Advisory.

The Lagrange Public Library in suburban Chicago has teamed up with their local High School’s public access channel and filmed book talks that are broadcast on local television and available on YouTube.

Meanwhile, the Arapahoe Library District in Colorado has set up ALD Live, where users can view book and movies reviews on YouTube directly from their website. Videos like this one give the library a great way to promote reading and the library itself using video without paying a cent in advertising fees.

YouTube is a tremendously useful 2.0 tool for libraries. It provides a means for promotion, a forum for discussion and is a cutting-edge way to expand the reach of the library. It seems likely that what we see here is just the beginning of an exciting new trend.

On the Information Experience: An ALA TechSource Conversation with John Blyberg

Michael Stephens — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:24:37 -0700

I find myself returning to John Blyberg’s post “Library 2.0 Debased” of a few months back. Last semester was busy: classes to prep, teaching in St. Paul as part of Dominican’s partnership with the College of St. Katharine, and speaking engagements here and there. I dashed off a quick TTW post, pointing to John’s words, and stating:

I applaud John for articulating so many of the thoughts I’ve been mulling over of late: has L2 been co-opted by vendors? Is talking about “cool technologies” used in the library a solution to all of our problems - the be all end all? Or is it more of a cultural and ecological shift in philosophy, planning and engagement?

John said some pretty amazing, and frank things: Second Life does sometimes seem weird, empty and a little scary. Throwing a wiki (or a blog or a meebo box or whatever the flavor of the day may be) at your users and congratulating yourself on how “2.0” you are is well and good, but I’ve come to realize of late that if a change in library services, technology-based or otherwise, isn’t well grounded in our core values and mission, it just looks funny. I am all for libraries being technology leaders and for offering access to emerging technologies and delivery methods, I am also eager to see what the true library innovators will do next. What’s next for the outstanding libraries many of us follow across the US and around the world? What models will Darien Library create for staffing, workflow and (gasp) reference as they gear up for their new building? (Disclaimer: John works there, the folks at Darien Library know exactly what they are doing!)

What I really appreciated in John’s “debased” post was this:

So we need to understand that, while it’s alright to tip the balance and fail occasionally, we’re more likely to do so if we’re arbitrarily introducing technology that isn’t properly integrated into our overarching information framework. Of course, that means we have to have a working framework to begin with that compliments and adheres to our tradition of solid, proven librarianship. In other words, when we use technology, it should be transparent, intuitive, and a natural extension of the patron experience. If it can’t be transparent, then it should be so overwhelmingly beneficial to the user that it is canonized not by the techies, but the users themselves.

That’s the key: the foundations of librarianship meets emerging technologies. “Oh, Dewey would just die,” some folks might have said about what Marshall Shore and the great folks at Maricopa county library did with their BISAC experiment. Would he really? Or would Mr. Dewey acknowledge that users have changed and his system should probably change as well. Also, the users should be creating the new library landscape. Last month, in chatting with Cliff Landis, we agreed that library Facebook pages "fanned" by 30 or 40 librarians is not a good way to gauge success. The users, as John so eloquently points out, should be the ones guiding the popularity of a particular tool, service or extension of library service.

It's been a long time since I chatted with John Blyberg here at TechSource, so I thought I’d give John a good 'ol friendly virtual shout out and see if he’d want to talk about this further:

JB: Thanks for the shout-out Michael. You said an interesting thing: “I’ve come to realize of late that if a change in library services, technology-based or otherwise, isn’t well grounded in our core values and mission, it just looks funny.” I posed a question to some of our peers on Twitter a few weeks back to the effect of, “how do we measure success in the library?” Certainly, traditional metrics give us a frank indication of use, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the fulfillment of our mission. If it did, really successful libraries would be little more than fee-less hybrids of Blockbuster and Borders.

Most of us agree that we’re charged with a deeper significance that goes beyond the distribution of popular materials and the provision of internet access. That’s because we exist within the context of the communities we serve. The difference now, as opposed to even five years ago, is that we also operate within a global context that empowers us to quickly recall data and assemble it into our own personal nebulae. In other words, information use has become an expression of self--that’s not something libraries ever accounted for. When I talk about this, I refer to it as the “information experience” because, for the growing number of us who participate in the hive, we build our own network of information and interaction that accompanies us through our lives. We literally construct highly-personalized information frameworks and place a huge amount of personal reliance upon them. Ten years ago, this wasn’t the case.

Libraries are ill-equipped to respond to this--we weren’t built for it. Most librarians are not technologists; we’re saddled with integrated library systems that force us to into outmoded business processes; long-tailers like Netflix and Amazon underscore our inability to develop effective distribution channels; and DRM has effectively shut us out of an emerging and potentially huge media market.

Library 2.0 is our attempt to redress librarianship for this new ecosystem by doing real work. We can debate the semantic merits of the term all we want, but it won’t change the inevitability of things like the Open Source ILS, the emergence of collaborative reference platforms, or the fact that people like Marshall Shore have the courage to buck the establishment in favor of finding a better way to serve users. You don’t take that kind of risk if you’re feeling ambivalent toward libraries. It takes a deep-seeded passion and love for the industry to put your career on the line like that.

I’m interested to know what library students are feeling about these changes. Typically, schools run a few years behind trends like this, but you’re out there on the bleeding edge. What kind of response are you getting from your students? Are they concerned, excited, apprehensive about what they’ll find, post-graduation? Are library students passionate?

MS: John, many are passionate - passionate about making a difference in their chosen career, passionate about embracing the next thing to see how it stacks up as a service enhancer or extension of the library, and of course passionate about libraries in general. The folks drawn to the field each bring a unique perspective of the how and the why they found their way to librarianship. Some are there because they love technology, others are there because they love the printed word. I think most are excited to get through the program and get their first professional position or promotion.

I’m lucky that I get a class each semester of brand new students for the Intro course. We can discuss these changes in the profession and I take every chance I get to say “Look, the social OPAC is just an extension of what we’ve been doing a long time but in a new way and in ways that our users have come to expect.”

One interesting thing is the fact that our classes at Dominican are made up of folks returning to school after a few years or more in the workforce and those coming right from their undergrad degrees. So we get all levels of experience in the same room for discussion and maybe even some debate. This is good because these people will graduate and find themselves in a similar work situation. I have one student in a class this semester who spent a few years working in corporate IT - she’s shared some wonderful insights and stories.

The most interesting thing is when someone in my intro class or even later on in the tech classes I teach realizes -- and maybe even says it aloud or blogs it -- that where the profession is going is not what he or she ever imagined. When I went through the IU program back in the early 90s, I felt the same way as the Internet was appearing in our library and things started moving so quickly.

My thought then, to return to your first point, is how do we measure the success of our teaching in LIS? Sure, I grade papers and correct grammar and note how students have improved their critical thinking, but isn’t it more important to set the stage for these folks to be curious explorers, not timid about dealing with change, and absolutely ready to integrate themselves into the “information experience” of the users they will serve? And in fact, help create that experience in some ways, enhance it and encourage it. The skill set required for creating an info experience seems much different than those two semesters of cataloging some schools mandate. For me, library services in the 21st Century will focus on designing environments for engagement and exploration, for satisfying needs, wants and those "I didn't know I needed that" discoveries while carefully planning for and using technology.

JB: That’s exactly right, I think. The mechanics of making a library run can be understood by just about anyone who is interested enough to learn. The art of making a library successful is a different quality altogether. What you’re doing is teaching your students how to learn, and one of the ways you’re doing that is by giving them the knowledge needed to navigate the Internet and a fundamental understanding of the relationship between all the various technological components that drift onto and off of our palate. And honestly, when we look at what is at our disposal, it becomes apparent that all the pieces are just raw materials waiting to be assembled into whatever form we can imagine.

Here at the Darien Library, we’re big fans of Danny Meyer, the successful restauranteur and author of Setting the Table. One of the many great take-aways from his book is his notion of the 51% employee. He writes that every position he hires can be split 49% by 51%. The 49% represents the skills necessary to do the job--etiquette, procedure, etc. The conspicuous 51% is hospitality and an intrinsic desire to serve other people and make them feel good about themselves. The 51%ers take pride in the fact that they help provide a fulfilling experience to someone. I think it takes a 51%er to step out beyond the boundary of what is comfortable and imagine a different type of library that engages patrons collaboratively.

It’s true that we are the voice of authoritative knowledge, but we can package that in ways that are not so paternalistic and present ourselves as partners in discovery. None of this requires technology, but technology has become the nexus of collaboration. It certainly enables us to retrieve, compile, and share information much more efficiently and rapidly. I think librarians are struggling to understand how it all fits together and many are just looking for the handbook that tells them how to do it. Nothing like that exists, of course and our success, ultimately, comes down to what our philosophy on the dissemination of knowledge is in this digital era.