CIL Tuesday

Attending the Computers in Libraries Conference here in Arlington has really gotten me reved--there is so much we can and should be doing to incorporated social networking software or Web 2.0 in pushing information to our users. We have 16 folks here from ECU, including six colleagues from Laupus and I think it has been a great learning experience for many of us. Whenever I meet people after a session, the usual reaction is excitement and let's try to move forward with using what we have learned, and I think we will.

The Keynote speaker for Tuesday was Andy Corvin—who is in charge of the Web 2.0 for PBS—his theme was the democratization of the news with the expansion and use of the social networking software. The BBC, PBS, Reuters, et al have begun to let audience make the news, or as Jay Roren says the “People formerly known as the audience.” For more of what Andy has to say see: http://www.andycarvin.com/

Helen Bowers, technology director for PLCMC, has developed for a program called Learning 2.0—a nine week program in which all of the library staff, including the cleaning staff, was encouraged to learn how to use the social networking software like RSS feeds, wikipedia, FLIKR. The had nearly 70% of the staff start the program & more than 42% finish the program. Everyone who finished the program received an MP3 player—the justification was that one of the things that they wanted to teach was how to download audio books onto an MP3 player so that they could demo it to their users. The program is free & available to download and copy, and I am really hoping that we will do this here at Joyner—I can not wait to learn how to use these cool tools. Far & away for me the best session for the day. http://library2.0.alablog.org/blog/_archives/2006/5/30/1993696.html

Another fun packed and interesting session was Sephen M. Cohen’s session on RSS feeds—a library consultant who has really incorporated RSS feeds into his daily life and work. http://www.librarystuff.net/He gave a list of his top favorites tools and sites, including:· Internet Archive· Snapper· Browster· Bugmenot· TinyURL· Libworm· Sitebytes· Missing-Auction· Meebo· OpenCongress· PBwiki· Google Reader· Page2RSS. He also mentioned the University of Oklahoma catalog which has integrated RSS into their catalog—which he thinks is very effective.

I finished the day listening to David King, Digital Branch & Services Manager, Topeka Shawnee county Public Library talk about “Guiding Libraries & Info Pros Through Change.” Nothing earth shattering as far as I was concerned, but it did give you pause once again to think about the changes we are going through here at Joyner. I am more and more convinced that we have chosen the right path with Revisioning.