Will you be attending Internet Librarian International in London next month? There are some cool workshops, including one taught by Michael Casey and I based on our work at LJ and our blogs:
http://www.internet-librarian.com/2008/day.php?day=Wednesday
Please say hi if you will be there! I am really looking forward to a few days in London.
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Tomorrow, I’ll be at Mt. Prospect Public Library to speak at their staff day. The library is launching a version of Learning 2.0. Check it out:
http://mppllearning2point0.pbwiki.com/
If you are attending, please say hi!
Posted in Conferences & Presentations, Learning 2.0 & Beyond | 3 Comments »
Thanks to DLK for reminding me to post this: Check out the fall lineup of online courses and Tech Tuesday webinars for theEducation Institute:
Online Courses:
Technology Tuesday Series:
2009
Posted in Conferences & Presentations, Upcoming Presentations | 1 Comment »
My sincere apologies to all who attended the Institute today as we encountered technical difficulties and had to cancel the program. My Mac, OS 10.5.5, and Safari 3 just could not play nice with MS Live Meeting. I’ll post the rescheduled date as soon as we iron it out.
The slides and links will remain here.
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Brian Kelly looks back at ten years of his involvement with Internet Librarian International:
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/the-ili-tenth-anniversary/
I was on a panel with him in 2004, the first time I attended ILI and then again in 2005. I’ll never forget his “skeptic’s view” of tagging because he playfully used my Flickr stream as an example of bad tagging! Pulling up my most used tags in Flickr he said to the group and me: “What’s a Jake, Michael?”
I am excited to be attending and speaking at ILI’s 10th this year with Michael Casey. The gathering of people from all over the world makes for fascinating conversation. If you are attending, please say hi!
Checkout Brian’s post for more of his presentations.
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In two weeks I’ll be at the Columbus Metropolitan Library to help launch their Learning 2.0 program. The program is called Learn & Play @ CML. If you are attending any of these sessions, which they are opening to other interested library folk in the area, please say Hi.
http://www.columbuslibrary.org/ebranch/index.cfm?pageid=241
Posted in Conferences & Presentations, Learning 2.0 & Beyond | 2 Comments »
I jokingly confess to my audiences that I’m a sometimes eavesdropper at conferences! You learn about the profession and how people feel if you listen closely. The most telling and useful was a snippet I heard in the Skywalk at PLA: “Everytime people really like something, we get rid of it.”

Here are just a few from Anaheim:
On the Super Shuttle to the hotel, somewhere between stop #6 and stop #10: “Always make time for yourself at the conference too.”
On the exhibit floor: “Face it, you suck at Guitar Hero, but the teens won’t care.”
At a nearby table at lunch while one person describes the Dewey-less library program to another: “And angry cataloger guy kept saying…”
What did you overhear at ALA?
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What a great way to unwind after a full conference day — and benefit ALA scholarships.
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I’ve had a great time watching the folks twittering the ALA conference this week. For my ALA TechSource post, I thought I’d look at how Twitter helped, hindered (?) and augmented the conference. I have some ideas but I want to see what anecdotal evidence will do to my thinking. If you want to share a brief anecdote, a favorite tweet/twitter moment, or anything related, please email me:
mstephens7 (at) mac.com
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http://wikis.ala.org/annual2008/index.php/Scholarship_Bash_at_Disney
So here’s my story: In 1975 when I was ten years old, I went to California with my mom for a week’s visit with relatives. The highlight was going to be visiting Disneyland to tour the Haunted Mansion! Imagine my disappointment when arriving at the park and seeing the sign at the ticket booth:
The Haunted Mansion is closed for refurbishing.
I learned a new word that day: refurbishing.
I have never been back to Disneyland. Sure, I went to Walt Disney World in 1988 and for ALA in 2004, and toured that Haunted Mansion. Great fun! But the Disneyland model holds the edge for some reason. So look for me at ALA. And look for me Saturday night, gearing up to ride a Doom Buggy through my favorite E-ticket attraction!
Hope to see you there.
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Nicole Engard writes:
At a few of my most recent talks I’ve had attendees complain that there were not handouts. I tell them at the beginning of the class that I’m going green and the slides are available online for people to print if they want - but that they can view them online whenever they want - and they still complain!! I don’t know about you, but most of my class handouts go into the recycle bin after I blog about the session - why keep them? I have it all documented and linked here. Librarians (and probably lots of other people - but I mostly see librarian) seem way too wedded to their paper! We need to learn to use some of the new tools available to us instead of wasting paper.
To that I give a hearty “Here here!” I’ve stopped doing handouts of any kind these days — a downloadable PDF of slides and a clickable bibliography works well for me. I was tickled to see SOLINET give each attendee a jump drive with all the conference resources on it. Good idea! Here’s to more conferences goin’ green.
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