Virtual Visit to Australia

Last night, from 6pm to 7pm, I gave a talk with a group of 60 librarians at the State Library of Victoria, Australia. It was 9am today for them… so as I was nearing the end of my day, sitting in front of my Mac with my boys on the floor beside me, those folks were at work, probably enjoying coffee or tea and planning for the day’s activities. ( There was actually a test of the fire alarm system about halfway through!)

We used a combination of Skyp and Jybe to do the “Virtual Visit,” which was planned by librarian Anne Beaumont from the library down there. Anne arranged for the session and we worked up a list of web pages she asked me to visit and tell the stories related to each page.

We talked about my experiences at TADL, my thoughts on iPods and devices, flickr and tagging, and about libraries actually having a VOICE and conversations with their users, which in my book is the most important thing librarian web folk should be looking at as they create Web presence.

I thoroughly enjoyed this chance to chat with folk on the other side of the world. Once again, I realize we are facing many of the same things as libraries evolve and change with users.