Wrapping up today with IL2004… for your consideration:
As evidenced by the great group of people in our Make Learning Stick: Creating 5-Star, User-Centered Training & Instruction workshop, library folk are embracing their new roles as trainers and teachers.They had great questions and all participated. Scott Brandt gets this stuff and can explain it well. Instructional design for librarians is HOT right now. Are you developing classes? Are you teaching colleagues? You soon could be!
Internet Librarians are poised to “own the future,” according to keynoter Lee Rainie of Pew Internet fame. My favorite part of his stuff is the fact that Pew looks at how people use and interact with Internet technologies…not just the technologies themselves. It’s about the people first folks!
Internet Librarians are easy to talk to and you can learn stuff. Have a glass of wine and chat someone up at the reception. It’s fun!
We must never stop learning and looking at how quickly our libraries are changing.We may be talking RSS, blogs and IM now but what will we be talking about at IL 2010?
The future of the public library web site lies in customizing the experience for our users (USERS, thank you), including a local slant for browsable Web directories (thanks to David King), RSS feeds, and a portal feel. Jenny Levine urges library Web developers to generate buzz with their sites — and to keep those blogs active. It gives our users a reason to return.
Commiserating with two or three colleagues over good Japanese food, Falafel or the Jamba Juice is a great, intimate way to exchange ideas and share yourself and thoughts about libraries. I recommend it!
If the ILS vendors won’t give librarians what they want, the users will do it for them. What does that say about the benefits of an Open Source ILS free to all libraries who want to use it thus cutting the cord on these companies? (Things that make you go hmmmm)
WebJunction is there for library folk to exchange ideas, get tips for technology planning and to learn. Don’t miss this most cool virtual LIS community. (I just took another look…wow!)
Librarians never need to be out of the loop with the tools presented in sessions like Greg Schwartz’s “Making the Most of the Blogosphere.” Use Feedster and Bloglines, or the aggrgator client of your choice, to always be the one in the meeting that knows what is happening in the LIS world (and beyond).
Libraries need a “blogging policy” for staff and a “blog style manual” for their own blogs. Admin: Don’t be surprised when you find out one of your librarians has a popular blog that people read and learn from or one of your own is anonymously blogging the day to day trials and tribulations of reference work. This is not really a bad thing (although bloggers should abide by a personal set of ethics and protocols). We must educate staff, administration and our users to make them all aware of this new form of Web content. RSS as well! I’m tickled with the handful of Early Adopters at my library that actual got RSS and NetNewsWire and use it.
Internet Librarians want laptops to use all over their libraries, at home and on the road to conferences such as this.
Internet Librarians don’t want bloated, irritating virtual reference software.
EXTRA:
A gaggle of LIS Bloggers setting off for wine and food is a force to be reckoned with.
