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Expanding The Conversation (by TTW contributor Justin Hoenke)

Have you ever found yourself inside the library echo chamber? I think we all have.  You’ve got something great to share or say about libraries and you put it out there…and it’s only talked about by librarians and libraries.  Some great presentations and pieces have been written about the echo chamber (some of my  faves are from Ned Potter, Sally Pewhairangi, and Steven V. Kaszynski).    These have got me thinking…how can we avoid the echo chamber?  My thought is this…expand the conversation and try, try, try your best to include those outside of the library world.  But how can we […]

Library Spaces

Office Hours: Little Free Libraries

My new column is up: http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/09/opinion/michael-stephens/little-free-libraries-office-hours Scanning the recent news articles about the LFL movement reveals something else, too. More often than not, those interviewed acknowledge the sense of community and collegiality that grow up around the little libraries. From a Los Angeles Times piece on a local LFL: “It has turned strangers into friends and a sometimes impersonal neighborhood into a community. It has become a mini–town square….” This gets to the heart of what many of us in libraries know: knowledge shared within a framework of caring and familiarity can strengthen communities. Evidence of caring is present in the knowledge […]

Engaging Library Users

The Coolest Thing I Did on the Job Last Week (by TTW contributor Troy Swanson)

Right now is our busiest time of the year. Last week was especially crazy. I hosted an author event featuring our One Book author Tony Horwitz (http://www.morianevalley.edu/confederates), I chaired a department meeting, co-chaired a cataloing meeting in prep for RDA, attended a House of Delegates meeting for our union, met with our director of assessment about our annual assessment plan, and taught a couple of classes. But, out of all of this, the coolest thing I did all week happened at the reference desk. I was doing my normal reference shift, and a student came up to the desk. He […]

Presentations

Audience Polls from R-Squared

  http://rsquaredconference.org/news/mornings-live-polls (Click through for more and for the open ended answers to this question: What one thing can we do to accelerate learning and transformation in our libraries?)   Will we be most needed to help people consumer consume or create content? Answers Responses Percent Consume 90 35.20% Create 166 64.80% Total 256 Will our greatest value be our physical presence or our virtual presence? Answers Responses Percent Physical 89 56.70% Virtual 68 43.30% Total 157

Presentations

Telluride Daily Planet: “Risk, reward and the survival of libraries”

The conference aims to offer an immersive experience where participants choose one of four themes to follow: creative spaces, culture, customer curiosity and abundant community. Josh Linkner, bestselling author of “Disciplined Dreaming: A Proven System to Drive Breakthrough Creativity,” will kick off the conference as keynote on Monday. His mission is to “make the world more creative.” He’ll share thoughts on creativity as a commodity and the characteristics of creative individuals during his keynote discussion, according to the tourism board. Other speakers include John McKnight, co-director of Asset-Based Community Development Institute and professor emeritus at Northwestern University, John Creighton, former […]