I’m getting to the point where I’ve been writing my talks out more, rather than having points in my slides that I elaborate over. This is partly a result of doing more “big picture” keynote/endnote type talks but also just because they seem to go better and I’m more at ease beforehand. I did the endnote talk for the Saskatchewan-Manitoba Library Conference last week (say that to the Customs guy at the border and watch his eyes glaze over really fast…) and I’ve put up both a PDF of the slides as well as the whole talk as I’ve written it. Some of it is still ad-libbed, I have notes like “tell Katrina story” and, my favorite, “wrap up” but I figured some people might like to read a talk start to finish. Thanks are due to all the wonderful librarians who I met and talked with. Next time I’m up that way I hope to be able to actually see some libraries and not just the inside of the conference center.
Tag: me!
usability and a weekend report
I got back Monday night from a weekend which included ROFLcon and a talk at the Central MA Regional Library System. It was fun getting to do both. ROFLcon is sort of a laugh a minute and the CMRLS talk was particularly gratifying because the people in the audience (who had driven through a DELUGE to get there) were engaged and interesting and brought a lot to the table. CMRLS is also the system for my hometown library in Boxborough, so I enjoyed getting to see their tag for the boxes of materials that went to the library from the regional sorting facility. My talk notes are here
Tiny Tech/High Tech – How Small Libraries Can Use Technology Sensibly
This post is a day or two late because I already wrote this post yesterday, but due to some confusion about how to differentiate between a draft and an actual published post in WordPress 2.5 I managed to delete it before it went live. This is entirely my own fault and yet the interface to the new WordPress [if you haven’t upgraded, do so quicklike] is different enough that it makes certain parts of WordPress operate differently. This, in turn, changes my user behavior because my muscle memory wants to click certain places and look for certain visual cues for things. And again, when I’m wrassling with confusing interfaces — and this one is mostly that way because it’s new and I’m not used to it — my thoughts turn to the OPAC and the small wonder that people even come to our libraries at all sometimes when we make our materials so difficult to retrieve, sometimes.
In any case ROFLcon was a good time not just because it was fun and I got to see my boss Matt Haughey speak on a panel but also because there were a lot of librarians there. It was a pretty small conference but in addition to Casey Bisson who took some great photos, I also got to meet Wikipedian librarian Phoebe Ayers and Nathan from Shushing Action as well as some Simmons library students and just a few people who were like “You’re a librarian, that’s SO COOL!” It’s always gratifying to be somewhere where the nerd and librarian forces are strong.
a few quick talks from this weekend
I went down to Massachusetts to do a few short talks. They were all very different and most were somewhat reworked versions of talks I’ve done before. I also went to a MetaFilter meetup and had BLTs with Casey. Thanks to everyone who hosted me while I was down in MA. Here are links to the presentations I did.
- Teaching Tech in Libraries for an in-service day at Cambridge Public Library
- OPACs – The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good
for an information technology class at Simmons West that I was a guest at - Small Libraries and the Digital Divide & why it matters, a lot my contribution to an excellent panel about the Digital Divide that featured me, Pay Oyler a Simmons prof who went to train librarians in Vietnam, and Susan O’Connor who runs the Timothy Smith Network in Roxbury MA which I will post more about in another separate post.
Now I’m back to a week of teaching adult education classes and ripping plastic off the windows which I am sure will bring about a new ice age.
Digital Divide event at Simmons, Monday April 7th
If you’re in the Boston area on Monday you might be interested in the Digital Divide panel and discussion happening at Simmons College at 3 pm. I’ll be there talking about the rural digital divide along with two other panelists — Susan O’Connor and Pat Oyler — who will be discussing urban and international digital divide issues. It’s open to the public and if you haven’t been to the Simmons campus lately it’s worth a look.
Plug: Intellectual freedom: Fundamentals and Current Events
Just a quick note, I am teaching a one-day continuing education class at Simmons’ Mount Holyoke campus on Sunday afternoon, March 30th. The topic is Intellectual Freedom, basically providing the foundations of the idea and then going over current topic type issues that we’ve seen in libraryland lately. Here’s the official description. If you’re in need of CE credits or just want a refresher, feel free to sign up.
The importance of intellectual freedom is a cornerstone of modern librarianship in the US, and yet for many people is only understood as an abstract idea. This workshop will cover the foundations of intellectual freedom in American librarianship and provide concrete examples of how the concept applies to today’s library environment.
We will look at the Library Bill of Rights, the Freedom to Read Statement, and state library privacy laws as well as legislation which abridges the freedoms of library workers and library users. We will discuss the thorny issues that arise when intellectual freedom principles conflict with local practices and cultures and ways to unpack and address those issues. Social software and its implications for intellectual freedom in libraries will be another facet we will address. Participants will gain an understanding of ALA’s work laying down the foundation for intellectual freedom and leave with concrete examples of IF in action in today’s libraries.