ulo.tricho.us

Library Camp is coming up at AADL on Friday, April 14th. This event is an unconference using the open space format, which throws several much-needed wrenches into the typical conventions of, well, conventions. First, instead of suffering through a dull or irrelevant session, looking for a polite chance to ditch, you are encouraged — even required — to walk out of any session you find unproductive or uninteresting. Also, no pre-arranged agenda. One of the first things we’ll do at the event is propose some sessions and put together the schedule for the day based on who’s there and what they’re looking for.

In the meantime, I’ve thought of a few things that might be interesting sessions for the event. There is a great group of people coming, and I think it’s a great opportunity to actually produce some things. So, here are my ideas for sessions:

• Library 2.0: Threat or MENACE? (What does it mean, what’s to come?)
• Tags in the OPAC: the roles and balance of taxonomies and folksonomies
• IM applications in Libraries, current and potential
• Reclaiming Serendipity: Lost Features of the card catalog that OPACs should offer
• DRM and the future of library downloads
• Gaming in the library: thinking big
• Library Podcasting: Projects and Possibilities
• Netflix and other alternate circulation schemes
• Stats and metrics: new ways to collect and analyze use data
• Online community building: starting points and brainstorming
• hackfest?
• collaborative authoring of a document, maybe a guide to library 2.0 tools?

The idea is that sessions are interactive, more of a collaborative effort than a presentation, and I think we’ll try to make sure that there are bloggers in each session, and that posts are tagged accordingly. I’ve posted these ideas on the Library2 wiki, so please add to and modify this list.

Also at AADL on the 14th is the first-ever AADL-GT Retro Octathalon, an olympic-style event for all ages where all competitors will compete for overall and single-event high scores on 8 vintage (pre-1990) video games, with a championship for the highest scorers at the end of the night. Adult qualifiers start at 6, so you can attend Library Camp all day, and then give your thumbs some much-needed exercise.

These are going to be two very cool events, and a very busy day!

John’s brilliant post skipped over a critical gulf-spanning technique, one that I would have thought he would have included, as he has personal experience with the approach:

Make a movie.

One of the challenges IT departments can face as they grow, especially in the library world, is muggle staff not understanding what all those geeks actually do. Often, the borders of IT responsibility could make a gerrymanderer blush, and since most IT work is done in our dank recesses, far below the hustle and bustle of the patron-filled surface world, delivering a clear understanding of who does what can be complicated by the fact that some staff may not know who these people are that, summoned by a submit button, emerge, blinking, only to immediately disappear under the table. That leads to unfamiliarity, and you know what they say about unfamiliarity: it breeds discontent. Wait, that’s not right. But it sounds good.

So, to address this unfamiliarity, we produced the IAS Television Showcase (quicktime) in the Fall of 2002, to be shown at our annual staff day. While it was intended to give a little information about what we do, I really hoped that it would help the rest of the staff feel more personally familiar with all of us. We shot it on a Friday, and I edited it over the weekend, getting a precious copy rendered and printed to tape just in time for the opening bagels Monday morning. I remember that we were missing a cable we needed when it was time for the premiere (first thing after lunch), so we had to tie a dv camera to the pole above the projector. We couldn’t find the remote for the camera, so I introduced the movie, and then stood on a chair to push play and roll the tape. Sort of a live juryrigging demonstration, if you will.

The audience loved it, and I think it really did help them know us a little bit better. That was a long time ago already, and it’s amazing how much things have changed since then. Just seeing the server room during Joe Harris’ System Spec, or some of the hot new acronyms showcased in Modern Major Geekerel, makes me slightly damp with nostalgia. The gadget rundown, somewhat obscure then, looks positively archaic now. We should do Television Showcase 2.0. I should also find the DV tape that has the finished version and capture a better copy, as Premiere eating the source file for this project was one of my last straws with Windows.

While something like this will take a little time to produce, the potential return on your time is probably far better than even the most productive bilateral committee meeting. Plus, it’s fun. Libraries should be fun. Enjoy!