ACRL Photos on Flickr

People have been furiously adding their conference photos to Flickr in anticipation of the contest deadline of April 8th. There are some wonderful photos in there, and yes, some of them are mine.

Flickr: Photos from acrl2007

ACRL - Day Four, Part Two

Morning Session, Part Two:
Analog v. Google in the CMS: RSS Feeds to the Rescue presented by Heather L. Moulaison and Edward M. Corrado from The College of New Jersey (TCNJ)

I thought the presenter looked familiar; I went to grad school with Heather.

CMS = Course Management System as opposed to Content Management System (ie. Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle, etc.)

1 Course shell = 1 class section

TCNJ uses a homegrown CMS.

Mix of systems may be used.

I'm familiar with a lot of CMS functionality as I worked for the UIUC GSLIS Instructional Technology Office, which supported the LEEP program, for one year in grad school. The CMS used at that time was of the homegrown variety, but they now use Moodle.

TCNJ's version is SOCS (Simple Online Courseware System)

TCNJ focuses on print resources. Nearly all students live on campus close to the library.

A little multi-media with some foreboding music with the "Google lurks..." slide.

"RSS - Result Set Syndication" from Walter Lewis.

Previous versions of RSS are not that compatible with older versions (<- did not know this)

Anatomy of a RSS feed - explanation of how they use it

Three stage process in integration of RSS with CMS.

More info: http://www.tcnj.edu/~library/rss/

Need to sell faculty and IT staff on why the library needs to be involved in the development/management of CMS.

Main use of RSS at this time is highlighting new books that may be of use for a course.

RSS feed for databases has been requested by faculty.

New DVD feed in top 5 most used resources on Library portion of the website in the last two months.

Course guides by librarians have been integrating the homegrown RSS feeds as well as featuring RSS feeds from other sources like specific websites and blogs and del.icio.us.

Students interested in one-stop shopping and want the course guides in SOCS rather than just on the library's website.
- The library resources need to be involved in the CMS, not just the librarian.

Up next (providing wireless access, Nina Totenberg.

ACRL - Day Four, Part One

You get to see how I take notes!

Session of the morning:

PennTags: Building a Social Tagging System in an Academic Library presented by Laurie Allen

UPenn is University of Pennsylvania in Philly

(Michael Winkler is the tech end of the presentation, but not present.)

PennTags = del.icio.us for the Penn community
- If they've got it on the web, it's taggable or will be soon. Ie. OPACs, etc.

Users collect resources
- add tags like del.icio.us
- unlike del.icio.us, long annotations are possible (specifically in response to one assignment on campus)
- annotations displayed in OPAC records and on PennTags website, RSS feeds, etc.

Copyright used 4 times more often than fair use.

Most recent posts go to the top of the page below tag cloud on main page.

If in OPAC, in tagged list, title linked to record.

PennTags projects, example given "Reclaiming p2p" found by just clicking through various tags.

Demo of how users actually use PennTags.

Call number included in citation record.

Recent tags available for quick addition.

SFX/RFX links available in a database means you can use PennTags to tag content.

Bookmarklet (like Blogger's) available for general webpages (doesn't really work in Safari).

PT too small to use as a way to find resources, at this point more as a personal collection tool.

PT *NOT* a replacement for the catalog.
- Not a part of the MARC record.
-- PT display a separate part of the record's page load.
- When searching in Franklin, you are searching that database and may stumble upon a book that's tagged, when using PT, all books in Franklin that are tagged.

PT
- Sub for del.icio.us for academic purposes
- Annotated bibliographies (previously mentioned)
- Base for research guides by libns
- "Shadow" catalog - specialized collections by enthusiasts - dkelly's for music scholarship

PT designed *FOR* the Penn community.

"Books are for use"
What used to be private types of use is moving into the public sphere (categorizing, remembering, etc.)
-- Libraries need to be more involved because of this.

PT has not ever been marketed, only really shown to the one instructor's classes.
- More librarians in general libraryland know about PT than Penn community members.

Working on a new version and when that's available a large marketing campaign will be launched.
-- New version will be more robust in functionality.

Tags have the potential for usage indicator in weeding considerations.
- Most books that have been tagged have been checked out at this point.

Lexis-Nexis will supposedly be having durable URLs in the near future.

PT default is public, but you can designate posts to be private.
- In upcoming version, you can "friend" people to view private posts.

New version will have copyright assignment functionality (Creative Commons/all rights reserved).

When Franklin was redesigned, Subject Headings were moved from the "Detailed View" to the "Basic View" mainly because tags were being displayed in the Basic View.

ACRL - Day Three, Part One

I'm sitting in the room for my first session of Day Four, so I'm not really going to post anything significant right now. Providing my battery and the wireless connection holds out, I will do live blogging of sessions today as I've obviously brought my computer. However, highlights:

• "Keeping Libraries in the Flow" workshop - Interesting. I was the recorder for my table, so I ended up being a little out of the flow of discussion, but as this really seemed to draw more on the academic library day-to-day experience, I was a little out of the flow, anyway. Some very good ideas came out of the session, though.


• "Cyber Zed Shed: Second Life" - This could have easily been a full panel session with demonstration, and probably would have worked better. The presenter did an awesome job for being limited to 15 minutes, but we left with more questions. There was apparently a poster session, too, which I missed.

Oops, session's starting.

ACRL on Flickr

For those who haven't found it yet:

ACRL2007 tag on Flickr

ACRL, Day Two, Part Two

First, Jenny, seriously, media card readers at Annual!

Second, I did get a picture with John Waters at the booksigning. He was even kind enough to let me photograph his *tres* cool gold lame sneakers.

After the booksigning, I wandered by the poster session. During the break in my morning session, I stopped by and was caught up in the mass of humanity flowing through and didn't really get a chance to ingest any of the information presented. I did see a friend from grad school though. The afternoon session, at least when I was there, was quite pleasant. I think the morning session scared off a number of people. I got to listen to two presenters, one of whom was in my morning session. I think I need a bit more time to digest what I learned, but I really liked Simmons' MassBLAST intern program.

I then stopped by the ALA booth and talked with Cathleen Bourdon, the former author of the Librarian's Toolkit (?) column in American Libraries and who was on my flight out here and will be on the one back, and Mary Taylor, the Executive Director of LITA. Both are very nice ladies.

Next on my schedule was the session where David Silver was the speaker. Looking up title...oh yes, "Invited Paper: Digital Media, Learning and Libraries: Web 2.0, Learning 2.0 and Libraries 2.0". While there were some technical difficulties with the microphones in the beginning, Silver quickly fell into an engaging rhythm. He talked about his concept of AEIOU: Already Existing Information Optimally Uploaded. I'm still a little unclear on some of the theoretical details, but I think (and those who were there, please correct me if I'm wrong) it's a way to repackage/bundle content in a more accessible way. One of the examples he gave was library displays, in particular a display on graphic novels in his school's library. The library already had a collection of graphic novels, but they used this opportunity to publicize it, make people aware of graphic novels and what subjects they cover, and they invited -- through a suggestion box sitting on the main display case!! -- patron input on what titles they should consider buying.

He went on to talk about how "Web 2.0" is really collective intelligence, which is what a lot of people consider libraries to be. I would go a step further and say that it's collaborative intelligence. The other way he put it was the web is no longer a lecture, but a conversation. As librarians, we also need to think beyond the high technology of "2.0" and think of low technology: the suggestion box among other things. I thought this was very interesting because you're taking a concept that's been proven to work, but looking at it in a fresh way.

The room was packed (I have pictures to prove it, though I'm sure others have posted theirs already), and I know that he inspired a lot of the audience members.

To wind down, I enjoyed a walk along the Skywalk to the Inner Harbor. I'm glad I did it because I needed a little touristy time and the weather was nice! Tomorrow is another full day of sessions followed by two meets and greets.

ACRL, Day Two, Part One

I spent the morning in a session on CoLAB(R). It turned out to be a training the trainer workshop for a process on developing collaborative relationships. The presenters were very dynamic and I came out of it with ideas on how I can bring this back to work. I could also see the percolating ideas among the other attendees. Even better, I was able to get a number of academic librarians interested in 5in5!

Today was the luncheon with John Waters as the guest speaker. No photography was allowed, but I hope to get a picture with him at the booksigning later. He is a *highly* irreverant speaker. I was greatly entertained, but not every one may be. A few of the things that I feel I can repeat:

- Librarians need to make books cool again.

- "It is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book."

- He thinks the Hairspray remake is really good, and he would be the harshest critic.

That's it for now!

ACRL - Opening Session

Today we had the joys of mass registration, the keynote session, and the exhibits opening.

Registration - If you you come to a conference the day of and try to register right before the fun begins, be prepared to wait. The ALA staff did a good job and kept the line moving at as brisk of a pace as they could manage. I will say the conference bags are pretty nice as they're messenger bags. I probably won't be carrying mine around however, as I brought my "conference bag" with me.

On my way to the opening session, I ran into Courtney L. Young who is the ALA Councilor for NMRT. Courtney is a lot of fun and we ended up hanging out for the rest of the night.

Opening Session - This afternoon's speaker was Michael Eric Dyson. He is a *vibrant* speaker. He is thought-provoking, engaging, comedic, dynamic and completely quoteworthy. Once Courtney realized I was taking notes, she kept making sure I wrote down certain tidbits. Here are but a few:

"Yes, I'm preaching to the choir, but the choir got to sing better."

"[Librarians must be] True patriots of the country and nation of Literacy."

"...patriarchal and phallocentric metaphor..." (I completely missed what this is in reference to)

***"Meet the people where they be and take them where they need to be." (emphasis mine)

Potential response when asked what we do: "arbitrator of enlightenment for the future of civilization."

Other highlights:

-If you're interested in the movement towards anti-intellectualism, read Richard Hofstadter's book "Anti-Intellectualism in America" from 1966.

-We need to help create learning addicts.

-To create those learning addicts, we need to be Trojan Horses by slipping those learning moments into the students', and patrons', everyday lives.

If you ever get the chance to hear Dyson speak, do.

Exhibit opening:
The more conferences I go to, the less time I want to spend in the exhibit hall without a plan in mind. I like talking with the vendors and learning about their products, but with the position I'm in now, there's not much call for what the vendors are trying to sell me. I did win a $10 Starbucks gift card from H.W. Wilson, though. This was after I told Courtney that I wasn't interested in hunting down all the giveaways, especially as I had won a gift bag from Borders last week (I was the first name drawn after I walked in the door). The salesman was good, and we sat down for a short session with four or five others. When they did the drawing, Courtney said, "watch, you'll win." I started to reply "Don't even joke about that" when he did call my name. In addition, the exhibit opening was fun as I ran into one of my committee's members and a chair of the same committee and we talked shop for a little bit. I'm feeling a little like a fish out of water as my background is in public libraries, but I do know a fair amount of academic librarians, and luckily, I have been running into them.

After I came home from dinner with Courtney, I discovered that while I had printed out my responses to a pre-survey for my morning session tomorrow, I had neglected to actually take them out of my printer and put them into my bag. Seeing as that and my toothbrush were the only things I forgot, I think I'm doing good.

Tomorrow, sessions, workshops, posters, and more sessions.

Welcome to Baltimore!

While I've flown in and out of BWI before, this is my first time staying in Baltimore. I was hoping to make it to the First-Timers orientation, but my flight out of Chicago was almost an hour behind schedule and the shuttle took longer than expected. We ended up at my hotel at the time the orientation was to start, and after standing in line to check-in, I decided I needed a break after almost 8 hours of traveling. While standing in the check-in line, I did get to speak with a presenter who is doing a panel session on how academic and public libraries and cooperate and work together. With my new position, this would be an ideal panel session for me to go to, but I'm signed up for one of the three-hour long workshops at the same time, so I'll be missing it. Unfortunate, but the nice thing about the schedule I've seen so far is there's good programs spread out and not all grouped together at one time. This afternoon/evening is the Opening Session speaker and the exhibits opening. I'll report back later tonight, especially as my hotel has free wireless!