Did you know that your library very well may have a presence in Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, IM, Flickr, YouTube, wikis, FriendFeed and more? Do a search in any of these tools on libraries and see what you find. Libraries, in my experience, are quietly paving the way for institutions to have a real 2.0 presence.

I had originally planned to do some examining of some of the ideas first, so I could provide some useful, additional information but then I realized that I would never get this post out if I waited until I had explored all of them. So what I will do now is give an overview of the library camp topics and discussions and go into depth on some of the ideas in future posts. After you see the agenda, topics, discussions and ideas, you will see why! So here is how my day went. If it seems a little scattered, it is because I was frantically scribbling on a handout and am trying to translate and organize what is essentially a completely covered paper, with writing between and around every line of print. So bear with me.

This post will be a general overview to what we did and how the day was divided up. Part 2 will contain specifics from the Pecha Kuchas and discussions and if that post gets too big, Part 3 will have the afternoon sessions and a wrapup observation.

ACPL Library Camp design was based on the Unconference model, with the addition of a guest speaker and Pecha Kucha presentations.

The event started at 8am (with continental breakfast beforehand) and lasted until 5pm when several people went down to J.K. O’Donnell’s, our local Irish Pub to continue visiting and discussing.

From 8-9am, David Lee King, the featured speaker, gave a wonderful and thought-provoking presentation Managing the Digital Branch. Here is his post re: Library Camp which includes links to his presentations and to some of the other library camp resources such as the wiki that was set up for Library Camp. Here is the ACPL Library Camp on FriendFeed.

And here is a link to the ACPL Library Camp 2008 twitter feed. This was used in a very interesting way as it was being displayed on a large screen at the front of the auditorium and updated as the event proceeded. That provided an interesting mix of information on the proceedings and “backchannel” talk amongst the participants and observers. I can see this being used more and more often as the idea proliferates.

Everyone had been asked to bring 13 (I think it was) business cards with them and after David’s talk, there was a 2 minute card exchange where everyone was to meet and pass out their business cards to each other and to get to know new people. I really liked this idea and it worked really well. People got up, mingled, met, made contacts and just generally interacted with each other. I don’t have “business cards” as I am basically retired, but I really wish I would have made up some cards with my Clear Blue Dei site and my personal information on them. I got one “personal card” from someone with their own personal blog site on it and I am definitely going to go take a look. Perhaps a sign-up sheet (or site) where people could add their blogs would be nice as I always enjoy finding and read people’s blogs. I think I would even do this twice, once at the beginning and once later in the day after people got a chance to discuss and share ideas.

Then it was time for the Pecha Kucha presentations. In a nutshell, the idea behind Pecha Kucha is to keep presentations concise, the interest level up and to have many presenters sharing their ideas within the course of one day/period. Therefore the 20×20 Pecha Kucha format was created: each presenter is allowed a slideshow of 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds. This results in a total presentation time of 6 minutes 40 seconds on a stage before the next presenter is up. There were several presentations during the Pecha Kucha session, which I will list and go into in more detail in Part 2. For now, I’ll just say that this was a highly successful and invigorating format and one I think people should consider trying at their next meeting, conference, staff day or event.

Then David Lee King presented his next talk called Climbing out of the Box: Mashing up our Community.
As part of this presentation, David had everyone divide into groups of 4 or 5 and gave us 10 minutes for each group to come up with an idea of a way to reach out to the community. Again, an extremely successful session with many new and innovative ideas in just 10 minutes. See Part 2 of my Library Camp posts for the ideas and discussions.

Following this, we continued the Unconference model (An unconference is a facilitated, participant-driven conference centered around a theme or purpose) by having the participants discuss what ideas they would like to meet and discuss and an ad-hoc agenda for the afternoon was designed by the group for afternoon. There were 3 sets of 1 hour sessions, 2 per hour (in meeting rooms A and C). A facilitator from the group was designated for each session.

Everyone went to lunch after David’s presentation at various places in town (we went to Munchie’s Emporium, aka Mad Anthony’s for microbrew and good food and conversation) and then we all met back, picked up the afternoon agenda and made our choices as to which sessions we wanted to attend.

Kay Gregg (ACPL videographer and Sean’s cohort in crime for all the creative YouTube videos, etc), Sean Robinson (Head of ACPL and my husband) and David Lee King split off to videotape a Conversation with David Lee King, one of the ongoing series of “Conversation” youtube series that they are creating. This should be coming out in about a month, stay tuned.

I attended some of the sessions but had to leave so I missed the wrap-up session 4:30-5pm, but I heard that Sean did a great job wrapping up and that he put people on the spot, asking them “what one idea from this camp do YOU plan to do?” I’m sure that was interesting… From some of the buzz I’ve heard afterward, people really enjoyed the Library Camp and found it invigorating and inspiring. I know I did!

Stay tuned for Part 2 and Enjoy!

~Susan Mellott

This came from the ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology Blog.

ACPL Youth Services Tag Cloud from Kaygraphic on Vimeo.
Check it out!

~Susan Mellott

What technology trends are changing the way we work and play? What trends have you tapped into? Join Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor at Dominican University’s Graduate School of Library and Information Science, for an overview of trends and how libraries are responding. Michael Stephens has spoken to audiences in over 25 states and in three countries. He also writes a monthly column, “The Transparent Library,” in Library Journal with Michael Casey. His blog, Tame the Web, is read avidly by many librarians.

If this piques your interest in what Michael has to say, here is a fascinating video that Sean posted on his blog, ACPL’s Innovation Through Technology, by Erik Boekesteijn and Jaap van de Geer, DOK Delft Public Library, who interview Michael Stephens in Chicago about libraries and innovation.

And here is a brief bio of Michael Stephens:

Michael Stephens, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois.

After receiving an MLIS from Indiana University, he spent over fifteen years working in public libraries, where he developed a passion for the practical application of technology.

He published The Library Internet Trainer’s Toolkit in 2001, and two years later, he launched his popular weblog, Tame the Web. Since then, Michael’s writing has appeared in Public Libraries, Library Journal, Computers in Libraries, and a host of other publications.

In 2004, Michael was awarded an IMLS doctoral fellowship at University of North Texas, where he conducted research on social software and blogging. Named a “Mover and Shaker” by Library Journal in 2005, Michael joined Dominican’s faculty in 2006 and completed his Ph.D. in 2007. Recently, he has produced two ALA Library Technology Reports on Web 2.0.

Michael has spoken to audiences in over 25 states and in three countries. When not traveling or teaching, he resides in Mishawaka, Indiana, and enjoys escaping to Traverse City, Michigan.

Here is the PSA (Public Service Announcement) for Michael’s speech by Sean Robinson, head of IT at the Allen County Public Library:

And here is a link to the ACPL web page announcing Michael’s speech. I am very excited to meet Michael and to hear his speech. And stay tuned for Sean and Kay’s “Conversation” youtube video with Michael. After the speech, Sean and Kay will be interviewing Michael and then will produce a video of that interview as part of their “Conversation” series.

In the “Conversation” series so far is a 2-part interview with Jeff Krull, Director of the Allen County Public Library, and one with Stephen Abrams, Head of Innovation for Sirsi-Dynix. These areshort, professionally and beautifully produced videos, reminiscent of the style of the famous documentary director Ken Burns.

I am really looking forward to this Friday and then later, to watching Sean and Kay’s new video with Michael Stephens. I hope you all can come see his speech if you are in the area, or at least, stay tuned for my post announcing his “Conversation” video.

~Susan Mellott

The first thing he did was to pass out a License to Play card to everyone (he and Kay created it and were inspired by the 2007 License to Play poster from Lee County Public Library) that they signed and put in their wallet. He said if anyone questioned why they were having fun or if they felt guilty about having fun, they could say “We have a License to Play!”

The theme of his talk was about the three legs of Learning 2.0 – Work, Play and Risk. He said that Learning 2.0 was about exploration and discovery. And it was not just learning, but transforming your organization.

He demonstrated these by some really fun activities. First he asked who was a real risk-taker. No one held up their hand. So he asked again and one person held up their hand. Then he gave that person a Library Genius 2.0 t-shirt (that he and Kay designed). Everyone oohed and wanted one too. The lesson? “With risk comes reward”.

They also played Romance Roulette. He asked for an audience member who would take a risk. He got a volunteer and then they had to open a romance novel and read a passage out loud, not knowing what it would say. But before the volunteer read, Sean said he would read first. The lesson here was “Don’t ask people to do things you are not prepared to do”.

Also, before the talk, Kay taped a starbucks coffee card under one of the seats. Sean said everyone should look under their seats to see if they had it. So everyone got up and looked under their chairs to see if they had the card. The lesson here? “The right incentive will get a whole group off their butts ”.

Of course, he had many great things to say, but I loved these activities and I think they illustrated his points and made his talk fun. He talked about Learning 2.0 and how it is not just learning, but transforming your organization. He ended with “we are nothing special and if we can do it, so can you”.

Here is a picture of Sean from his presentation – “it’s not a surge, but an avalanche”

And here is Kay at her IOLUG 2007 poster session:

Here are more pictures that Kay took.

Take a risk! Work! Play! Explore and discover and get excited.

~Susan Mellott

And a lot of these are ideas that libraries could implement now.

1. I had a library fine that I needed to pay while I was at the library, but I couldn’t find my library card since I don’t use it everyday. So my first idea was for libraries to give patrons not only a card, but one of those little tags you can put on your keyring. I have several of these already, from Blockbuster, my Kroger card, my CVS card and others. I don’t use these everyday, but when I need them, they are right there on my keys.

2. Along these same lines, I would especially like to be able to pay my library fine online so I didn’t have to go to the library just to pay a fine. Being able to pay by credit card would be good and for me especially, I’d like to also be able to pay via paypal. Since the libraries are now online, it seems a logical next step.

3. When I was young, our library had bookmobiles that drove around and had stops where we could go and checkout and return books to the bookmobile. I remember walking to the end of our street each week and visiting the bookmobile. It allowed many kids from my neighborhood to check out books that would not have otherwise been able to. We could reserve books and the bookmobile would bring them for us and they also had several of the more popular books in the bookmobile.

I would really like to see libraries bring back this practice. There are so many people who don’t have a car or kids whose parents don’t take them to the library and this is a great asset for them. Alternatively if this isn’t feasible, perhaps libraries could open sub-branches in several locations like stores that mostly just allow people to pickup books that they reserved and return books. They could only be open say once or twice a week for a couple of hours. I think the value of being able to walk to a library outlet is immense.

4. Stephen mentioned in his speech that even though many libraries have web access, students are frequently not near a computer but they always have a cell phone and are used to text messaging. Libraries should have a mechanism to allow people to text message them. And I think having live chat access is also something libraries should look at. A good example is the web hosting service BlueHost. On their home page they have a large button that says “Live Chat” and when clicked, takes you right to their chat window where you enter the department you want to contact, your name and your question.

Libraries could have a “need help?” button (or something like that) on their website that would allow people to access their FAQ, blogs, knowledgebase, write an email, IM the library, call the library, instant chat, text messaging information and all the different ways that people now use. And they should be able to receive the information back in a format of their choice.

5. Libraries could set up a video room for patrons where they could go in an create a video and put it on YouTube or other video sites if they want. This would promote creativity and allow people without access to the equipment to take and create videos. It doesn’t have to be elaborate, you can create a video with a QuickCam camera that hooks on a computer and a microphone and optionally, various types of software for creating, editing, manipulating and enhancing the videos. And this would also allow people without access to a camcorder to take videos of themselves or their kids. And there could be classes in how to use the equipment and a place where people could show off the videos they created. And the libraries could have themes for people to create a video for, like “This is my Family” or “What I like about my Library” (it’s been done, but is a great idea) or any number of things.

Even better, provide a whole television studio where patrons can produce and televise their own shows on cable television like the ACPL Access Fort Wayne.

6. Libraries could also have a large, nice community center area with senior activities like bridge or Wii bowling (my mom loves this), singles activities like euchre tournaments and speed dating, family activities like Wii/video games or karaoke, teen activities like gaming tournaments, children’s activities like storytime, etc.

7. Libraries could run volunteer outreach programs at places like nursing homes or hospitals where books could be checked out and returned and where people could go and read stories to the people there. The ACPL has outreach services.

8. Libraries could introduce tools and programs for people with disabilities. The ACPL has an extremely good program called NEIRRS (Northeast Indiana Radio Reading Service). Northeast Indiana Radio Reading Service (NEIRRS) is a FREE radio reading service for people who are blind or have a visual or reading/print impairment (What does print impaired mean? A print-impaired individual is any person who is unable to read conventional printed material. It may be a person who is blind or has low-vision, they may have a literacy issue, or a physical impairment which makes it difficult to hold a book or turn pages (stroke, Parkinson’s, arthritis). NEIRRS is staffed by volunteers and provides loans for receivers to pick up their broadcasts. NEIRRS volunteers read local news and features from a dozen area newspapers, plus magazines, books, grocery ads, obituaries and more.

Or if a library is small and doesn’t have the resources for this, they can provide podcasts online. NEIRRS also has started doing podcasts of things of interest in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette each day, such as obituaries and selected readings. This really is pretty easy and cheap to implement.

And there are many other things that libraries can look at. I know that my mom can’t read the print on the computers and I find that I am having a harder time with that myself. Providing some computers with extra-large text, screen readers, text enlargers and other features would help a lot of people, as would easy wheelchair access, etc.

9. Libraries could provide email newsletters about events and topics of interest, like a children’s, teens, families, etc events newsletter, reading programs, educational programs, new books or selected books, music/art/special events, branch information, etc.

10. There are many interesting ideas for new programs that libraries could introduce. Here are some things that the Allen County Public Library are doing and I’m sure libraries could come up with much more: Antiques Evaluation Day, Teen Sumo Robots tournaments, Llamas @ the Library, Paws to Read (one of my favorites), Miniature Mayhem, Teen Events grades 6-12, musical performances, Movie Night @ the Library (scroll down), art exhibits, genealogy and flickr pictures of other ACPL programs.

Well, these are a few of my ideas. What do you think?

~Susan Mellott