Closing Remarks

By far one of the best conferences I've been to. I was able to take something away from every single session. The problem now becomes deciding which of those ideas to act on.

So let me start with some themes I noticed throughout the conference:

• Open Source is awesome. So many librarians have completely embraced open source software and love being able to get a tool on the cheap and use it immediately. Web hosted software means you don't have to get permission to load it on the server or ask IT to do frequent updates. Internet librarians love fast and free.
• Self-taught is the norm. Nobody took a whole class or read an entire book on Meebo or Pbwiki. Internet librarians get their hands dirty and learn on the fly.
• Play time's a must. Internet librarians allow themselves to experiment and to use new tools on projects or interests they already enjoy. They're genuinely excited every time they learn about something new and cool and can't wait to find a way to use it.
• Training for staff and the public should be done thoughtfully. First of all, it should be done. And when training sessions are done, they should be done respectfully in an environment that fosters excitement and experimentation.
• Our borrowers are also creators. People increasingly expect to be able (with ease) to share their thoughts, opinions, and experiences.
• Internet librarians love Macs. I can't count the number of MacBooks I saw. A lot of us work in a PC world, but this was one Apple-lovin' group of librarians.
• Monterey is pretty. (Well, it is!)

So what's next?

I think the first step will be to put all great ideas and inspiration I came away with into one of two categories

1. for the public
2. for the staff

Then I'm going to see if there's anything on the list that would help us meet our current goals. I'll then work on implementing whatever intersects. The next step will be to start thinking about my goals for the next year and where there are opportunities to introduce a little 2.0 into 2008.

Even though I'm back from the conference, don't think it's 2.over. In fact, I think it's just the beginning.

OPAC 2.0

Designing an OPAC for Web 2.0
Casey Bisson, Software Developer & Information Technologist, Plymouth State University

The Lamson Library online catalog is a thing of beauty. It uses Scriblio, a free, open-source platform for libraries.

I had to leave early to go sit in the Monterey Airport, but I was inspired by what I did get to see and hear. Especially, "Your website is not a marketing tool...it's a service point."

slides

Mobile Tools 2.0

Trends in Mobile Tools & Applications for Libraries
Megan Fox, Web & Electronic Resources Librarian, Simmons College

This was one of the most informative programs I attended. I am just now scratching the surface of the ways mobile tools are going to change user demand for library services.

For example, 90% of college students have cell phones. Shipments of "smart phones" are up 50% over last year. 80% of teens use text messaging. Just imagine what all of this means for us!

One thing it means is that if we want mobile users to use our web sites, we'd better investigate optimizing our site for viewing on a mobile phone like Freemont Public Library has. You can learn more about transcoding and getting a .mobi domain name at Wikipedia, Mippin , FeedM8, and Zinadoo.

Young adults believe texting and IMing is more authentic than e-mail. Which (sigh) they think is for old people. But new products like Reference by SMS can translate text messages into e-mails. Guess what this means, everybody? That's right, no more excuses for not allowing patrons to text message us their reference questions! And, websites like Meebo now make instant messaging from the reference desk a real possibility!

As if you needed another reason never to be apart from your cellphone, Nokia is investigating ways to allow "pay-by-phone" services

The mobile phone payments Venyon wants to facilitate are based on NFC (near-field communication), which uses an RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip and antenna to exchange information with a payment station from a range of a few centimeters. Typically it would involve tapping the phone against a subway turnstile, a vending machine, a payment device at a checkout stand, or another phone, Pesonen said.

Megan also mentioned tumblr as a site to watch. To me it's like a short-attention-span Facebook mixed with Twitter. But what do I know.

And just 'cause it's fun. Check out how colleges are using game show-style clickers in the classroom to improve participation.

Search 2.0

Future of Search
Keynote Speech
Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief, Search Engine Land

Widely considered a leading "search engine guru," Danny Sullivan has been helping webmasters, marketers and everyday web users understand how search engines work for over a decade. Danny's expertise about search engines is often sought by the media, and he has been quoted in places like The Wall St. Journal, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, Forbes, The New Yorker and Newsweek and ABC's Nightline. Danny began covering search engines in late 1995, when he undertook a study of how they indexed web pages. The results were published online as "A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines," a pioneering effort to answer the many questions site designers and Internet publicists had about search engines. link

Two of Danny's predictions about the future of search have already come true, personalized and blended results. He cited Google's Universal Search as an example of "blended" search results.

Google's Universal Search blends video, local, news and book content into the top 10 list. Ask.com's new 3D approach is designed to make vertical results blend into a more seamless search experience. Yahoo and Microsoft also both give vertical results a presence in response to default search. This session looks at how these changes impact life for the search marketer. link

If monster searching's not for you, don't worry. Search developers are also working on "vertical search" opportunities. Vertical searching lets you limit your searches to a particular area like careers or news. Ideally it will provide more relevant hits.

Danny's personalization predication has come to life in Google's Web History. Let Google officially monitor everything you search for and view, and it will list pages you've visited before higher in your rankings. Spooky. (Optimizes ego-searching, though. Did you know there are actually other Karen Kleckner's out there? It's so tedious sorting through all of their mentions to find the really juicy stuff about ME.)

There were a lot of sessions about searching at the conference, but this was the only opportunity I had to learn a little bit more about the future of search. As we're all becoming more sophisticated searchers, search engines are hard at work to meet our growing demands. I look forward to seeing who wins the breadth v. depth wars.

Gadgets and Gaming 2.0

Gadgets, Gadgets & Gaming!
Barbara Fullerton, Manager, Library Relations, 10-K Wizard
Sabrina Pacifici, Editor & Publiser, LLRX. com & beSpacific.com
Aaron Schmidt, Director, North Plains Public Library
Erik Boekesteijn & Jaap van de Geer, Delft Public Library

What a fun night. Apparently an anticipated staple of the Internet Librarian conference, Tuesday night was a "slideshow" of hot new gadgets. The great thing was that they weren't necessarily "for libraries." They were new products that give us an idea of what our patrons will be using, and the challenge for us is to imagine how these innovations may evolve to impact libraries. (Like, where are people going to park their $30,000 solar golf carts?)

Some of my favorites were the $99 Palm Centro (hint, hint), Mandylion Password Manager, Vudo, Cloudprint, Skitch, and this fantastic Greenprint software.

"The Dutch Boys" then shared a sneak peak of their documentary, many recently familiar faces were featured!

Earthquake 5.6

We're fine, but I did get to have the quintessential California experience--an earthquake tremor!

At first I thought it was just my head actually exploding from all the information I've taken in over the past 96 hours, but no. The surreal experience of thinking an entire convention center was swaying was confirmed by the swaying chandeliers for a minute after.

(I still think my head might explode, though.)