NEASIST and Inspiration

Yesterday I attended a day long NEASIST Conference entitled Syndicate, Aggregate, Communicate: New Web Tools in Real Applications for Libraries, Companies and Regular Folk. It was absolutely fantastic, inspiring and really jazzed me about getting libraries more active in the virtual worlds cropping up everywhere. It also made me really excited about working in such a dynamic profession… SO, I'm turning my blog into a professional blog. I intend to post about all the cool library stuff I run into on a daily basis as well as my thoughts about librarianship and how to meet our users where they are… Where are they? I know they're on chat clients- libraries could be there. I know they're on blogs- librarians are there, but not most inward facing (this is a case in point), but blogs could and should be employed by libraries too. It's an important outreach. RSS- I have less experience with this myself, but I intend to investigate more over the next couple days (HAH! Right, weeks, if I'm lucky.)

I'll give a quick overview. Most of the content is available from the website NEASIST Events including power points, photos, blogs links, and podcast (btw, today I'm buying an iPod- the conference helped me justify such extravagance as a professional necessity… YAY!) The three presenters were Megan Fox, Jenny Levine, and Michael Stephens. Megan gave an overview on the “new” (they've been around for awhile) web services… some of them I've been aware of for awhile and use regularly, but never though of how to apply them to a library and its outreach. Essentially: Blogs, RSS, podcasting, Wiki, IM & SMS, Toolbars/Desktops, Desktop search, Bookmarklet, Social Bookmarking, Folksomomies/Tagging. Jenny went into a bit more detail on some of these. And Michaeld talked more specifically about what you can do, realistically, to get this stuff working for your library… INCLUDING, how to do so within the existing instituational politics… which is really underconsidered most of the time.

SO… first step for me is to start to really understand this stuff, use it myself, and then begin to try and advocate its (providing there's a real gain) use in the libraries with whom I associate. A lot of it is about being aware of what's happening in our culture… basically, the idea of 'community' is moving away from geography and, even, time and into the virtual/digital realm. If libraries are there to serve their communities, they need to be aware, and participate in then even as they change. SO… welcome to my blog.