Friday, February 22, 2008

Big Day Out with Librarians 2008


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It is a rare pleasure in life when you get to make a public pronouncement to an entity about how it has made a positive impact in your life. I had the privilege of telling 75 people or more (including folks that got evacacuated because they were hanging outin the door way of the Beaver alumni reading room lounge (which coincidentally included at least five books taking up our front room bookcase, the one in our living room with contents that Pam has suggested could be pruned out big-time) how much I have appreciated 14 years of associating with Online NW.

Online NW is a one day conference consisting of a keynote, four concurrent sessions, good salad bar lunches, excellent snacks, and a solid mix of all kinds of folks who work at and with libraries, care about libraries and the technology that allow us, to use Douglas Engelbart's model, augment the human intellect in a positive way with personal digital devices.

As Kitty Mackey and I told our presentation, it was where we trek annually to learn about breaking and developing technologies. Online was where I first learned about alternative shareware browsers, Cascading Style Sheets, Google and its breakthroughs in Search technology, Wikis, social bookmarking, and a lot of other tools and trends. I went to my first one, I believe in 1994. I remember not being able to go to the 1996 one in Eugene because travel advisories were in effect after the big floods that year.

This year their 25th Annual outing in Corvallis was departure in many ways from years past. The attendance was especially strong--well over 300, pretty much capacity for the CHM2 Hill Conference Center which has alum gatherings and programs, sometimes on game day, right across the street from Parker, now Reser (if you know about dairy cases in the Northwest, you know Reser) Stadium. It is also the first year organizers gave out free tote bags!

I don't think I encountered any breakthrough stuff for me this time. This years sessions seemed to continue a dialog I have been seeing for about two years, the question of library roles with the so-called Web 2.0 technologies, for themselves and for their patron communities. RSS, Social bookmarking, and the whole bevy of community computing tools from MySpace to aggregator resources.

My conclusion is that there is not yet a killer app for these in the ways that libraries have been doing business so far. Libraries have taken on this kind of stewardship role acting as the giant reflector and refractor of digital technologies popular and otherwise. That's what makes the Online Conference so valuable for me. An example, are the historic sessions lead by former conference chair Dale Vidmar, a reference and instructional librarian at Southern Oregon University, showed attendees year after year that librarians are the most fortunate guides to the gateway for search resources and how to comprehend them. His invaluable Internet Searing Tools pagewill always be one of these gateways.

Unfortunately, I had scheduling conflict to see the presentation by another impressive librarian from the Fort Vancouver Regional System, Sam Wallin, who I see deep in the midst of studying and sharing the current trends in web resources in a similar way. But I saw Sam present at InfoCamp earlier this year and I am a fan of his blog, supercrazylibrarianguy. I see him trying to uncover clues in this new landscape. Also, impressive is the Oregon State team who have been monitoring trends through their page Infodoodads.

Delivery possibilities were also probed by a terrific duo, Michelle Drumm of BCR and Barret Havens of Centralia College (Go SW WA community colleges!) who were survivor associates of Houston Community College systems and are darned glad to be out West now, thank you very much. They poked and probed through a whole variety of RSS connectivity tools and issues as demo previews of tutorials they will have online soon. And they did what the best library presenters and trainers do, they passed out chocolate before lunch to the audience. Impressive.

Another departure was the non-librarian, and non-futurist choice in keynote speakers. Jared Spool is kind of the clown prince of Web Usability, full of provocation, one liners, some improv and some PowerPoint slides with cool transitions, like during his 20 minute tour analyzing a search for downloading Hewlett Packard printer drivers. I've seen Jared a few times at conferences and am simultaneously infuriated and entertained at his presentations. Actually, he was no match for the librarians. And everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.


  • Spool: When I told folks I was coming to speak to a bunch of librarians in Corvalis, there were two reactions. One is that they totally believed me, the other was that they asked me how many would be wearing Birkenstocks.
    (asks for show of hands of Birk wearers, and none are raised)
    Audience of Librarians: Ask about Danskos.
    He asks who is wearing Danskos and I saw at least twenty hands raised from my vantage point.

  • Spool: My son wants to be a magician. When the little kids come up to him and ask him how he did certain tricks, he went all Dewey on them and would say 873.6.
    Poor Jared, he asked if that was right
    Audience of Librarians: (muttering I interpreted as 790.)

  • Spool also told a story about someone who came into their usability lab on the way to Doctor's office. He had them check out the Dr. Koop page (remember the big controversy about paid advertisements and sponsorship by drug companies a few years back?) for a possible ailment quickly diagnosed on the phone and watched them struggle with the subject headings.
    Audience of Librarians: What about Medline Plus?



    • I was frankly a small bit nervous at first being scheduled to be a co-presenter on a session about library page usability, right after Jared. Afterall, he is founder and principle of User Interface Engineering

    But there was no reason to worry. As I said the room was full and we were well received. Our topic was an annual project my GRCP 210 Interface Design and Interactivity class does to provide usability testing, focus group feedback, and makeover designing for the Clark College Cannell Library website.

    Some of the most surprising and rewarding feedback came from folks who were impressed by the level of collaboration that was taking place between faculty and library. I guess I have assumed that myself and many of my colleagues at Clark were not extraordinary in the projects we have done. But I guess its not that way everywhere. Another reason to count blessings about where I work.
    posted by well-executed buffet at 9:05 PM
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