Poster Session at ALA

ALA poster session attendees, thanks for stopping by to talk with Alice and me. I wrote a series of posts about our welcome party in the library (the Hubbub) during freshman orientation week:

Hubbub 2008

Hubbub 2007

I'm writing this from my phone so hopefully it looks okay. More later.

Going to ALA?

If so, you should come by the poster sessions in the exhibit hall on Sunday, July 12, at 1 pm. Alice and I will be presenting the poster session: Causing a Hubbub: Hosting a Freshmen Orientation Extravaganza at the Library.

You'll learn about our experiences from Hubbub 2007 and Hubbub 2008, and I can tell you a little about what's in the works for August.

Stop by and see us!

Snazzy Presentations with Prezi

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak about web 2.0 technologies at the Kentucky Digital Government Summit, a conference for IT professionals from government entities throughout the state. I've spoken on web 2.0 and social networking software a number of times but usually to librarian audiences. I wanted to do something interesting for a group of mostly CIOs, CTOs, and high-level IT directors, but I hadn't thought of anything clever until Chris, a colleague from SLA Academic, suggested I should try Prezi sometime for a presentation. He had recently wowed audiences with a presentation about his library. I took one look at it and was hooked.

Prezi basically gives you a blank canvas which you can add text, images, links, screenshots, etc. You can group them together, draw lines to your objects, or whatever. As a last step, you connect each object in the order you plan to present. It's hard to describe, so maybe you should watch this clip or look at a good example of a Prezi presentation. It takes a little getting used to and has its own lingo--the "transformation zebra" for one--but I got the hang of it pretty quickly and had fun building and tweaking.

Once your presentation is complete, you can download your presentation for offline use. While it is a Flash file, no Flash player is necessary--the neat little package you download includes an executable file. I was particularly relieved that I finished the presentation over the weekend and downloaded it, as Prezi had an unprecedented major failure on Monday. The company was great about posting updates on the situation, and thankfully I didn't have too many final edits to make. They may be upgrading access to those of who were affected as a way of compensation.

So admittedly my Prezi on Web 2.0 was a first attempt, and I already want to do the next one differently. I was still pretty pleased with how it looked and with the audience response. One attendee sent me a Facebook message after the conference noting: "I never once looked at my watch!"

I'm looking forward to my next Prezi.

Talking about the Hubbub

I do enjoy talking about the Hubbub, our welcome party in the Hub during fall orientation week, so much so that my Facebook friends who know nothing about my job know all about the party by August each year. This year should be even bigger, as the Hubbub is now one of the major events during K Week. I'll start planning next month and will likely share some of those ideas here throughout the planning process.

Anyway, as much as I like writing about the Hubbub and talking about the Hubbub on Facebook, I really like talking about the party in person. Earlier this month I did just that, along with former colleague Alice Wasielewski, at the Kentucky Library Association Academic and Special Sections and the Kentucky Chapter of the Special Libraries Association Joint Spring Conference. To create a more party-like atmosphere in our post-lunch time slot, we distributed leis to session attendees (good idea, Alice!). Later that afternoon I heard a few people asking where they got the leis--should have attended our session!

We will be sharing our Hubbub story again at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago on July 12 at 1 pm in our poster session, "Causing a Hubbub: Hosting a Freshmen Orientation Extravaganza at the Library." I am not sure yet if I will be attending the conference, but I know Alice will be there at Table 1 ready to share lots of information and advice about throwing a party for your students.

Photo by Beth Kraemer

Library Technology Conference

I had such a great time talking about information commons during the opening session of the Library Technology Conference at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN on March 18. The crowd had a lot of questions, and I thoroughly enjoyed talking with attendees afterward about their own commons plans and experiences. Special thanks to Ron Joslin for inviting me to speak and to Jeanine Gatzke for being such an excellent guide during my stay.

If you are not familiar with this conference, take a look at the outstanding sessions they offered. The mix of presentations and hands-on sessions are ideal, and the range of topics is excellent. I heard more than once from attendees who had just returned from ACRL the week before that this conference was better. I was not able to stay for the entire conference, but for what I did attend, it was difficult to choose among such interesting sessions. I have already talked to a few of my colleagues here about looking at this conference for ideas for a future Kentucky event. Thank you, Minnesota!

Photo by Jeanine Gatzke

Presentations, etc.

I tend to avoid personal posts, but I have a few things to share that may be of interest to some readers. I have updated my short vita page to list upcoming presentations. Among those, I will soon be headed to the Library Technology Conference at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN to give a keynote presentation on information commons and a session on using video creatively in your library. This really looks like an outstanding conference, and I am so excited to be a part of it. If any readers are attending, please be sure to say hello.

In other professional news, I am running for SLA's Board of Directors for the position of Division Cabinet Chair-Elect. I have been heavily involved with the IT division of SLA since joining the organization, and last year I led the petition drive to launch the brand-new Academic Division of SLA. I am also serving on the SLA Centennial Commission and Annual Conference Planning Committee. I know I have written about this previously, but if any of you are curious about SLA (or perhaps don't think of yourself as "special"), get in touch. I would love to tell you more about my professional organization.

Finally, I am delighted that the Frye Leadership Institute class of 2009 has just been announced. I am so thrilled to be part of such an esteemed group. If any readers are past or current Fryers, give me a shout.

What a busy year this is becoming, but I wouldn't have it any other way!

SLA Conference Presentations

So I had good intentions to post my notes from the sessions I attended at the SLA Annual Conference in Seattle as well as notes from all the committee/board meetings where I participated. I've been back in Kentucky for over a week and the notes still linger on a table in my office, piled with other conference mementos that I can't bring myself to put away just yet. I did post some photos to Facebook and have caught up on some committee work behind the scenes, but I've had time for little else SLA conference-related.

I was fortunate to speak in three different conference sessions at SLA:

Applying the Information Commons Concept
I was the only speaker at this session and was absolutely thrilled to see such a large, lively, and engaged crowd. The session was 75 minutes, and I managed to stop talking after about 60 minutes (thanks to my moderator, the lovely Catherine Lavallée-Welch, for keeping me on track) . We had a terrific discussion in the question and answer portion, and I met a number of Info Commons colleagues post-session.

If you've just started reading this blog after attending the session, welcome! You might be interested in reading some past posts--I've collected all of my Information Commons posts to date. Over the next couple of months, I do plan to write up some of the new projects I mentioned. I also plan to post my session slides, though I'm thinking about adding some context since my slides are almost entirely images.

Perspectives of New Info Pros: Conversation in the Round
I was delighted to be asked to speak with Daniel Lee and Christina de Castell, two major movers and shakers in SLA. The session was literally a conversation among the three of us, moderated by Ulla de Stricker. I was impressed with the questions from the audience which really shaped our discussion. It was fun to participate in a session like this--you're not really sure where the conversation will go so you've really got to think on your feet. I know the format was interesting and challenging to me as a speaker, and I hope the attendees felt the same way. If you want to know more about the session, take a look at the wiki where we started our discussion before the conference.

Technical Support Roundtable
This is the third year in a row I led this session, and unfortunately it was the year I was least prepared. Since I moved away from a purely IT position to a more hybrid role (the information commons), I found myself with fewer questions on my conversation starter list for this session. It is a fun session--think of it as an in-person discussion list or a bar conversation without the beer--okay, maybe that doesn't sound like very much fun...Well, Ruth did a much better job of summing it up than I could, and I am delighted she will be taking over for the fourth iteration of this session at the SLA Centennial Conference in D.C.

AISTI Conference

I'm in beautiful Santa Fe right now at the 9th Annual AISTI Mini Conference. It's been a terrific experience so far--excellent session content and networking opportunities--and I'm delighted to have had a chance to speak to this group. I'll be posting more of my notes from the conference soon, but in the meantime, here's my handout from the presentation:

Handout from AISTI session, "Using Second Life for Real Life Collaborations"

Library Orientation Video: Saving Student Brian

I've written about our video Saving Student Brian before, but I wanted to mention it again as we just presented on the experience of creating the video at the LOEX Conference last week. If you missed it, we'll be doing an online encore for the LOEX Conference on Wednesday, May 21. We are also featured as the April 2008 ACRL PRIMO Site of the Month which includes an interview with me about the video. We also may be speaking on a panel at ACRL 2009 about the video if the proposal is accepted. Who knew we'd get so much mileage out of Brian!

With summer here, we've already started drafting the next script for the further adventures of Brian. Yes, it's time for a sequel. Stay tuned!