Day 3, or 10, of #cildc: In which I present

This past Monday, I tweeted, “We could not purposefully design a more elegant and hideous tool for crushing post-conference enthusiasm than the flooded email inbox.” Turns out, the tool in question also works on blogging.

A week ago, we was getting ready to check out of the Washington Hilton, not yet realizing that our car’s battery had died during the week and we would be spending a decent chunk of the morning wondering if it was just a dead battery, or if your venerable Honda CR-V had decided to permanently give up the ghost in a valet garage 350 miles from home. Luckily, it was the former, and the issue was resolved two solid hours before I had to present.

Plenty of time, that.

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My first presentation, on prezi: http://prezi.com/vljiwo6wy3gd/plural-of-anecdote-cil2012/

First off, thanks to all who enjoyed the presentation, including all the folks who tweeted about it. Y’all warmed my cold, cold librarian heart.

Secondly, I want to make clear one quote that shouldn’t be attributed to me directly: the bit about needing to learn how patrons work, rather than asking them what they need. I saw that on twitter, missed who said it, and it came to mind as I was talking. I explained that, but saw someone tweet it like it was mine. It’s not, and I don’t want to claim credit. (Also, I think we need to do both. But that’s a side note.)

Some things I did say, and I’m glad they seemed to get some traction:

There is no antagonism between data and anecdotes. An story without data to back it up has no foundation. And as soon as you start collecting data, you’re beginning to build a narrative — simply by deciding which questions to ask. By the time you start putting that data into charts and graphs, there’s absolutely a narrative involved, so you need to know what it is rather than shying away from its existence. If you don’t put the story in someone else will.

Stories will tell you what data to get, and the data you get will always lead to more questions, which will be answered by a combination of more data and more stories.

The surest path to obsolescence for our profession is to design systems and resources that put us between our users and their work. If we instead aspire to create systems and resources that make positive changes in our users, and those changes both manifest and propagate without us, we will never be obsolete.

That was a really fun one.

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Right after that, I went and talked first-year experiences. I co-presented with the most excellent Jenn Colt-Demaree from CUL’s web team, and we talked about the Get Started! 2011 efforts I described in part last August. Our prezi is here: http://prezi.com/terkzxm3l1un/cil2012-get-started-2011/

We only had ten minutes or so, as we were sharing the time slot with folks from Washburn and Drake. But it was great to present with Jenn; she got to tell them about the excellent changes we made to the first year website, and what our goals were the future were. And people loved the video and the Z-cards. (I’m thrilled Jenn remembered to bring several of the latter; we gave them all away.)

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After that, there was bourbon and farewells in the lobby, and then I hopped on a train. Another great CiL. Looking forward to next year.

Day 2, #CILDC 2012: Maker culture, falafel, podcasts, BattleDecks, and KARAOKE

I gotta say, I think the high point of this day for me was Fiacre O’Duinn talking maker culture. He laid out a very understandable historical content for hackerspaces and other elements of maker culture, spoke a while about the more common variations of same, put out a call to librarians not only to embrace that culture but push it further, and quoted Audre Lorde and Ani DiFranco along the way.

I was hooked. I posted a bunch of stuff on twitter about it, but he really did get me questioning my day to day, and how much I was actually using my privileged position as a librarian to make the world around me better. My mind’s bubbling with ideas, and I’m glad I’ve already set up time with some folks back at the Big Red Ranch to talk about them. It’s gonna be tough to push any of this to fruition, and there’s no way I could do it alone.

Then there was some awesome falafel for dinner, the speaker’s reception, a brief appearance on the T is for Training podcast, watching my first ever BattleDecks competition, and finally: karaoke. Some of these are CiL traditions for me, others were firsts. All were crazily fun.

So yeah: good day.

Day 1 of #CILDC, CiL2012 that was

I’m worried I’m gonna run out of interesting ways to incorporate both hashtags before I run out of conference days.

My major item(s) of note from Wednesaday came from Track F, Library Issues and Challenges. Organized and moderated by Jennifer Koerber and Michael Sauers, the track mixed a bit of the traditional presentation stuff with a whole lot of discussion and break-outs, complete with microphones being flung around the audience and craft paper and crayons on the table for work and feedback.

It was awesome. I got to hear some great stuff from Hamilton Public Library’s Ken Roberts and others that was exciting, and hearing about what different people in the room were working on was really inspirational. There are some great ideas out there, and they need to be acknowledged, celebrated, and then mercilessly stolen.

I confess I’m feeling a bit of a session grind this go-round. Non-traditional nigh-unconferences like this ameliorate that tremendously.

Day 0 of #CILDC, Day 1 of #firecon

I’ll say this: it makes the first day easier when you only do one pre-conference workshop. My first and only was at 1:30PM, when Amy Buckland and I talked shop about repositories with folks.

I really dig this workshop; I feel like we really pack in a ton of info, and we do some nice interactive stuff, too. We had the attendees, whose repository background and staffing situations were nicely varied, list all the possible stakeholders in a repository project, and then figure out what these stakeholders could bring to the project — not vice versa — and then how we could get them to buy in.

Good stuff.

After that it was the Gaming and Gadgets Petting Zoo. It’s really cool how that eventy has evolved in the five years I’ve been attending. This year it was all about tablets, and the biggest draw was folks playing Plants vs. Zombies on a big screen.

The evening ended with dinner and FireCon, two elements that help make the DC location far superior to Crystal City. The restaurants are great, and sitting around a fire with a drink and a crew of badass libraryfolk is an experience that simply cannot be beat.

Looking forward to Day 1.

Day -1 of CiL2012, aka #CILDC

Back in DC.

Last night we departed Ithaca for my parents’ place in Binghamton. We had a wonderful visit, broke our fast with them this morning, then headed south. Lunch found us in Carlisle, PA, enjoying lamb stew with Elise and then getting a glimpse of the lovely Waidner-Spahr Library at Dickinson College. We had dinner with my sister and her awesome family in Maryland, and afterwards I watched an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold with my 4-year-old nephew. Who was dressed as Batman at the time.

In short, this day rocked.

And now, DC and CILDC. Settling in, looking forward to tomorrow, and all the awesome that this conference, its speakers, and its attendees bring year after year.

Computers in Libraries 2012

That time’s come round again, wherein I make plans and prepare to head down to Washington, DC, for Computers in Libraries. This will be my fifth year attending, if I’m counting correctly, and it’s still my favorite conference. There’s nothing like getting a bunch of cool folks together to talk about the stuff they’re excited about doing. I love it.

I’m on the agenda a few times this year, as well, which truth be told I also find to be damnably fun (if a bit nerve-wracking in the weeks beforehand). Here’s my schedule, if you’ll be down there and interested:

Digital Repositories: Strategies & Techniques
with Amy Buckland, eScholarship, ePublishing & Digitization Coordinator, McGill University Library
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
1:30 PM – 4:30 PM

This workshop addresses key issues surrounding the creation, maintenance, and cultivation of digital repositories. Drawing on the latest literature, case studies, and personal experiences, speakers lead a discussion that covers planning the digital repository, selecting a methodology for its establishment, populating it with content, marketing it to the library’s constituencies, and meeting the various challenges and questions along the way. Participants have the opportunity to bring their own experiences to bear, as well as engage in group discussions regarding how to get the most out of a digital repository.

Assessing Success for Digital Repositories
Friday, March 23, 2012
2:45 PM – 3:30 PM

This session illustrates how a digital projects group found a balance between using stories and data analysis to assess the success of a repository and how success is defined. The cautionary tale warns that assessing data with various assessment tools can prove ineffective or disconnected without a context provided by a strong narrative. Get some tips and insights from our speaker.

Getting First Years Off to a Strong Start
with Jennifer Colt-Demaree, Web Development Specialist, Cornell University Library, and two other teams with whom we’re sharing the time slot
Friday, March 23, 2012
3:45 PM – 4:30 PM

With recent studies indicating college students don’t really understand what libraries can do for them, these libraries are taking action to get first-year students using libraries for better grades. At Cornell University, the Get Started! campaign combines innovative print materials, modern webpage design, and directed multimedia. At Washburn University, librarians aren’t content for the libraries to be repositories, so are now the personal librarians of Washburn students and faculty, using technology to teach information literacy to first-year students. At Drake they created a course for first-year students to explore institutional specific resources (special collections/archives) and Drakeapedia, a wiki about, by, and for the Drake community.

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The notice is probably too short, but seriously: if you don’t go to CiL, l I highly recommend that you start. The speakers at this shindig are perennially great, and the presentations and discussions are as inspiring as you’re like to find in libraryland. Check it out.

And if you’re already going, see you in DC!

The Niwanda Jones Road Show, Bibliotechnologic Emporium and Presentational Jamboree

Also known as, “two months of seemingly non-stop travel, punctuated by standing in the front of rooms and talking”. See also:

By my count, the last 73 days have included just over 1,700 miles of travel (1,100 by car, 600 by plane) and 12 hours and 50 minutes of presentation time (three workshops, four presentations, one panel).  Somehow, only two states (plus the District of Columbia) were involved.

I’m kinda tired (and apparently prone to parenthetical statements). I’m not sure if I really bit off more than I could chew, since the various and sundry events seemed to go well, but it was a damned close thing. I did, of course, get to meet and see a great many tremendous folks, and see some excellent presentations. I still plan to make travel a part of this career thing, though likely not on the kind of schedule I saw this Spring.

And, of course, the travel’s not done: in two weeks I go to SLA. But I’m not presenting, just attending. And after that I may not be traveling for work until CiL12, and I’ve no presentations on the horizon before a webinar in the Fall.

Which is not to say I won’t be busy: I’ll endeavor to produce something publishable over the next two seasons, and I’m gonna have a lot of new stuff on my plate at work. (More on that in a later post, maybe.)

But I’m not gonna lie: in comparison, such things sound downright restful. I am nearly certain that they will prove me wrong, and that I’ll look back on that statement with rue. But I’m willing to enjoy the delusion for now.

EDIT: IR Day went really well, by the way. I’ll post more about it when they get my presentation — and video! — posted to their repository, allowing me to provide a plethora of links. But I was really impressed with the event, the University of Maryland School of Law, and their Thurgood Marshall Law Library (which I was lucky enough to get a tour of).

#cil11 Day 1

This morning began with thunderstorms and delayed keynote speakers and busted wifi.  But I try not to see omens, especially before a presentation.

Still getting my head around arriving a day early, especially a day as packed as yesterday. Usually, the keynote is my signal to spool up to full conference readiness; right now, my body feels pretty convinced that this shindig is over. My body, on the other hand, is pretty damned excited about what’s coming up. Hurrah for periodic and helpful dualism.

There are ways I might like to spend the time prior to presenting, but desperately trying to reactivate the wifi card on my work-borrowed laptop is not among them. Such is the world, and as problems go it’s minor indeed.

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The presentation went very well, I think. I went second, but the folks preceding me were stunningly considerate about time. I still felt like I was paced like a freight train, but I got through.

 

Digital Repository Success on Prezi

I feel awkward posting that: I’m increasingly of the school of thought that mandates as few words of possible on slides, so flipping through that presentation will likely prove confusing. Maybe I could put together something with sound?

In any case, I got a tone of great questions afterwards, and a long talk with Courtney Young. She felt that — and I’m hopefully paraphrasing correctly, here — that I was putting forward a fundamentally un-collaborative process forward as collaboration. If I did so, it was an error: I don’t see our “give us your vita, we’ll take it from there” repository policy as collaborative. We see it as effective for getting faculty content into the repository, and also setting the stage for actual collaboration with some faculty later. For most faculty, they really don’t go beyond that, and that’s fine; the ones who do come back with more, though, help provide the stuff that makes DigitalCommons@ILR shine.

Such a good talk, and exactly the sort of thing I hope for when I get asked to present.

If you flip through that thing, you’ll notice I wrap up with a focus on stories. I was thrilled to hear that emphasized again in Rebecca Jones‘ presentation later in the day, “Performance Measures: Illustrating Value to Your Community”. It was inspiring, informative, and quite a lot of fun. If I can find a link to it, I’ll add it here. Great, great stuff.

Afterwards, a lovely dinner and an evening spent around a firepit behind the hotel. Firecon forever, y’all. Can’t wait for tomorrow.

#cil11 Day 0

Sunrise found me walking the streets of Washington, DC in search of coffee and an oddly specific number of nickels and pennies.

I was walking alone, since a Sunday filled with eight or so hours of workshops is apparently sufficient cause for my wife and I to exchange our positions on early mornings. She’s sleeping soundly as I write this, and I’m only slightly envious.

The aforementioned coinage is necessary for part of my first workshop today. It’ll run from nine to noon, and my second from 1:30 to 4:30. I’m wired as all hell right now, over an hour before the party gets started. I have no idea what condition I’ll be in when it finally winds down.

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Many hours later…

My feet are killing me.

Workshops went really well. Scott Nicholson is a damned genius at interactive games and teaching, and I’d have been glad just to watch.  Getting a chance to help him run a workshop was phenomenal. We ran folks through a number of learning games and discussed the principles behind them. I think his simulation section was stronger than my roleplay section, but I felt like I acquitted myself well.

One of the big things I took away from that was “Thiagi’s six-stage* debriefing process,” from Thiagarajan’s Design your Own Games and Activities, a book I need to pick up. I implemented the process in my own post-activity debriefs, both in this workshop and the next, and it worked great.

(While you’re taking my book recommendations: check out Scott’s awesome Everyone Plays at The Library, too. He really captures the wide applicability gaming has in this profession.)

After that, Amy Buckland and I talked shop about repositories with a fine crew of folks for our afternoon workshop. We had a good mix of folks: public librarians, academic librarians, school librarians, vendor reps, folks with repositories, folks planning ‘em, and folks just thinking about ‘em.

Great discussion resulted, focusing on the obstacles facing repository managers and librarians, and how best to overcome those obstacles. People were willing to bring their own experiences to bear on the discussion, and used that to build a list of stakeholders, what they could bring to a project and how to get them to buy in. Then we let folks do some roleplay of how they’d make the last bit happen; good times were had by all.

After that, it was just getting my butt kicked in that PS3 Move gladiator game, hanging out with some most excellent library folks, and walking with Nina to get burgers from Five Guys.

Oh, and I confess I find The Amazing Race oddly compelling. Not that I’m gonna get cable or anything, but I’m totally rooting for the Globetrotters.

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* “How do you feel? What happened? What did you learn? How does it relate to the real world? What if? What next?”

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go

OK, neither of those are true. I’m hoping they will be within the next hour or two, though.

Time’s come ’round again to gear up and head out to Computers in Libraries, a conference that will continue to hold a special place in my heart. It was the first library conference I attended, the first place I presented beyond Cornell, and even the birthplace of this blog.

This time’s gonna be the busiest yet, and I confess I don’t feel fully prepared. But I’m coming to accept that as much work as I do on these presentations, I won’t ever feel fully prepared: I’ll just keep picking at them and making small changes and then suddenly I’ll find myself answering post-presentation questions and it’ll be all good.

So time to pack some bags and get on the road. Hope to see you in DC, and sorry to miss you if I don’t.