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Making researchers famous with social media

View more documents from Mal Booth Mal writes: These are the slides and notes for a workshop we are running for academic researchers on using social media to raise their profiles as part of our UTS Research Week 2012 program.

LogoColors, a photo by widgetsandstone on Flickr.

Via one of my students, just discovered this campaign:

http://www.widgetsandstone.com/CustomContentRetrieve.aspx?ID=3999890

 

Various fluorescent colors of the campaign logo.

This was part of a marketing campaign to draw citizens to a visioning event to give their ideas on how the Chattanooga library system could be reinvented.

Other parts of the street marketing campaign were stickers, coasters and coffee cup sleeves — all done with the initial “Nothing Will Change” message, then followed by the altered “Everything Will Change” message. Ads direct mailers and web page were also part of the overall campaign.

The end result was a success, with over 200 people attending the visioning event (exceeding the 50 expected by the library consultants leading the event).

Don’t miss this article by Åke Nygren at InformationToday Europe:

http://www.InfoToday.eu/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=80411&PageNum=2

Åke explores how Stockholm Libraries are responding to e-book stagnation:

Since 2010 the Stockholm Public Libraries have been working hard at coming to grips with the conflict between a growing public demand for e-books and the devastatingly low percentage of e-books available in their stacks. The overall conclusion: instead of waiting for a print oriented publishing market, paralysed by its anxieties for possible loss of market shares, let’s get the job done ourselves! 

Later:

The third step will be to explore the potential with EPUB 3, an open format that has the potential to move e-reading from a disclosed and lonely activity towards an open, creative and social experience.

In brief, Stockholm Public Libraries response to e-book stagnation is to:

• Cooperate:  we can’t do it on our own, let’s find strategic partnerships, for e-book openness and innovation.
• Digitise: let’s not just sit and wait. If nobody else seems keen on digitising, well, then we do it ourselves.
• Integrate: making literature accessible for everybody in 2012 is not just about digitisation, it’s also a question of packaging and integration of the content in user friendly and flexible user interfaces.
• Engage: let’s explore the potential of co-creating new content together with the users of today: the prosumers.

SLIS Student Research Journal is a peer-reviewed publication of San José State University School of Library and Information Science that promotes graduate scholarship and intellectual inquiry in the fields of library and information science, archives and records management, and museum studies.

For more information: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slissrj/  LIS Educators – please share this info with your students, including the policies for submissions, etc: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/slissrj/policies.html

My essay “Beyond the Walled Garden: LIS Students in an Era of Participatory Culture” is in the newest issue: http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=slissrj Here’s a brief excerpt of that article:

Contributions Matter

It makes me happy to see students, especially those who have taken my classes, lauded in the professional networks for their contributions. When an author has commented on a student’s blog post or a notable library figure “retweets” a student’s Twitter post, these actions prove that everyone can be a part of the discussion. Value is present from all who participate. The notion that only professional librarians’ opinions matter, for example, loses strength as everyone contributes. The contributions of original research by graduate students can also be part of the ongoing, scholarly conversation within our field. A strong foundation in research methods prepares students – and not just those interested in academic libraries – for performing user studies, analysis of survey data, and other inquiries. Consider, for example, the wide range of backgrounds LIS students bring to their graduate education. Many who are embarking on second careers may have insights and ideas that might benefit the greater community. Offering a mechanism for sharing and feedback, such as SRJ, gets their voices into the mix as soon as possible.

 

I am about to present my keynote for the Handheld Librarian Conference. The slides are here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/239835/HandheldLibStephens.pdf

Extra Links:

Pew Tablet & E-Book Reader Ownership: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/E-readers-and-tablets.aspx

Why QR Codes Are Failing: http://www.imediaconnection.com/article_full.aspx?id=30267

Pongr: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/162/pongr

From a press release about this year’s free, online Library 2.012 Conference:

As information professionals from all around the world digest the wealth of information shared during the inaugural Library 2.011 Worldwide Virtual Conference, a second round of inspiration is underway with the announcement of the Library 2.012 Worldwide Virtual Conference! 

Save the dates of October 3-5, 2012, for an inspiring global conversation about the future of libraries. The fully online Library 2.012 Conference will be held in multiple time zones, available in multiple languages, and feature multiple tracks. The conference is sure to be brimming with knowledge as information professionals worldwide meet online for this free forum. Sign up for conference news and updates at Library2012.com.

In the meantime, if you missed one of the 160 presentations given at the Library 2.011 Conference, don’t worry. We understand that you had to sleep at some point during the 24-hour, two-day conference! All the presentations were recorded and can be accessed on the Library 2.0 website.

The San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science is a founding partner of Library 2.011 and Library 2.012 conferences. The nationally-ranked school offers two fully online master’s degrees, a fully online certificate program, and a doctoral program: Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS), Master of Archives and Records Administration (MARA), Post-Master’s Certificate in Library and Information Science, and the San José Gateway PhD Program. Learn more at: http://slisweb.sjsu.edu

 

ILI 2012 Call for Speakers Open! If you would like to be considered as a speaker, please

submit your ideas here.

The deadline for submissions is 12 April 2012.

Internet Librarian International is the innovation and technology conference for information professionals. The conference attracts hundreds of library and information professionals from around the world.

Internet Librarian International 2012 will take place at Olympia in London 30-31 October (with pre-event workshops scheduled for 29 October). We invite participation from a wide range of professionals – new and established – from all over the world to share their experiences of developing and delivering innovative information services. We seek dynamic speakers from all types of libraries – public, academic, government, national or commercial – as well as those working outside a ‘traditional’ library setting.

Share your success stories. Tell us what lessons you’ve learned if things didn’t turn out quite as expected. This is your chance to help others to rethink and recharge, and to benefit from the insights of others.

Re-imagine, Renew, Reboot: Innovating for Success

This year the conference will focus on how information and library professionals are successfully delivering innovative products and services to ever more demanding customers in a fast-changing technology landscape. Library patrons, users and customers now expect access to information wherever they are, on a variety of devices. Budgets remain under pressure. Access to information, data and knowledge is becoming more open and transparent, with partnerships and new social media contexts expanding knowledge sharing in new and surprising ways.

With all this going on, librarians need to stay at the leading edge of service provision. What innovative and imaginative solutions can make a real impact on our ability to serve our customers and our institutions? Share your experiences with your peers at Internet Librarian International.

Possible topics fall under the following headings.

• Meeting the ‘everything everywhere’ demands of customers
• New and innovative uses of technology
• Managing and maximising resources
• Redesigning services and products
• Using the internet for research and reference
• Marketing the service and reaching new audiences
• Educating and mentoring users
• Career opportunities – new skills and new roles
• Ideas for full or half day workshops

But don’t limit your imagination - click here to see more ideas.

How do I participate?

If you would like to be considered as a speaker, please submit your ideas here. The deadline for submissions is 12 April 2012.

The advisory committee will review all submissions and you will be notified in May 2012. If your proposal is selected, the primary speaker will receive a free registration to the full conference, which includes lunches and a drinks reception.

We’re looking forward to receiving your suggestions and ideas.

Val Skelton, Programme Director

Katherine Allen, Conference Director

Please note that the expenses of attending Internet Librarian International (including travel, accommodation, and any other expenses) will be the responsibility of the presenter. By submitting your proposal, you acknowledge that you accept this financial responsibility.

Possible topics include:

• 21st century collection management
• Big data initiatives; open data
• Content management
• Creating new products
• Demonstrating impact; influencing management; working with customers
• Development and rollout of library apps
• Digital libraries; digitisation projects; digital curation
• E-learning, information literacy; training skills
• E resources; ebooks; ejournals; creating digital collections; ebook policies; acquisition management; contract negotiation
• Financial challenges; new sources of funding; innovative ways to manage costs
• Future planning; service redesign; mashups; marketing the service; raising the profile, collaboration and partnering
• Gamification initiatives; location awareness
• Information legislation; copyright; data protection; managing digital rights
• Leading edge technologies
• Librarians as agents of social change; community development and cohesion
• New ways of skills development; developing unconferences; managing tweetups
• New roles for information professionals
• Mobile, multiplatform information provision; working with tablet devices
• New ways of creating content; crowdsourcing; user generated content
• Managing information flows
• Open access; open source
• Open data; linked data
• Outsourcing, offshoring, insourcing
• Publishing trends
• Redesigning websites; usability; optimisation
• Semantic web
• Supporting the mobile workforce
• Taxonomies; ontologies
• Using social media tools to maximum effect; podcasting; Twitter/YouTube techniques
• Using the internet for research; search tips and techniques; new search tools
• Web publishing; web technology; the cloud
• Web scale discovery
• Sector specific case studies – we are interested in case studies from a range of settings including academic libraries, public libraries, corporate settings, government libraries, health/medical libraries, law libraries, and non-traditional information settings

Submit your ideas here

I’m very excited to be leading a faculty development workshop at Dominican University of California  on February 24th. Here’s the draft abstract, based in part on a talk I gave at EDUCAUSE Learning Initiatives in 2010:

Creative Collaboration and Immersive Engagement: The Hyperlinked Campus

Emerging technologies for communication and creation of content afford the possibility of the connected, “always on” educational environment. The Hyperlinked Campus is a model of open communication, transparency, social engagement, guided exploration, and creativity. This session will explore how some tools can extend the classroom beyond physical buildings to engage learners with their peers and with the world. The session will focus on open learning systems for courses, Twitter in the classroom and virtual learning space, and the creation of  personal learning networks. Moving beyond the walled garden and into participatory networks of learning and engagement can benefit both faculty and students.

 

Don’t miss:

http://www.libraryasincubatorproject.org/?p=2045

TTW Contributor Justin Hoenke answers some questions about the library as a creation space for teens:

How do artists use your library?

Every day after school we get anywhere from 30-60 teens using our teen library space.  I see the teens making music, art, and videos on their laptops everyday.  A lot of them also sit around and doodle, and the almost always give me their finished products.  I’ve got quite a compilation of teen artwork created in the library that someday I hope to put together and feature in the library!

This image gallery is a collection of pieces that teens completed in the Portland Public Library as part of the Searching For ME program, where teens designed their own story in their image. The program was a collaboration with The Telling Room and The Maine College of Art. All photos are courtesy of Justin Hoenke.

 

Kindle for Beginners, a photo by Lester Public Library on Flickr.

Please, TTW Readers, follow this link and sign the petition:

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/ensure-every-child-america-has-access-effective-school-library-program/tmlbRqfF?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

Every child in America deserves access to an effective school library program. We ask that the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) provide dedicated funding to help support effective school library programs. Such action will ensure more students have access to the resources and tools that constitute a 21st century learning environment. Reductions in school library programs are creating an ‘access gap’ between schools in wealthier communities versus those where there are high levels of poverty. All students should have an equal opportunity to acquire the skills necessary to learn, to participate, and to compete in today’s world.

UPDATED ON 1/28/12 (see below)

*sort of

 

I bought a Kindle for these reasons and for the past few days, I’ve been using it in a few different ways.  I bought two books from Amazon totalling $6.99.  But most of the space on my Kindle is taken up by a collection of PDF’s.  Yes, this is how I’m hacking a Kindle.  It’s my PDF collection device.

Does your library subscribe to some databases?  Chances are, they do, and this will be where you will start your hacking.  My current topics of interest include empowering patrons to create “stuff” in the library, user experience, teens and technology, and The Beach Boys.  I dove into these topics pretty deeply one night and searched for PDF’s that interested me.

I was always happy to see this PDF Full Text icon

If I couldn’t find an article in PDF form, I turned to Google Chrome extensions to help convert that text into a PDF.

I highly suggest "Save as PDF"

Once I downloaded the articles, I sent them to my Kindle account using my Send to Kindle email address.  The next time I turned on my Kindle, I synced the device and viola!  My PDF’s showed up, ready to view, highlight, share, and cite.

At first, the process may be a bit cumbersome (and there may even be better ways to do it!), but once I got into the groove of searching/saving/uploading PDF’s, I had quite a collection in no time.  I highly suggest that if a librarian has a patron that has a Kindle and is interested in collecting their research that they at least think about using this way to aid the patron.

UPDATE!
I got an email from @verbivoria last night (thank you!) that explained how to use Instapaper to  send web articles to your Kindle:

You can use Instapaper to save web articles you like, convert them to Kindle files, and then import to the device.

The neat thing is this: you install a “Read Later” button on your browser, and when you find something that you want to peruse later, you click the button. I find this invaluable.

I found these two articles to be really helpful if you need help setting up this process: Lifehacker   Dave-Smith.org

-Post by Justin Hoenke,Tame the Web Contributor

Two years ago, I had the painful pleasure of coauthoring a textbook with three other colleagues. This textbook was written for first-year writing students, and I wrote the sections of the book that focused on research and information literacy.

As we wrote the book, my thoughts went back to one of my former high school teachers, Michael McAvoy. This morning I learned through Facebook that he lost his battle with cancer. I have many memories of high school (most of them good), but out of all of them, Mr. McAvoy is the one person who rises above most of the others. As someone who works in education, I hope that I can have the same type of impact in my students.

“Swanson, the machine I am getting to replace you is getting cheaper every day.” Mr. McAvoy would typically say this after I made some sort of smart-ass remark in class. He would smirk, fold his arms, and rock forward on the balls of his feet with an air of mild humor mixed with pretend contempt.

There was a time when I was out sick, and I missed a couple of his classes.  When I returned, I saw him in the hallway, and I asked him whether he missed me.  He responded, “Well, Swanson, I wasn’t shooting. But if I was, I wouldn’t miss.” Then he continued on his way down the hall. He said that at a time when this type of remark did not cause alarm. It was a different time and place.

I remember that he was a Packer fan and a Dodger fan, which were always points of debate since we were in Bears and Cubs country. He only had three toes on one foot due to an unfortunate incident with a lawnmower when he was a kid. One time he participated in a fantasy basketball league with his students. His team name was The Seven-Toed Chest Kickers.

When I think of Mr. McAvoy, I know he was one of my best teachers. He was the reason that when I entered college I was a better writer than most of my classmates. But, I liked him for more reasons than the simple transfer of writing skills.  I remember him so fondly because of the way he engaged us as students. I can distinctly remember the class discussion we had about Julius Caesar getting stabbed to death in Shakespeare’s play, our discussion of the novel Lord of the Flies, and a paper I wrote about Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. I remember being so amazed that these great works of literature could be understood by someone like me, who was just a high school kid. The thing with Mr. McAvoy’s classes was that these were not honors or advanced placement classes.  They were just regular English classes, and all of us were able to jump into this stuff.

In our public discourse online, on the media, and in debates at dinner parties, it is easy to cast our public schools as places that dampen creativity. Our education system is large and difficult to navigate, and I think that in some instances these systems get in the way of our larger goals. This is because we have an educational system. I would say that any time you have a group of people (so, more than one) who have to do something together you start to have a system. A system is a set of rules, processes, and procedures that explain how people interact with each other. For example, when you drive a car, you are participating in a system. Our society has put together a set of rules that help us work together so that we can efficiently drive at high speeds down our roads. If we had to make up our own rules or if we had to figure out the rules as we drove, then not only would driving be very inefficient, but it would also be very dangerous.

Systems do not really encourage us to be creative. Driving your car is not a time to decide to be creative. In fact, our rules of the road go out of the way to stamp out your creativity. Our police officers regularly give out tickets to “creative” drivers. For me, there are many times we criticize education when we are actually criticizing systems. Their purpose is to allow people to work together by creating solid rules where each person’s actions are predictable and standard. I think about all of the standardized tests I have ever taken. Not much room there for creativity, is there?

In the future, our students will spend a great deal of times within large systems. Our corporations, our governments, our charitable organizations, our religious organizations, and many other groups of people are essentially large systems. They all have rules so that people understand how to work together. But, these systems all suffer from the same problems.  First, how do you develop a system where everyone knows the rules but is also able to creatively come up with solutions to problems? Second, systems automatically include values and priorities that tend to benefit some groups of people over others. How do we create systems that are equitable and fair to everyone?  In high school, some of us found ways to be creative, and I would guess that many times it was our teachers were the ones who inspired us to be creative.

I think that there is a great deal of evidence to say that creativity can exist within systems, especially educational systems. It is my hope that college is a creative place. Yes, we are part of a very large system. Yes, at times, this system can hinder creativity. But, more importantly, for those of us who work in the system, creativity falls on our own shoulders.

I came from a small high school in rural Illinois. The college where I work is many times larger than my entire hometown. I know that many of us that came from there will remember our late teacher Mr. McAvoy. I have always made it my goal to follow his example and never forget that creativity does not come from our educational systems. It comes from educators.

Note: This essay is adapted from an essay in the book DeVillez, Eric, Tom Dow, Mike McGuire, and Troy Swanson (2010). Why White Rice?: Thinking Through Writing. Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing Company.

 

Troy A. Swanson is Department Chair & Teaching & Learning Librarian at Moraine Valley Community College. You can follow him on Twitter at @t_swanson.

Hi all – it’s that time again. Each semester, I have my students read a current book and apply the topics covered to our work with emerging technologies and my model of “the Hyperlinked Library.” What would you add?

Context Book: Students will read one book selected from a list provided, and write a 300 word reflection or create a media-based presentation relating the topic and focus of the book to libraries, technology and participatory service. 10 points

Checkout a sample book report here.

What can librarians glean from these works? How might the focus of some titles impact library service? Users? The way we exchange and share information. Consider your choice as a way to explore what might be coming for libraries within the framework of participatory service.

The Reading List

(see the list as it was originally posted and what other LIS professionals had to say about it in 2008):

(see more suggestions here!)

• Anderson, Chris. The Long Tail
• Beck, John C. & Mitchell Wade. Got game
• Bernoff, Josh. Groundswell
• Bilton, Nick. I Live in the Future And Here’s How It Works: Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted
• Buckingham, David (ed.). Youth,Identity,and Digital Media
• Carr, Nicholas. The Big Switch: rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
• Carr, Nicholas. The Shallows
• Collins, Jim. Good to Great
• Davidson, Cathy. Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn
• Doctorow, Cory. Content
• Frankel, Alex. Punching In
• Friedman, Thomas. The World is Flat
• Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to teach Us about Learning & Literacy
• Gilmore, James & B. Joseph Pine II. Authenticity
• Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink
• Gleick, James. The Information
• Godin, Seth. Small is the New Big
• Godin, Seth. Tribes
• Godin, Seth. Linchpin
• Harper, Richard. Texture: Human Expression in the Age of Communications Overload
• Hayes, Tom. Jump Point:How Network Culture is Revolutionizing Business
• Ito, Mizuko (ed.). Hanging Out,Messing Around,and Geeking Out:Kids Living and Learning with New Media.
• Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture
• Jenkins, Henry. Fans, Bloggers & Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture
• Johnson, Marilyn. This Book is Overdue!:How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All
• Johnson, Steven. Everything Bad is Good for You
• Kelley, Tom with Jonathan Littman. The Ten Faces of Innovation
• Kusek, David & Gerd Leonhard. The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Revolution.
• Lanier, Jaron. You are Not a Gadget
• Levine, Rick et al. The Cluetrain Manifesto
• Levy, Steven. The Perfect Thing
• Martin, Patricia. Ren Gen Renaissance Generation
• Meyer, Danny. Setting the Table
• Palfrey, John & Urs Gasser. Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives
• Penn, Mark J. Microtrends
• Pink, Daniel. A Whole New Mind
• Pink, Daniel. Drive
• Powers, William. Hamlet’s BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age
• Reynolds, Glenn. An Army of Davids
• Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs
• Rosenbaum, Steven. Curation Nation : How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators
• Rushkoff, Douglas. Playing the Future
• Scoble, Robert & Shel Israel. Naked Conversations
• Senge, Peter. The Necessary Revolution
• Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody
• Shirky, Clay. Cognitive Surplus
• Solove, Daniel. The Future of Reputation
• Sunstein, Cass. Infotopia
• Tapscot, Dan. Grown Up Digital
• Tapscott, Don & Anthony D. Williams. Wikinomics
• Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture
• Weinberger, David. Everything is Miscellaneous
• Weinberger, David. Small Pieces Loosely Joined
• Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

Don’t miss:

http://www.storytubes.info

StoryTubes 2012, the two-minute or shorter,  ”my favorite book” video contest is open as of J

anuary 20, 2012  and accepting English speaking entrants from throughout the world.  It is open for kids in grades K – 12.  

 

Sean Robinson writes:

This is a little video I made that pokes fun at the conflict between e-books and paper books. It’s not really real, if you love books you don’t care what format they come in. This was made to lower the anxiety that we all feel about the changes that are occurring within libraries.
“Music: Kevin MacLeod” and is used under creative common licensing. You can find his site at http://incompetech.com
Thanks for watching

http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2012/01/managing-libraries/luis-herrera-ljs-2012-librarian-of-the-year/

“I have a great team. My mentors all said, ‘Surround yourself with good people,’ and I did,” says Herrera.

Such humility and kindness is key to Herrera’s success in San Francisco and to winning this award. In short, he got voters to extend SFPL support for 15 years. He employed his participatory management style to create a rare alliance between management and union. He invoked an ability to build strong and effective partnerships with other city departments, while his unusual brand of courage let staff teams make major management and organizational changes and decisions. Herrera is LJ’s 2012 Librarian of the Year because of his joyous spirit and infectious optimism about libraries and his willingness to communicate that optimism to all those involved, especially the citizens of San Francisco.

I was very luck to meet Luis at the Salzburg Global Seminar (where we celebrated his birthday!). I am very glad to see him honored for his out standing work.

I am happy to announce the full text of both of my ALA Library Technology Reports are available now at the new TTW companion site The Hyperlinked Library.

The rest of the site is currently under construction, but for now you’ll find:

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software (2006) - http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/libtechreport1/

Web 2.0 & Libraries: Trends & Technologies (2007) - http://thehyperlinkedlibrary.org/libtechreport2/

Special thanks to my SJSU SLIS grad assistant Patrick Siebold who worked very hard the past few weeks inputting the content. I know the examples from ’06 and ’07 may seem out of date and quaint in some ways, but I’m very proud of the framework we used for the works back then. Conversations, Community, Connections, Collaborations – all those great C words Jenny Levine and I used throughout our early social software roadshows in 2005 & 2006 provide a useful context for looking at Web 2.0. I hope these works are still useful to some of you. Comments are open for adding more to the chapters and I plan on doing some types of updating as time permits.

The site will also serve my course Web sites and other items related to my teaching. 

Folks – Please follow these links and read about the grass roots effort to help our colleagues and friends at “This Week in Libraries.”

http://www.facebook.com/helptwil

http://helptwil.tumblr.com/post/15878761386/help-twil-it-is-time-to-lend-a-hand

This Week In Libraries has done so much for developing libraries worldwide. The show shares the stories of library innovations and best practices from all over the world.

Now it’s our chance to help out. Our favorite hosts Erik and Jaap need our help. We want to do some crowd-funding for them. We are committed to raising enough money to keep TWIL on the air for its third season in 2012. Our goal is $10,000 US / €7,800 EU.The good news is that you can help. By supporting the “Help TWIL” campaign, you can keep the cameras rolling. Everyone who donates can have their name and country listed on an episode of TWIL as a public Thank You! Anonymous donations is also possible.

All you need to do is click the donation button on the top of this page and donate via the PayPal accounts that have been set up for this special initiative. It is quick and easy.

If you love This Week In Libraries, the first-ever global library internet TV show, and want to keep it on the air, please make a donation today and go to our facebook page for updates and extras. Please pass this along to your colleagues!

Thank you for your support for Help TWIL.

If you have in any way been touched by these wonderful fellows – Erik & Jaap – please consider donating to help them keep doing TWIL.

The mission of librarians and museum professionals is to foster conversations

that improve society through knowledge exchange & social action

Lifelong learning in & out of formal educational settings
These topics are equally applicable to librarians and museum professionals
These topics must be contextualized

The following values permeate these topics:

• Openness & transparency
• Self reflection
• Collaboration
• Service
• Empathy & Respect
• Continuous Learning/Striving for Excellence (which requires lifelong learning)
• Creativity and imagination

The Salzburg Global Seminar convenes numerous meetings throughout the year focused on creating solutions  for issues on an international level. In October, I was honored to participate in the session co-sponsored by the Institute of Museum and Library Services “Libraries and Museums in an Era of Participatory Culture.” Representatives from libraries and museums from over 20 countries came together for five intensive days of discussion and deliberations about the future of cultural institutions in a time of hyper-connected social participation. Working groups formed to provide solutions to the many challenges discussed. As part of my role, I was asked to participate, present about emerging technologies and blog the sessions.

I joined the working group devoted to building the skills of librarians and museum professionals. Lead by Dr. David Lankes, Syracuse University, our group adopted this mission statement: “The mission of librarians and museum professionals is to foster conversations that improve society through knowledge exchange & social action.” We developed several curricular topics/skills to frame our work: Management for Participation, Asset Management, Cultural Skills, Knowledge/Learning/Innovation, Technology, and Transformative Social Engagement. The framing statements are reproduced above this post.

Technology:

• crowdsourcing / outreach
• ability to engage and evolve with technology
• ability to impart tech to community across generation
• creating and maintaining on effective virtual presence

The technology focus I recently explored in SJSU SLIS’s Student Research Journal (http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=slissrj )includes the ability to engage and evolve with technology, the ability to impart technology to cross-generational communities, and the ability to create and maintain an effective virtual presence. These should already be part of an LIS student’s educational experience. Evolving as technology does afford information professionals the chance to continuously adapt services, access and collections to the information environments of our constituents. Online presence – what you do, what you say within the professional networks – can carry a lot of weight. See “The Role of Mentoring” for more.

Transformative Social Engagement

• activism
• social responsibility
• critical social analysis
• public programming – fitting to larger agenda
• advocacy (organizing communities to action-political, policy)
• sustainability of societal mission
• conflict management
• understanding community needs

Another interesting and dynamic section of the proposed curriculum – transformative social engagement – merits further exploration and discussion.  Under this banner, our group selected a series of thematic areas future LIS grads should experience as part of their preparation for future professional positions. The forthcoming report from the seminar and IMLS will include further details, and Lankes explores the curriculum as well in an video at his blog (http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=1349). These ideas about transforming communities, however, have already illuminated my planning and content for courses and I wanted to share them.

Fluency in critical social analysis, “participating deeply within the community,” as our group defined it, transcends the more simple notions of community outreach and “going where the users are.” Consider the public librarian participating in community planning or development, or the academic librarian housed full time within their assigned liaison department. The potential for enhanced understanding of the needs of those particular communities is enticing. Stressing this need for participation, Lankes posited “Why showcase culture if we are not enabling conversations about that culture?” as part of his remarks during the seminar.

Related is understanding and participating in advocacy efforts. As part of my new faculty orientation at SJSU, I spent a day with other new professors touring various service agencies in the Bay Area. We were introduced to various initiatives, community service organizations and supporting entities. At a lunch and presentation at the Health Trust, a Silicon Valley organization promoting wellness, I had a realization – everywhere we visited could benefit from the skills, ethics and knowledge of an information professional as a means to extend, support and sustain the success of these organizations.

Both of these areas have something in common: the information professional with these skills may spend more time OUTSIDE library walls than within. This shifting paradigm is one that Lankes illustrates well with his emphasis on a positive future for librarians instead of libraries.

I took many good things away from my work at the Salzburg Global Seminar. I have a new appreciation for the work of museum professionals and cultural institutions. The boundary between what we do in libraries and what they do in museums – especially in a technology-enhanced participatory age – has become less blurred. Imagine a mash up library/museum school of the future where transformative social engagement, cultural memory and knowledge creation/curation techniques are cultivated and taught.

There’s much more to the proposed curriculum.  My hope is this curriculum, began in Salzburg, will inform and guide the evolution of educational programs far and wide.

I am off to the ALISE meeting in Dallas today and thought it would be fitting to publish this post on the way.

Links

Seminar Session: http://www.salzburgglobal.org/current/sessions.cfm?IDSpecial_Event=2961

Full text of the Curriculum:  http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/blog/?p=1345