social media | emerging trends | libraries
Yes, THAT SXSW – the one in Austin with cool music. Did you know the annual conference also focuses on interactive technology? I didn’t until a few months ago.
If you want to learn more about building web 2.0 dealies for your websites – I’d suggest attending the conference next year. Take a peek at their speaker list for 2006 – pretty impressive!
From this article… a professor has banned the use of laptops in her class. The article says “Professor June Entman says her main concern is that
students are so busy keyboarding they can’t think and analyze what
she’s telling them.”
Wow. Just wow. I have a question… those students are TAKING NOTES. But using a laptop to do the note-taking.
How in the world is typing one’s notes somehow different from using pen and paper to take notes? Is there really a difference, other than laptops might be a bit more noisy?
Compared to what her students just might be doing in the “real world” (as in, using a laptop to take notes, write reports on the go, etc, etc), I’d think the professor would welcome the use of laptops.
But that’s just me.
Here’s a link to my slides from my presentation at the Computers in Libraries conference. I presented a session titled “The Basics of Web-Based Experience Planning.” Other people have blogged about it here, here, and here.
One final video from the Computers in Libraries 2006 conference. This one is from Paul Miller (the Talis guy) speaking about Web 2.0 and library catalogs.
The video is short – when watching, take a peek at all the laptops! I counted seven of them, and that was just in my tiny little section of the room.
I find it interesting to watch the switch from paper-and-pencil notetaking to laptop and mobile types of electronic notetaking (this video included, I suppose).
This conference, to me, was all about:
Collaboration. Libraries need to be collaborating. With our library staff, with our patrons, and with other libraries.
Keeping current with technology. We just “have to do it.” Our patrons expect nothing less, and they get it – at Amazon, at Starbucks, even at McDonalds… we should be willing and able to do the same.
Library Catalogs. Libraries spent a lot of time and money turning the card catalog into an ILS system. Now we need to figure out how to integrate it with all our other search points (website, databases, etc), and provide easy-to-use, familiar interfaces that work like a search engine, but provide Our Content.
Firefox. It so completely rules.
Getting our information “out there.” Blogs, RSS, Wikis, Catalogs, IM, mashups, patron experiences, etc… all ways to supply content, ideas, and information to our customers.