At the end of sessions, there’s usually time for a question and answer time. Some of the questions I heard made me wonder… but first, a disclaimer: questions and people who ask them rock. I’m glad people ask them. Things that seem basic to me are new to others (and vice-versa, depending on the topic). So questions are great – they’re part of the learning process.

But, I’m thinking that sometimes, a question can show the bias of a librarian, and the personality of a library… and show how well they’ll be able to ride the current and ongoing wave of information change.

So here are those questions that made me go “huh”:

1. “How do you filter out all the dot com websites so you can get just the pure information” (when doing a search on Google). What???!!!??? How is information that happens to be on a dot com site not “pure,” but information on a, say, dot edu or dot gov site, somehow more valid information? Just one person’s question – but from a librarian. And it means that more than one probably think this way… shows that more training is needed on how to evaluate information found on the web.

2. “Is SEO [Search Engine Optimization] contrary to a library’s role of properly categorizing text-based information?” No, it’s not. If libraries worked on optimizing their websites, more of our great but hidden information would show it’s face on websites. And that’s a way to reach out to people who don’t normally come to your library.

3. “Search engines are pushing lots of image-based search products lately. How do libraries deal with this information shift, since we mainly deal with text?” Two ways to comment here:

• Libraries have all types of images. Lots of them. And a lot of other media… think maps, pictures in books and magazines, CDs, video, etc. We just put descriptive text around each item.
• The web IS changing how we operate. Or actually, I should say that our users are finding that the web can be adapted to their various learning and entertainment styles. So people are creating their own tagging systems that work for them, and they’re discovering more visual and aural types of resources.

Librarians need to embrace this, since we tote ourselves as learning facilitators and our libraries as learning facilities.

4. A comment during a presentation – “a large number of students aren’t reading print books, except for class assignments.” I swear, I could almost feel a moment of silence for the print book when this was mentioned (the room got very quiet). What wasn’t mentioned was this: those students are most likely still reading – just not print books. They’re reading ebooks, email, IM messages, etc. Librarians have to get over this content vs. container thing. What’s more imprtant – a book’s physical pages and cover, or a book’s content?

5. Complaints about poor grammar in IM messages. This sorta relates to #4 above. Hang with me here a sec – when I talk to someone in person or on the phone, no one knows if I can spell the words I use, and don’t tend to complain if I stumble around a bit while trying to get something out. When talking, it’s the immediate communication that is important.

IM is also an immediate form of communication – it happens in real time. So the actual, immediate communication taking place is the important part of an IM message – not the grammar. We need to get over our grammar quirk, and adapt the communication that our customers use.

So – all things that made me go “huh.” And all very valid questions. My guess? As long as questions like the ones above are being asked, there will be a need for a conference like Computers in Libraries. Huh.

This has been a great conference! My two presentations went extremely well, and I have learned stuff. Both good things!

Just off the top of my head, here are some buzzwords and phrases I heard practically everywhere, everyday:

• IM
• podcasting
• collaboration
• community
• RSS
• Wiki
• institutional repository
• content management

I attended Chris Sherman’s morning session on search engines coolness… some neat things I heard:

He suggested that libraries purchase ad words on Google. Not for general words like, say, “libraries” – but on more specific words (see my stuff on topic driven content!). Very interesting idea.

He demonstrated Keyhole (keyhole.com, I think). It’s a visual map that starts up high (like, seeing the whole continent) and then narrows down to a street when you enter an address. Very hip.

Gary Price mentioned some general stuff he’d heard from Google people: 99% of searchers don’t use simple advanced techniques like putting phrases in quotes, and that most searchers only look at the first 3-4 hits in a search… Wow!

Another IM sesssion was next – it was great. The coolest thing they did was IM’d students on their “buddy list” – think virtual roving reference and good PR to boot.

1:45pm – Collaboration & IM: Breaking Down Boundaries (Michael Stephens and Aaron Schmidt)

Aaron:

• 7 billion IM messages sent each day!
• 60% of big businesses will be IMing by the end of this year – wow.
• Conversation instead of sending letters
• Interesting comment – a patron who he met through IM seemed one way online (vivacious) but in reality was timid.
• Duke’s reference department is doing IM
• Cool – reference librarian on a buddy list – you’re already in their sphere of influence
• Trillian – stores chat transactions by default. Privacy concerns abound.

Michael:

• Internal IM
• IM is replacing VR at his library
• If you do log chats, let customers know you’re doing that
• Utilize the nuances of IM.
• Use the tool – create useful away messages

Michael’s Best Practices for IM (I didn’t catch all of them…)

• make IM part of your technology plan
• promote it! Put IM name on a card
• Administration should be IMing
• Train and encourage staff to do this
• Add your IM name to your business cards

Aaron’s Best Practices:

• Use multi-protocol IM software
• Use away messages
• speed over perfection in typing – communication is key, not the spell checker
• use abbrev.
• use online sources only if the best answer can be given from them
• don’t panic

I also learned more about converging mobile handheld devices, how they’re changing, and how librarians can use them to their advantage, and I learned about LISNews (very cool setup).

For Friday’s sessions, I probably won’t post as much – my laptop’s heavy, and my shoulder’s getting sore (because I’m carrying it all day). That’s one bad thing about not being at the conference hotel – you have to lug around everything you want to keep with you (ie., laptop) ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT (if you plan on eating dinner around the Hilton, anyway).

10:30am – Beyond Virtual Libraries (Dr. Laverna Saunders)

All about tech changes in academic libraries.

Good quote that really sums up the whole conference so far (she quoted someone else): “our world is about to change in a big, big way.”

She mentioned some useful trend trackers – OCLC (Environmental scan), Gartner, Pew Research Center, CIL, etc.

Millenials:Good stuff here – some points she mentioned:

• Tools of millenials – IM, email, cell phones, mp3s, ipods, broadband, multitasking
• Students learn by trial and error – more like Nintendo than logic. They file share, keyboard, cut & paste. 73% more likely to use the internet than go to the library (me – not really a bad thing, if you put your stuff online and make it easily accessible – I need to post about this)
• Students expect: 24/7, everything digital, mobility, group spaces, promptness. So libraries need: portals, IM, chat ref, electronic resources, CMS + resource links, and group study areas.
• Question asked of students: “Do you read books outside of class?” Students pretty much said “no.” Me – So what? They still read. (another future post for me?)

The library is slowly becoming more of an extension of the classroom or lab. Librarians are teaching more. Active learning zones. More support of elearning and course management systems.

Supporting multimedia is becoming more of a trend (classroom lecture supported by sound, video, etc.).

11:30am – Academic Libraries & Technology: Future Directions (Marshall Breeding)

Current concerns:

• Rampant computing – concern to contain management costs
• Enterprise resource planning is essential
• Departmental computing is moving to consolidated enterprise systems
• Strong interest in integrating all business systems on campus
• Enterprise content management – courseware and Institutional Repositories

Organization Context:

• Academic libraries are part of a whole – not a separate, independent entity
• Library automation should not be an independent endeavor
• Integration with larger business and content systems essential for libraries to be relevant
• Example: Distributing course content through a library portal

Other Nice Tidbits:

• There’s a need to focus technical talent on activities that have more of an impact on the mission of the library
• Libraries need technologies to help them maximize the value of their collections
• Automation systems need to integrate well with other campus systems (institutional portals, etc.)
• Libraries must develop strategies for integration – deliver library-provides services to users even when they start with Google
• Lots of stuff yesterday and today complaining about current library catalogs.
• Look to XML based standards for integration with other systems. Library specific standards don’t do much to help integrate with non-library standards – need to use industry standards
• Service Oriented Architecture – (SOA). Emerging as the preferred framework for system-to-system communications for diverse systems.
• Wants to see a different federated search model – have everything dump into a centralized federated product on the back-end, and allow users to pull from that. Google has been able to do this – harvesting other organizations data, and representing it.