Connecting Librarian

Its not a problem. I have had the best coverage of the Internet Librarian conference in the US, thanks to the bloggers who attended. I couldn’t attend, being across the world, but I feel like I have the best reports on what happened there. I am sure that you are as equally frustrated as me by the lack of usable information that is made available after conferences, usually in the form of Powerpoints. They would have supported the speaker admirably I am sure, but for someone looking for the content afterwards, they are generally annoying and not very informative.

This is not a problem with the recent IL conference. Several of the blogs I subscribe to gave daily, useful, very descriptive reports on the content of differing sessions and even links to other information relevant to it. Many thanks particularly to Dave at Dave’s blog, Michael at Tame the web and Steven at Library stuff who brought me the conference in a way I could not have ever imagined.

Thanks also to Morgan at explodedlibrary.info who has highlighted Australian library blogs, including me. Thanks for helping me find more of us out there in this wide, brown land and thanks for the free plug!

As Linda pointed out so eloquently in the comment on my last post, the problem is also the fit in the library service. I readily admit to having a fair dose of “Technolust”, wanting to have something in the library, because I am excited by it, not because it would have a benefit for my library service. I tend to look for ways to utilise particular new tech in our service, instead of looking for ways to improve our service, whether it is tech or not.

I still believe ultimately that a lot of the exciting newer tech, such as podcasting, RSS feeds, blogs do have their place in our library service, but not yet! So in the meantime, I work on educating myself and my fellow staff, so when the day does come, we already have a leg up. Thanks genevieve for the encouragement!