Time does fly. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was contacted about doing a workshop for the Metropolitan Library System based on the presentation I gave at Computers in Libraries, but that was back in June. The workshop is in November, and I just made my flight and hotel arrangements.

More information (including how to register) about the workshop can be found here.

I was contacted by someone from the Metropolitan Library System who saw my presentation at Computers in Libraries and asked if I would turn my presentation into a half-day workshop for them. Don’t have any details yet, but it will probably be sometime in the fall.

A few people I know have been taking a close look at how they’re using social networking. I believe the conversation began in person at Computers in Libraries but has continued online (of course). The conversation kicked off with Greg Schwartz’s post, but I’ve come across a few other librarians who have picked up on this thread, including, among others, Meredith at Information Wants to Be Free and Andrea at Library Techtonics, who has had a few good posts recently about how she uses social media.

One of the reasons this conversations has cropped up at this point in time is that many of these so-called social networking tools (like many, I dislike this term, but don’t know what else to call them) have matured and become stable, well, Twitter has at least matured. Although new applications are still coming out and people are experimenting and adopting new tools, it seems that there are several that have become standards that will not be easily replaced, partly because people have been investing in them for many years. I have so many photos in flickr, for example, that moving to another platform would be highly inconvenient.

This conversation has come up at a good time for me because I had been thinking a lot about how I use these tools. I try things, adopt things, ignore things without much of a plan. I have accounts all over the place and use only a handful. Since quite a few people have been talking about the way they use their social networks, it seems like a good time to step aside and think about how I’ve been using mine.

One thing is for sure: my use of these tools is directly related to my being a librarian. I can’t imagine that I would be so involved in social networking left to my own devices, as it were. I would venture to guess that at least 90% of the people I am in contact with via these tools are librarians. Very few of my “real world” friends participate. The fact that so many of my online friends are librarians is, in part, a self-fulfilling prophecy. I am more likely to add someone I don’t know as a “friend” if I see that he or she is a librarian. Other random people are often denied.

I am not going to attempt to tackle an analysis of all the tools I use in one post but hope to do so over several posts.

The NYTimes has an interesting article today by Allison Arieff about the importance of environment in learning situations. It’s more about outdoor spaces for younger students than I dealt with in my presentation at CiL, but there is still a lot we can learn from this discussion.

http://www.slideshare.net/Tombrarian

The ever-wise and savvy fellow over at Pattern Recognition launched a Google Calendar for CiL2008. He explains the rationale:

As an experiment, I created a Google Calendar for Computers in Libraries 2008 and asked a number of my friends to help me fill it in with the schedule. Why? Because Google Calendar is an open standard, and allows people to do all sorts of sharing. People can add the calendar, overlay it with their personal calendar, copy events off….it’s just a much better way of dealing with this sort of information.

The calendar can be found here.

You can go to Pattern Recognition’s post for more access points and instructions for getting added as an editor.

I can’t believe it, but Computers in Libraries is just a few days away. I leave the day after tomorrow and will spend a day doing some sight-seeing before the conference. Which means, I better have my presentation together before I leave, and I am happy to report that, yes, it is done (with of course some last minute tweaking).

Here are a list of the references from my presentation. I just want to make sure they are somewhere accessible because the presentations don’t go up on the CiL site until after the conference.

Baker, David. “The Multimedia Librarian in the Twenty-First Century.” Librarian Career Development 6.10 (1998): 3.

Battin, Patricia. “The Electronic Library–A Vision for the Future.” EDUCOM Bulletin 19.Summer (1984): 17.

Birdsall, William F. The Myth of the Electronic Library: Librarianship and Social Change in America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Borreson Caruso, Judith, and Gail Salaway. ECAR Key Findings: The ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology, 2007. EDUCAUSE, 2007.

Cattier, Alan R. “Navigating Toward the Next-Generation Computer Lab.” Learning Spaces. Ed. Diana G. Oblinger.Educause, 2006. 8.1.

Graetz, Ken A., and Michael J. Goliber. “Designing Collaborative Learning Places: Psychological Foundations and New Frontiers.” The Importance of Physical Space in Creating Supportive Learning Environments. Ed. Van Note Chism, Nancy and Deborah J. Bickford. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2002. 13.

Shimmon, Ross. “The Librarian at the End of the Galaxy.” New Library World 96.1120 (1995): 43.

Van Note Chism, Nancy. “Challenging Traditional Assumptions and Rethinking Learning Spaces.” Learning Spaces. Ed. Diana G. Oblinger.Educause, 2006. 2.1.

Waters, John K. “The Library Morphs.” Campus Technology.April (2008).

Willson, Jonathan. “Enter the Cyberpunk Librarian: Future Directions in Cyberspace.” Library Review 44.8 (1995): 63.

Two weeks from tomorrow, I leave for glorious Crystal City, VA for Computers in Libraries 2008. I posted my tentative schedule on the CiL wiki. I will be presenting about learning commons on Monday afternoon, my 2nd time presenting at CiL. I always look forward to the great presentations at CiL, but this year, I am particularly excited about Steven Cohen’s track on Monday. I won’t be able to go to all of it because I present on Monday as well, but I should get to the morning sessions. I’m also excited that there are two other presentations about innovative spaces, Barbara Tierney’s “The Library Sandbox” and Matt Gullett and Greg Schwartz’s “Libraries as Laboratories for Innovation,” both on Tuesday.

After the conference, I’ll be taking the train (oh, I miss trains) to Philadelphia to visit family, hit some of the Philadelphia Film Festival, and even squeeze in a Phillies game.

With ALA Midwinter just days away, I hadn’t been thinking about Computers in Libraries until a friend of mine mentioned that she booked her flight. Since the conference isn’t until April, I feel I still have time to book my flight, but I wanted to make sure I got a hotel reservation before I leave for Philadelphia on Thursday. Last year, I registered late for CiL and was at a hotel about a mile away. I just booked and I’ll be at the Hyatt which will be convenient since I’m presenting and won’t have to worry about getting around.

So, November was a crazy month. October ended with me in California. My wife and I drove from Las Vegas to Monterey over two days. In Monterey, I attended Internet Librarian 2007 while my wife had a little vacation. For more information about the conference, you can follow the Technorati links.

After the conference, we drove down the coast to visit our friends in Carpinteria for a weekend before driving back to Vegas.

The next couple of weeks at work were crazy. I was busy catching up from the California trip while trying to get ahead because of the upcoming Philadelphia trip. Being so busy, I missed out on the Blog World Expo. Maybe next year if it’s in Vegas again.

The Philly trip was excellent. Got to see friends and family and visit some favorite places. I hope to feature some of my favorite places between now and ALA Mid-winter. Yes, I’m heading back to Philadelphia and, yes, I’m heading back to Philly in January. I know, I know: January in Philadelphia is one of the reasons I moved west, but, apparently, I can’t stay away. I just discovered the ALA-midwinter wiki, so whatever places I highlight here, I’ll be sure to add to the wiki.

I’ve had a couple of good work-related things happen. One is that I’ve been asked to teach an online class in film and media for the library program at San Jose State University in the summer. The second is that my proposal to present at Computers in Libraries 2008 has been accepted, so I’m going back to Crystal City. According to the tentative schedule, I’ll have a tough act to follow.