Want to sharpen your web search skills? Find information in the real-time collaborative and social web? Learn from the experts? Join search veterans, speakers, and authors to learn the latest strategies and techniques for searching online. This fast-paced, newly updated, day-long event allows you to interact with the experts, who share their searching secrets and expertise as they focus on the most-current practices in the field of web research. There’s always something new to be learned from these leadingedge panelists. Participants should have basic experience with web searching, but even searchers with an extensive searching background will find tips to polish and advance their skills and will come away with new resources and tools. Academy topics include the following:

• Hidden Tools & Features of the Major Search Engines: Learn about the undocumented and little-known search features of the Big Three.
• The Best of the Rest: A review of the best alternative search engines for info pros and researchers
• Searching the NEW Web: Learn about what’s new in searching podcasts, tracking memes, social graphing, and other portions of the new web
• Cost-Effective Searching: Online strategies/practices for tough times to get the most for your search dollar (1 hour)
• Subject Search Round-Up: Hear from experts on the specific tools and resources for searching in a variety of specialized topics

Does your library website need to move to the next level? Consider how to do a visual makeover, add social media tools, or new embedded services.  Where do you start? What’s your strategy? See how other libraries are using content management systems (CMS), user-generated content, and database-driven content to provide customized and personalized user content. Explore how social software applications, including blogs, wikis, tagging, and RSS, fit into the mix. Learn how to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your current site using analytic tools and usability studies. Pick up new usability methods that can help you test proposed revisions early so that the new design doesn’t just look better but also works better for the users. Pack your toolbox and take home tips, tools, checklists, and new design techniques that you can immediately put to use. Learn about common pitfalls and success factors for library redesigns. Put what you learn into practice. By working in small groups, you will immediately apply what you learn throughout the day to an ongoing “extreme makeover of a library website.” Topics and exercises include the redesign process; practical project management; web content management systems; and usability, engagement, and participation.

Struggling with the variety of technologies available and how they could best be used to achieve your objectives? Want to know how to incorporate social networking and other Web 2.0 tools into information services?  Join this workshop to understand the elements of technology strategy planning and how to apply them. Learn how to create a strategic plan for your library, enabling effective use of technologies for your organizational needs. Bring your real-world issues and challenges and learn how to identify key elements of your current environment and organizational structure with an eye toward addressing needs. Tools for gaining approval to move forward will be explored, as well as optimizing Web 2.0 social networking tools into information services.

Online tutorials can be extremely time-intensive to create. Screencasts offer quicker ways to create informative tutorials that demonstrate online library resources, or anything else on the web or your desktop. New tools make it quick and easy to create screencasts and host them online. Explore using free and fee software such as Jing, Camtasia Studio, and web-based services to quickly create online tutorials for your users. Compare hosting options at Screencast.com, YouTube, Blip.TV, or Freescreencast. In addition to gathering proven tips, techniques, and tricks to quick screencast creation, see examples of advanced editing features such as call outs, transitions, zooming, and highlights. Bring your own laptop to check out sites as they are discussed. Show and tell the easy way!

This workshop explains what mashups are, how they can be used, and shares examples from libraries around the world. Attendees learn about tools they can use to mash up library data with content from the web to reach more patrons and hear about successful mashup examples from academic and research libraries around the world as well as those in special and public libraries. Examples include using maps to enhance library data, using Flickr for digital collections, using video-sharing services to push collections into the public eye, and creating library websites with data from several information sources. This workshop is interactive, bring your own laptop so that you can experiment with mashup tools and techniques.

If learning is the process of turning information into knowledge, then libraries need to be strategic about the use of information throughout the learning process. From reactive to proactive, from service provider to educational partner, from "Come to the library" to "We're embedded in your course," libraries have the opportunity to reposition their expertise and resources to enhance learning opportunities. Based on the application of innovation theory at Harvard Business School's Knowledge and Library Services, learn what it takes to reposition your library by creating the capabilities (knowledge, skills, strategy, systems, and vision) to engage in curriculum design and course delivery - for embedding libraries in learning.

So you’ve got a Twitter account and some followers, but you’re not sure what’s next. Let top library Twitterers Christa Burns, David Lee King, and Michael Sauers show you how to make the most of your Tweets. In this workshop you’ll discover how to spice up your Twitter home page, take advantage of the many Twitter tools available online, and learn how to use Twitter to actively engage your customers in conversations. Learning from successful Twitter applications, you will gain concrete strategies, techniques and tips to make an impact with your community.

Text messaging (also known as SMS) is now one of the most popular ways people connect with friends, family, and even with information. Our 21stcentury patrons expect information on the go by SMS. In this practical workshop on designing and implementing a successful reference service utilizing text messaging, you will discover how your library can provide reference services via this important mode of communication. Murphy teaches how to integrate SMS into and enhance existing traditional and 2.0 reference services. He covers practical tips and considerations for management, technology, and assessment and outlines what is on the horizon for this cutting edge service.

This workshop offers you a toolbox of techniques to help your clients, staff, and even students learn what they need to learn. By understanding and recognizing adult learning motivations and styles/preferences, training can be designed to help adults connect to the curriculum and be more learning ready. This workshop first emphasizes the importance of the learner and making learning relevant and then walks you through the basics of building courses, lesson plans, and learning outcomes; applying techniques/strategies for the classroom; and teaching tips for handling issues and problems that come up in class. It uses humor to focus on tips, strategies, shortcuts, tricks, and useful approaches that are based on sound principles. Come to discuss adult learning principles, styles, and preferences and how to create effective learning environments that accomplish this with humor and panache!

Why is video so much more engaging for clients? What is a video blog and why use one on your library’s website? This in-depth workshop, featuring experts in the field of library podcasting and videocasting, answers these questions and more. Come explore and discuss how libraries are using videocasts for outreach and learning through a variety of case studies, including tips on what types of content work best for different types of libraries. Detailed information on what to consider when planning for and implementing videocasting at your library are provided along with an upclose and personal look at a variety of creation tools. Join this active group of video experts and have a look at some cameras, focus on the process of videocasting and learn how much time is needed for lighting and storyboarding, and how to create a successful video for your purposes.

When it comes to understanding technology, it is important to not only listen but also to actually touch and interact with the tools. Ridding people of the fear that if they touch it they might break it is an important part of empowering people to use technology. Drupal is a popular open source/free software content management system (CMS) that can be used to do everything from creating a simple informational site such as the Piscataway Public Library website to running a complex, customized site such as Radical Reference (a question-and-answer site where anyone can post a question and a team of librarians collaborates on providing authoritative answers) and can be integrated into many free and proprietary ILSs, as is being done by the Cleveland Public Library and the Darien Library. In this workshop, attendees create accounts and content on a Drupal site, get help with particular problems, or collaborate on a specific project. Participants have the option of working on their own Drupal project or on the Radical Reference site, which accommodates a large number of user accounts and has an active to-do list. Come, bring your laptop, and try out Drupal in a safe learning environment.

If you want to lead the pack you need to be planning for lots of different technologies, challenges, and issues. Our leading thinker and practitioner challenges you to think about building strategies and plans for both nearand long-term technology challenges and opportunities. In this interactive workshop, Tennant describes a variety of technologies (e.g., mobile computing, electronic books, data visualization, etc.), illustrates how they impact libraries, and supplies library examples where they exist. You’ll leave not only with some tools for planning for technological change, but also with a sense of where things are now and where we are headed.

Learn the basics about wikis and what defines this class of applications. This workshop explores how organizations are using wikis for knowledge-sharing, collaborative project teams, course development, and internet/intranet sites. Various wiki applications are discussed including MediaWiki, Confluence, and Google Apps/Sites. Interactive exercises enhance participants’ experience and understanding. Bring your laptop to gain even more from this workshop.

Website design is about more than choosing pretty colors. This interactive workshop takes you through the steps of a website redesign process, including the very important step of usability testing. After this workshop, participants will be able to identify the aspects of their websites that are worth saving, the parts that need to change, and how to make it happen. The focus is on the desired end results and user needs, not coding!

Join our gamers and gadget lovers for an evening of fun and playing. Bring your latest games and gadgets and try out each other’s. See if you are a guitar hero, winning Wii bowler/golfer, or rank as a dancing DDR expert. Led by gamer/gadget gurus Amy Buckland, McGill University, Scott Nicholoson, Author, Everyone Plays at the Library, & Aaron Schmidt, D.C. Public Library, this evening is filled with fun, networking, and of course, learning and laughing. Don't forget to bring your latest gadgets to share and explore. Refreshments included.