This interactive, exciting, and free-wheeling discussion of all things tech looks at what’s hot on the internet landscape and what’s ahead. Werle talks about next-gen broadband applications and how Internet2, the U.S. fabric of not-for-profit research and education networks, is helping remove bandwidth constraints so public libraries and other community anchor organizations can make new technologies, learning experiences and community collaborations, rich educational content, and workforce development opportunities a reality for people within their community no matter where they’re located. Social computing expert Lawley shares her insights about the internet in 2020, and internet industry watcher, Abram highlights shifts and sea changes that he sees coming our way. Definitely a session to jump-start your future focus.

Although we are calling them ebooks, electronic versions of works are quite unlike their print-based counterparts.  To force an electronic resource to behave like a print resource is an exercise in frustration; does each have a role to play now and in the future? The way ebooks are sold by publishers and distributors, and the terms of use of institutions serving the public are getting lots of attention.  Join the collaborative conversation around these issues and be a part of this interactive discussion to understand various points of view of publishers, distributors, libraries, and new organizations looking to find creative solutions!  

Ebooks are used differently depending upon the users the library serves. Join our panel of experts from college and public library systems to hear them discuss how they decide if and when to include ebooks in their collections and within their curriculum, as well as current issues and challenges that they face and expect to face into the future.

This interactive session with a panel of rapporteurs, wraps up Internet Librarian’s 2-day focus on libraries and ebooks: by reviewing the highlights, pulling future actions to the forefront, noting areas for future research for discussion, and more.

Affelt speculates what tech changes we will see from 2011 to 2021 and explores current thinking on emerging technologies for finding, accessing, and providing information. Both the Horizon Report 2011 and ACRL’s report, “Futures Thinking for Academic Librarians: Higher Education in 2025,” list gesture-based computing as a trend to watch and adopt in a few years. Menon and Koury discuss what has been done in a number of U.S. and European libraries, what is coming, and what is on our wish list when it comes to gesture-based computing.

SLA’s 2011 initiative encourages members to become Future Ready by adopting an attitude of being more adaptable, flexible, and confident in utilizing their skills in the new knowledge economy. An active community blog FutureReady365 is focused on sharing knowledge, ideas, and insights on how we are ready for the future. It includes different perspectives — members, vendors, partners, thought leaders and clients — so that we get a multidimensional view of what Future Ready looks like to inspire one another. Romaine shares the hot-button issues, weighted advice, and insights (appropriate for any information professional) gleaned from the experience of executing a daily, collaborative, distributed social networking project.

The current model of the library catalog as a self-contained destination where patrons must go to search for content dooms the catalog to a future of irrelevance and obscurity. We (librarians & ILS vendors) must re-imagine the catalog not as a destination but as a source for the highest-quality data, and then freely share that data with search engines and other applications using a wide range of current and future technologies and techniques. What’s beyond the next-gen catalog? What’s our future?

Storytelling tools as designed by DOKLAB, an innovation lab and home of our speakers, also known as The Shanachies, are appealing, mostly digital, products and services that connect users, the providers of all sorts of stories (content). Storytelling tools make it easy and fun to find information, as well as collect and share stories both within and outside the library walls. These tools come in many shapes and forms, so come hear about these exciting new multitouch solutions.

Are you seeking inspiration for some new models and practices to ignite your library services and community? Is your organization ready to move beyond implementing best practices to develop your own fresh practices but feel stuck in old paradigm thinking? You are not alone. Join Blowers in exploring the intersection of “innovation” and “play” and discover some new ways to apply technology and think about libraries, services, and knowledge sharing. Create an inno”play”ion spark to jump-start your thinking.

EPL embarked on an ambitious process to implement a community-led service framework reflecting its commitment to meeting customer needs and reducing barriers. It recruited 13 community librarians and transitioned more traditional librarian roles to a community-led focus. Hear stories of how EPL has made a difference within the community. The second presentation illustrates how rearranging a public library to be more like a bookstore grabbed community attention.

Innovation and new services can come from all levels of your organization. First, learn how a public and academic library create structures of participation ranging from brown bag talks to dedicated working groups to drive new services and create beta projects. Clark talks about the creation of an emerging technologies think tank at Montana State University Library. Caserotti shares her experience running Tech Bites, staff-led technology training lunches at Darien Library. Come see how you might create these structures of participation. The CPL team shares how their Future Action Team (FAT) was established to support the development of organizational change champions and to provide opportunities for emerging leaders to influence the library’s strategic direction.

By moving routine tasks (like acquisitions and circulation) to the web, libraries are able to share infrastructure costs and resources, as well as collaborate in new ways and without the restrictions of local hardware and software. Hear how libraries are using web services and the impact it is having on their libraries.

Hear how VPL is increasing technology training, providing more computers, and leading support of electronic resources and ebooks during a difficult budget climate. Their secret — a highly collaborative process, public consultation, evaluation, and experimentation to successfully transform a low-use, print-based environment into a technology-focused learning space. Find out the surprises from patrons, what worked and what didn’t, and learn what you can apply to public technology training and support. Then hear how Texas A&M University Libraries replaced its homegrown “help desk” problem tracking system of more than 10 years with SugarCRM, an enterprise class open source customer relationship management platform. As service organizations, libraries are especially sensitive to customer feedback, relationships, and keeping their fingers on the pulse of customer needs. Learn what factors drove the decisions to go with a CRM for the libraries’ internal customers, how buy-in was achieved, experiences so far, and plans for the future.

Organizations are great at starting new online projects ... and then letting them quickly die. Do you know how to plan, sustain, and set goals for an online project? This session describes the planning processes used by several different libraries — how they plan, create strategy, get buy-in, and sustain a social media project.

This panel shares tips and techniques for accomplishing the many task and challenges that libraries face. Westbrook describes how a small staff with ambitious plans tripled their workforce and implemented robust project tracking workflows — all without spending a cent by creating an online management system (OMS) that harnesses freely available Web 2.0 tools to collaboratively manage a rotating pool of library school interns. Houghton-Jan, an expert in project persuasion, shares useful tricks for getting technology projects past intractable committees, grumpy bosses, anti-technology supervisors, and change-resistant staff, as well as Jedi mind tricks, psychological gambits, and convincing arguments that you too can use to get stuff done. Harris addresses best practices for using the internet to develop accountability factors for your library — goal setting, project management, and creating an organizational culture of transparency.

With today’s limited resources and increasing demand for services, it’s more important than ever that libraries think like a business. One of the best ways to do this is using the information already available, in the form of data, whether it’s stored on a computer system, entered into a spreadsheet, or handwritten. Business intelligence (BI) provides the key decision makers in the organization with the data they need, when they need it, and in a format that enables quick decisions. BI utilizes technology and processes to gather, analyze, and present data that can be used to support operational and strategic decision making. BI can tell you how the organization is performing today and provide insight into how it could look in the future. Learn how the Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML) is utilizing BI to control costs, improve service to customers, and better utilize resources. The presenters will discuss the concepts and technologies of BI and show examples of how BI has streamlined its decision making process.

Are you starting a digital library project? Are you interested in taxonomies and folksonomies? Whether you’re digitizing historical photographs, creating subject guides, or organizing your library’s blog, building a thesaurus is an investment that will help your users find what they need. The first presentation discusses how a well-designed thesaurus can drive browsing and searching, display cross-references, help populate metadata, and highlight popular content. It provides tips for using the words your users prefer by bridging the taxonomy-folksonomy gap. The second presentation showcases bookmarking alternatives, such as Pinboard.in, ZooTools, Folkd, Knowledge Plaza, Diigo, etc., and talks about the issues of social tag implementation, taxonomy-based tags, and how to guide users on how to generate better tags. These findings are based on social tag content management experience from an online social network. Join our knowledgeable speakers to learn some tips and tricks for creating a controlled vocabulary that will grow with your project.

Making a convincing case to change from non- or lightly-managed web sites to a content management system (CMS) can seem daunting. However, you can build a strong case that will help convince administration of the benefits of CMSs. In this talk, two librarians who manage large public and internal websites at the University of Michigan and the University of Colorado Denver give you all of the ammo you need! Gain insight on why having a CMS is better than not having one and why an open source CMS tool (such as Drupal and MediaWiki) are viable, functional, and efficient solutions. Audience participation in the form of group therapy will be encouraged!

The management, preservation, and curation of research data is one of the hottest topics in librarianship today. Peters and Riley discuss their assessment of current data curation practices and grant-related data management plan preparedness on the part of their university researchers, identify the types and volume of data produced by research grants as well as specific technologies, metadata schemas, and archiving practices that are in use on campus. They hope this is a first step towards creating a centralized solution for managing and preserving research data in conjunction with other campus units.  Perry discusses digital preservation strategies and curation flows.  Gunn contributes to the data curation discussion and talks about embedding institutional data into the researcher's workflow, and the effect of design and usability work on tool usage.

Digital content licensing is confusing at best for consumers and for library purchasers. Authors, musicians, and filmmakers create content, and people want to consume that content. In the middle, though, are publishers and content aggregators which add rules of use to digital content that differ from the rules of use for the same content in a physical format. How can libraries successfully navigate this web of difficulty and advocate for our users? This session covers the basics of copyright law as it applies to digital content as well as the impact of licensing/terms and conditions from different content providers and publishers. Find out how all of this legalese affects the implementation of digital rights management technology on both consumer and library licensed digital content. You will also learn a bit about piracy and resources for breaking digital rights management for legal backup copies. Come away with a toolkit to explain complicated rules to coworkers and users.

“Gamification” is a hot new term in business and tech circles these days, and you can find as many people vilifying as praising it. What does it really mean to “gamify” something? What value can this increasing focus on game mechanics in nontraditional contexts bring, and what risks accompany it? Lawley talks about this phenomenon, sharing experiences from past and current game design efforts she’s been involved in.