Kudos to CiL for bringing the Smithsonian‘s Michael Edson, to the line up. He takes the prize, as an entertaining, intelligent and engaging presenter, and as a steward of knowledge, committed to the conversation’s afterlife, for sure. He has posted both the slides and script (he humbly calls it the “text” version, but it includes full citations and footnotes!) on slideshare and he blogs at smithsonian20/typepad.com and usingdata.typepad.com.

I recommend reading his full “text” version, but here are the gems I wrote down before realizing I would be returning to the presentation like I would a comfort food. Even though he was talking about the Smithsonian, I heard most of what he said with my “library” and “WebJunction Community” filter, so as the title of my post suggests, imagine a library or a WebJunction commons where:

commons = set of resources maintained in the public sphere for the use and benefit of everyone.

And do the following:

• recognize the urgency and take the courage to work on things that matter.
• demonstrate the value of engaging as an active participant in the world of ideas.
• democratize knowledge and innovation.
• remember, when creators are given access to the work of others…innovation flourishes.
• and the more open the commons is and the more its used, the better it becomes, and the more value it brings.
• think of the commons as a kind of organized workshop where raw materials can be found and assembled into new things.

I am pleased and proud to say that WebJunction is ahead of the curve in imagining a commons…our new learning platform has been designed to do all of the above.  WebJunction is the commons for librarians and library staff to actualize “distributed collaboration” and “crowdsourcing” as (using Michael Edson’s role definitions here) visitors, collaborators, contributors, customers, critics, competitors and champions.

However, as he pointed out, inserting the vocabulary of the “commons” into the language of the institution [or profession] is the biggest challenge. As I said yesterday, how do we sustain the afterlife of conversations and insert our learning into the everyday? How do we message the urgency for folks to use the WebJunction commons to exchange their knowledge and experience?

Help increase the value of your actualized WebJunction (no longer just imagined!) commons for library learning by contributing. Take just 5 minutes to post a tip as a part of April’s campaign where we’re aiming to collect 101 Tech Success Tips in 30 Days…post one tip and get 100 in return and be a part of the WJ commons!