This past Tuesday I was fortunate to spend the day with a group of librarians at the Texas Library Association Conference who came to spend the whole day learning about technology planning and how TechAtlas can help them work through the steps. I co-presented with Tine Walczyk from the Texas State Library and Archives and it was really a great experience for me to get to train with her. She brought up some great points for libraries to keep in mind as the work through the planning process.

So thanks to all of the attendees in Texas and I hope that you enjoyed the session!

Over the years as a product manager I have attended, worked booth duty, or presented at a large number of industry tradeshows/conferences in the software industry. I have always had a fun time seeing how others get their message out to the audience. Some do it quite well while others get lost in the gimmickry of having card tricks, song and dance, or skits.

I have attended a lot of Keynotes at other conferences/tradeshows with varying degrees of interest for me from some that were not interesting at all to others that had me gripping onto the presenter’s every word. Well today’s keynote at CIL 2008 was “out of the box” and by far the most fascinating I have seen yet. I didn’t want it to end and the rest of the audience enjoyed it as well.

An innovative group from the Delft Public Library in the Netherlands took filmed a documentary on how various Libraries across the US are innovating and what their best practices are. The program said to come and “be inspired” and that I was!

They showed clips from the film and interviewed people from those clips or representative of that episode from the audience such as a Library school student. Not only was this an interesting format, but they were clearly able to show how various Libraries are innovating and responding to their current challenges they see.

I would highly recommend anyone to check Shanacietour out. I look forward to seeing it all and it has inspired some ideas for me to consider. It will inspire you.

Yesterday I presented with Rebecca Ranallo Kahl from Cuyahoga County Public Library on Staff Training: High Tech and High Touch. Noticing our 4:15 slot on the schedule right before the cocktail reception in the exhibit area both of us were concerned that we might have a sparse turn out for our presentation. We surveyed our room where we were presenting and it was big, meant for about ~200 people….

Well our fears didn’t come true, we had a very large crowd with few empty seats, and the turnout was FANTASTIC!

Thanks to all of you who attended the presentation and for your engagement. I was quite pleased to see the high interest of the audience at CIL 2008 in Staff Training and how they can further develop their staff. Rebecca and I split the presentation into two parts. I lead off presenting some recent market research that WebJunction had done with Public Library systems showing what methods were used, the ROI, and challenges faced in training by Libraries. Rebecca then presented what they are doing at Cuyahoga County presenting how she is doing staff training in the real world. We were quite pleased by the engagement of the audience and the number of questions afterwards as we were followed by the reception. Everyone was asking Rebecca a lot of interesting questions such as how they overcome fear of change and work to build a culture of Learning.

As a product manager I always enjoy meeting Partners/Members who work with us. A number of people came up to tell me how much they enjoyed WebJunction how it helps their Library system. For me I can never get enough time hearing feedback from people who use WebJunction and how it is valuable to them. As the Learning Product Manager I am quite interested in those using our Courses and Wimba Classroom service as well as how we can help them with their Learning needs. Making connections with the people who use the products and services you work with is definitely one of the best parts of being a product manager.

I look forward to meeting more of you as I attend the Innovation and Change sessions today and the Learning track tomorrow (Wed). I am interested in hearing from others how you were doing with your staff training and development. What works? What would you like to have, but don’t? What challenges and barriers do you see? What have you found to be successful? What is the impact it has on your Library?

Personally, I really enjoyed the PLA Virtual Conference, and that’s not just because we were sponsors! I think there’s a definite online conference need for those in our library community who can’t (budget? staffing?) or won’t (environmental issues?) travel to a national conference venue.

The technology infrastructure and bandwidth is almost there, and the virtual production values are pretty darn smooth—the next step is to find a programming model that works for the genre. I’m not sure what that is, but I can tell you we may do more harm than good by trying to cling to our physical format in a virtual sphere.

One thing is for sure, a Virtual Happy Hour has none of the redeeming characteristics of its physical world cousin! I’m hopeful though, and am excited to see tons of online conference innovation in the coming years.

One equalizing connection layer between physical and virtual attendees is the huge increase in online sharing that we’ve seen this year. Between Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and Flickr, I almost feel like I was in the Twin Cities.

Betha’s post about the new Minneapolis library drove this home to me. As I physically sat in Seattle, virtually experiencing Nancy Pearl explain how she preferred the modern warmth of Minneapolis library over cold sleekness of the new Seattle library, I had no idea that a timely, serendipitous blog post with photos would illustrate her points perfectly.

That’s just one example where the collective sharing of the PLA community has come through for me. Even though the conference is done, the wealth of online resources means you have plenty of opportunity reap some sharing benefits of your own.

I’d recommend starting, of course, with our BlogJunction PLA2008 post category to check out what the WebJunction team was up to. From there, you’ll find no shortage of great content. The following are a few of my favorites:

• WebJunction Flickr Stream
• Flickr Photos tagged with PLA2008 (1605 at this count!)
• PLA2008 on the PLA Blog
• Twitter Hashtags explained on the PLA Blog (You can see the hashtag feed on the blog main page)
• Mix It Up: Using Blended Learning for Staff Training
• E-learning and Blended Learning at Cuyahoga County Public Library
• Mixing It Up at the State Library of Iowa
• From Hype to Help: Making a Difference with New Technologies
• PLA Conference Handouts
• PLA WebJunction Fact Sheet
• Library Looney on the PLA Hype to Help Session
• Video: Backstage at the Virtual Conference

These should get you started, but I’m sure there’s much more we haven’t seen. If you find a great link please let us know via the comments. For that matter, if you have a question, comment, complaint or insight about PLA 2008, let’s hear that too!

In addition to my presentation I am excited to see what Libraries are doing around Learning as well as innovation and integration with new technologies in both the sessions and exhibits. A number of WebJunction and OCLC staff will be joining me at CIL, with Michael (Libraryman) Porter also presenting.

We hope to see you there.

I had planned to start the day off with my old (not in age, of course) reference professor Joe Janes’ session: “What Does it Take to be Good at Reference” but I had two (two!) flat tires on my bike this morning. Let me tell you, that makes for a long commute.

I finally made it to Nancy Pearl’s Q&A and then stayed through to the day-ending Virtual Happy Hour. Here are some of my brief thoughts on the event:

The Virtual Conference Format/Tools

All this stuff worked surprisingly well. The PLA folks, along with the Learning Times production team, did an outstanding job of keeping things on time and engaging. The conferencing platform—Adobe Connect—works similarly to Wimba, WebJunction’s conferencing tool, allowing participants to see slides, video, listen to audio, and chat with the hosts or other participants. Sure, we’d occasionally lose sound or a video feed, but considering the challenges of running live, streaming media for a national conference, these were tiny blips.

Nancy Pearl

The term “rock star” is way overdone in the library world but if anyone qualifies for the title, it’s Nancy. The session was billed as “conversation” and lived up the expectation. Nancy took questions during an open chat hour and covered them all, frankly and in rapid-fire succession.

• On the new Seattle library: “It is not my taste in a libraries. It’s a bit too industrial and cold for what I like in a library.”
• On why a librarian was chosen as an action figure: “The people who really perform miracles are librarians. Every single day.”
• On how she became a librarian. “”I knew when I was 10-years old that I wanted to be a librarian … I wanted to be a children’s librarian mainly because I had such wonderful children’s librarians at my library in detroit…”
• On Graphic Novels: the “whole graphic section is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.”
• On LibraryThing: “I am a happy user of LibraryThing.”

And on and on… Needless to say, the hour went very fast.

The “Why Do We Dewey” Session

This was a very interesting, info-packed presentation on how the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library embraced an experiment to merge the best of the bookstore shelving format, foundations of Dewey, and their staff expertise to develop a customer-centric shelving/display “neighborhood.” They piloted the project for their travel collection and shared their best practices and lessons learned from the project.

My favorite item from the talk could work anywhere—travel bags! What they do is pull together bags of travel guides, brochures, maps, and more for popular travel destinations such as Napa Valley. The bags are designed to give patrons all the information they need to have a successful trip, all in one bag. As a bonus, people who check out these bags also get a T-shirt: “I booked my Trip at Topeka and Shawnee County Library.” Patrons are asked to send in a picture of them wearing the shirt on the trip. What a great marketing hook!

Check out the presentation as well as the photos in their flickr collection (and while you are there, take a look at their website preview. It’s lookin’ good).

Virtual Happy Hour

I’m sure many of you are wondering what a Virtual Happy Hour is. I know I was.

It turns out there was little in the way of bargain-priced well-drinks or marinaded chicken wings, but there was plenty of conversation in the form of a lightly-moderated chat that allowed participants to share their thoughts about the day’s programming.

Though I felt slightly duped by the Happy Hour moniker, I agree it was a great way for the organizers to collect feedback on the day while encouraging participants to interact with each other in a fashion similar to how they would at a face-to-face conference happy hour (tomorrow, though, I’m going to find a way to have a cocktail).

That’s it for today. If you attended a session (or not), and have thoughts to share on the virtual conference experience, please post them here in the blog comments.

• The team at the PLA Blog are sharing all the ways they are getting there - if you’ve seen Planes, Trains, and Automobiles you might get a bit of a flashback. Highlighs include a heroic road trip from Brooklyn with the flu, a story of climate shock, a strong argument to pack good walking shoes, and a comparison of Seattle to Minneapolis (seriously, how does anyone survive with that sparse of a Starbucks population?).
• Got a Twitter fix? Also on the PLA Blog, Andrea Mercado is suggesting use of a Twitter hashtag (#pla08), which you can follow on tools like Twemes. There’s already a nice bit of activity - subscribe in your favorite RSS reader to keep track.
• Hopefully this idea from LISNews pans out, so podcast fans can hear about reflections on the conference directly from those who were there. Attendees can phone in their thoughts to a special phone # for inclusion in a post-conference edition of the LISTen podcast.
• Apparently if you see giant rhinos on the exhibit show floor, that’s the LibraryThing crew. Off to troll Flickr for evidence…
• Need a photo fix? Over 80 so far up on Flickr with the PLA2008 tag. Our own WebJunction team has been busy taking pics as well.

Keep an eye out for some posts from the WebJunction attendees as well!

Everyone listed following the jump will be at the show. You’ll find our email addresses, plus some topics we’re especially passionate about. Or stop by our spot in the OCLC booth (#617) if you don’t see an email. However we connect, we’d love to meet at PLA 2008!

WebJunction Team at PLA 2008

• Zola Maddison, Community Services Consultant, maddisoz AT oclc.org. Love to talk about Community Partners, building communities and partnerships, library successes & challenges, and international libraries.

• George Needham; Vice President, Member Services, OCLC; needhamg AT oclc.org; I enjoy discussing what *you* want from WJ and from OCLC.

• Emily Inlow-Hood; Community Special Projects Coordinator, inlowe AT oclc.org; content sharing, webinars, building communities and partnerships, international libraries.

• Jennifer Peterson; Community Programs Manager; interested in talking to WJ Members especially Advocates and those who want to share stories and resources with the rest of the WJ community.

• Michael Porter; Community Product Manager; on-line and at meet and greets all over the place, all week. Interested in talking about libraries, practical emerging technology, gadgets, gaming, presenting and PEZ.

• Laura Staley; Project Coordinator, Spanish Language Outreach Program, staleyl AT oclc.org; outreach to underserved communities, services to Spanish speakers, communities of practice, webinars.

• Michael Shapiro; Partner Development Manager; shapirom AT oclc.org. Interested in discussing ALL OF THE ABOVE. It’s an exciting time here at WJ and only getting better. I’m interested in exploring and understanding what excites YOU about WJ and sharing that with others.

• Linda Lewis; Portal Services Product Manager; lewisl AT oclc.org. Would love to hear your views about ideal platform, feature set, support structure for communities of practice and library-centric portals.

• Rachel Van Noord; Community Services Manager; vannoorr AT oclc.org; community building and partnerships, the cool stuff you’re doing in your library, what you want from WebJunction.

• Jim Malzewski; Project Coordinator, Rural Library Sustainability, malzewsj AT oclc.org; services and resources for rural and small libraries, The Association for Rural and Small Libraries, webinars.

• Dale Musselman; New Product Development Manager; musselmd AT oclc.org; all aspects of training, staff development and talent management. Especially interested in talking with libraries who are doing online learning and working with competencies.

• Betha Gutsche; Curriculum Developer; gutscheb AT oclc.org; all things competencies-related, staff training, e-learning, and talent management.

• Marilyn Mason; Executive Director; m.g.mason AT earthlink.net; I enjoy discussing what *you* want from WJ.

• Kit Greening, Partner Development Manager; greenink AT oclc.org.
  I am interested in hearing what is going on at your library and your feedback on WebJunction. We have lots of new developments coming! Tell us what you would you like to see from Web Junction and what we can do for you.

And while unfortunately I can’t attend this year (I’ll be glued to my feed reader for updates), I’d love to talk with anyone from the library community. Here’s my info:

• Kevin Briody (my WJ bio); Director of Marketing; briodyk AT oclc.org; blogging, marketing, how libraries use community sites, offline community building (user groups and related), sponsorships, partnerships, and more.

Enjoy the show!

Kevin & the WebJunction team

Here’s the quick list of where WebJunction will be, to get you started:

WebJunction Member Reception: Thursday March 27th from 5:30pm-8pm, Hyatt Regency Minneapolis. Registration is not required (though it helps us plan for food and drink quantities…)

That’s right - the opportunity to mingle, chat, and share drinks that you know and love from ALA Annual is coming to PLA 2008! Stop by after a long day of conference sessions, unwind, strike up some conversations, meet new people, and connect with the WebJunction staff. Jay Jordan and our own Marilyn Mason will share a bit about why 2008 will be such an important year for WebJunction and our partners and members.

Feel like taking a stroll through the exhibit hall? Meet us at the WebJunction station in the OCLC booth (#617). Hours are:

• Wednesday, March 26 - 4:00 pm - 6:30 pm (Opening Exhibit Hall Reception)
• Thursday, March 27 - 9:30 am - 5:00 pm
• Friday, March 28 - 9:30 am - 4:00 pm

Grab some coffee and join us for breakfast, at the WebJunction tables in the OCLC Update Breakfast: Thursday March 27th, 7:30-8:30am; Hyatt Regency Minneapolis, Regency Room

Sessions we’re supporting:

Preconference 5: Spanish Language Outreach
Tuesday March 25th, 8:30am - 5:30pm, Minneapolis Convention Center, Room M100 A-B and I-J. Advanced registration via the PLA conference site is required.

WebJunction’s Spanish Language Outreach Program equips library staff with knowledge and resources to reach out to Spanish speakers to increase their access to technology. The workshop provides library staff with information on proven marketing techniques, understanding cultural differences, providing technology training, partnering with local community organizations serving Spanish speakers, and highlights free outreach resources available on WebJunction. The workshop is part of a national grant funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With WebJunction’s Laura Staley, and Presenters: Bertha Huertero, Circulation Services Manager, San Diego County (Calif.) Public Library; Bruce Pomerantz, Library Development Specialist, Minnesota State Library Services, Roseville; Rachel Rubin, Adult Services Librarian, Columbus (Ohio) Metropolitan Library.

Mix It Up: Using Blended Learning for Staff Training
Thursday March 27th, 2:00pm; Minneapolis Convention Center, Auditorium Room 2

Join us for a discussion of panelists’ experiences implementing staff training programs with an e-learning focus. You’ll walk away with a better understanding of how your organization could harness the benefits of e-learning. You’ll also understand how to demonstrate the value of e-learning to stakeholders and build “learning communities.”

From Hype to Help: Making a Difference with New Technologies
Saturday March 29th, 10:15am; Minneapolis Convention Center, Room 101 A-C

Library agencies working to support library staff often struggle with the staff-time and financial resources required to reach and engage everyone. New tools for developing online community and cooperative content management for library staff can help. Looking beyond the hype towards practical applications and workable solutions, panelists will discuss their experiences creating customized online communities and cooperative programs for library staff. They’ll share stories from their experiences with interactive, shared content management and collaboration tools on the Web—with a focus on tools that don’t cost a fortune to implement or maintain. Panel members will describe how community-based content and program development saves resources, shares best-practices, and engages more of the library staff they seek to serve.

As a side note, the PLA team is doing a nice job blogging about events, guides, and activities at the conference. [PLA Blog]

See you in Minneapolis.

Sara Peté, 2007 Scholarship Winner

Former workshop participants and trainers are invited to apply for the scholarship.This is a great opportunity to showcase your library’s accomplishments in Spanish outreach as well as help inspire other librarians interested in creating and sustaining Spanish outreach services at libraries across the country. Check out more scholarship details, get the scholarship application, and read about last year’s winner, Sara Peté from the Olympia Timberland Library.