I thought it might be fitting to end the Happy Birthday celebrations this week with a link (right here? from the blog?) to a clandestine view of the new WebJunction home page. Cleverly titled “sneaky peeky” this is the view that WJ staff have themselves been playing with in our “sandbox” for the last couple of weeks. It’s not nearly ready for beta release yet, but as you can see, My WebJunction is right there at the top of the page, along with our fancy new brand, just waiting for me/you/us to populate it with whatever i/you/we care about. It’s gonna be rockin’ and we can’t wait to start evolving this with more than just a few of us with our eyes on it.

Next week we get together with all of our current community partners for some good old fashioned f2f training, and this will be our first chance to show off and gather input on the new system with people outside of the WJ staff. Next? Our WJ Advocates will get a sneak peek and they’ll tell us what they think. Then? Well, by that time I think we’ll all be ready for a broader audience. And that’s where we all get to tell each other what we think. And it will grow from there.

Stay tuned…

I left out the Putnam stuff I’ve been talking about in some of my recent presentations and instead focused on our community building roots and how in-person community building and online community building share the same principles and practice; then I connected what our patrons are doing with web2.0 tools to what library staff are doing with the same, and with projects like WJ.

I was a little nervous about the mix, with only one hour for a joint presentation with my co-presenter, Mala, the team lead for WebJunction Arizona, but at the end of it all, one of our audience members come up and says something like: thank you for your overview of social networking and what it means for WebJunction; now I understand why this stuff is important. I work in a rural library and I’m trying to help my community understand how to use this stuff and understand what it’s all about; this was really helpful.

Does it really get more libraryland luscious than that? Maybe. I’ll be here for it if it does. I only posted a few pictures from this very short visit, but you’ll find them here. Many, many thanks to the organizers of AzLA for having me. I had a great time and it was wonderful meeting and talking with so many of you and your library staff in Arizona.

(reposted on Libraries Build Communities)

Otherwise, IL2007 has also been fabulous – I’ve had a great time connecting with people that I haven’t seen for a while, as well as spending time with people that I know online better than I do in person. I always take a chunk of breakfast/lunch/dinner slots while I’m here at this conference to talk in person specifically with people that I’ve known or met online over the year before – it’s fun! This year I’ve met with Amanada, Jennifer, Josh, David, Robin, and a few others that I’ve maybe seen around before but really became ‘friends’ with in the last several months – either through facebook, twitter, or the WJ. Not to mention the folks that I know well, but don’t see very often – great connecting with these folks as well. Heck, even the people I see every day, I end up having inspirational conversations with. It’s such a wonderful source of new energy and innovation to get away from daily activities – get out there and talk to people (even the same people!) in a new context. THANK YOU to OCLC and WebJunction for making this an important part of our roles in the cooperative; it really makes a huge difference! “I love my online community” (and it gets bigger all the time) is the only thing I have to say about that!

One project I’m working on now (also with libraryman, and with cindi trainor (current WJ member spotlight) and michael sauers (traveling librarian)) that I’m super excited about is a series of interviews with “veteran” library professionals – the innovators of earlier times – that we can publish as primary resources (oral histories) and excerpt as a popular series, beginning sometime next year. It’s the most exciting project that I’m currently involved in, really, and it’s great to be here with colleagues – gathering new ideas (and names) for those interviews. Stay tuned for more info … I think there will be a lot of ways the WJ community can get involved in this project once it takes off.

I’ve also been encouraging anyone who’s interested in working in the social networking, community building, or learning areas to check out our open positions right now (on OCLC’s career site). See something you like? Please apply. Three positions are currently open in the Community area; we’d love to hear from you!

Back to conferencing …

Last night Jenny Levine, Aaron Schmidt, and myself (Michael Porter) co-hosted an open gaming event/flickr and/or twitter meet-up, which was a total blast. It felt great to be able to say: “this even brought to you in partnership with ALA, WebJunction and ITI“. Collaboration abounds! As does some gaming night competition. Here are the two Guitar Hero competition winners David Free and Michael Sauers proudly standing in the project’s glare with their fabulous prizes:

*Just a side note, this event was held right after Jenny and Aaron’s “Gaming in Libraries” pre-conference which was SO worth the time and money. Gamer and non-gamer librarian alike are encouraged to seek out this type of content and these two speakers in particular to understand the importance and value of gaming in Libraryland. The connections are surprising and VERY real. Thanks Jenny and Aaron for your excellent work!*

But that was yesterday. Today the morning started off for Chrystie and I in a pretty public way as we gave this presentation together:

Here is a shot of the audience (can anybody spot themselves in this pic?):

Here is Chrystie in action during the presentation:

While those are fine shots, in my mind there is already stiff competition for fave IL2007 photo between these to pics:

and…

What’s your vote?

For now, it’s back to the conference sessions and the wonderful people here at this years’ Internet Librarian conference. I’ll look for you here or online!

-Michael

Kannan (his hand anyway), Chrystie, Anna, Dave, Jeff, Joe, Doug, Clayton, Dale, Mike and Janet….toasting WJ in the middle of a big ole’ planning meeting.

Here is a very happy shot of a nice hunk of your friendly neighborhood WJ team members during a recent meeting we had in Seattle. Three days of very productive meetings were held in the always visually impressive main Seattle Public Library. We worked and thought very hard, focusing like lasers on the tasks at hand and getting lots and lots done. Heck, we even sang a song along the way. In fact, we were singing when I took this shot! While I can’t repeat the words to this particular song, suffice it to say that Jeff was hazing me by leading the group sing-along of this particular ditty. Don’t worry, for the greater good of the community legal action will not be forthcoming.

In addition to singing, we really did work very hard. Trust me when I promise that you’ll see result springing up as we move forward (cool, cool stuff!).

While we’re talking about being at the Seattle Public Library here is a shot of one of Libraryland’s very favorite Chrysities, Chrystie Hill. She was on break from this meeting in the hallway, on her cell phone, in a separate meeting! Between that and the reflection on the floor, we’ve got some seriously recursive action going on here! Enjoy!