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!

At a Friday luncheon, I heard Nan Kari speak about her work with the Jane Addams School for Democracy, a civic engagement and democratic education initiative for immigrant families and college students located in St. Paul’s multi-cultural West Side neighborhood. Kudos to hosts Libraries for the Future and Diantha Schull for continuing to draw libraries into thinking about Library Placemaking and the development of libraries as vital civic places.

Have you engaged your civic skills lately?

Nan Kari began her eloquent presentation with observations about a shift in American civil life. She notes that the values of the market place have permeated the ways we choose to prioritize our time and resources, and as a result our civic skills have begun to atrophy. We have become more accustomed to experiencing public life at the mall (an interesting juxtaposition considering the appearance of library branches in a number of suburban malls) than in the democratic process. There are many ambiguities and dynamics surrounding this shift (including some positive impacts, on youth—seen in the numbers in this year’s caucuses and primaries—and increases in entrepreneurial civic engagement), but ultimately, there has been a shift away from inquiry and engagement around our authority as citizens.

Before Nan detailed the School’s advocacy for community engagement, she defined citizenship in 3 ways, acknowledging that they overlap and co-mingle in the real world:

1. A civics view of citizenship in which democracy is mainly reflective of government.
2. A “communitarian” view where civil society is manifested in shared values and strong community.
3. And one in which citizens are public problem solvers and co-creators of the community commons. Here authorship resides among citizens and democracy is an unfinished work that needs to be taken up by all citizens.

Case for Community Commons

If you know me at all, you’ll know that I was nearly leaping off my chair by this point, very excited to hear more especially about how to apply these precepts to our work. As Nan began to share about her work with the Jane Addams School, she spoke of the opportunities for us to develop libraries as “democratic spaces” (both social and physical) where a diverse mix of people interact, engage in dialogue, solve problems and exercise civic engagement that builds and sustains public goods and resources. She used the new Minneapolis Public Library (where we met) as a way to talk about democratic spaces being shaped by physical elements and the need for civic imagery, accessibility and flexibility. Working with an online community, I recognize these as parallel principles of web design (UI, IA, flexible tools etc.) but certainly see how these apply to physical spaces in libraries, especially those with meeting rooms and other public gathering spaces which can be opened up to serve needs identified via the community commons. But whether we’re looking to present our libraries as core to civic engagement in virtual or f2f communities, I think this next bit hit me the hardest.

Deprogram the space

In libraryland we are busy working to design programming and services that meet the needs of our users. In order to provide a truly democratic experience for their diverse community, the Jane Addams School chose a different approach, in order to “pull the circle open.” The tendency to fill up spaces with programming and services can leave little or no room for civic engagement. They found that when you stop programming all the spaces, the “tapestry of lived experiences” are welcomed into the community, bringing their cultural learning into an environment where everyone is considered both a teacher and a learner. The Jane Addams School “facilitates” the use of the spaces, but the participants organize themselves into “learning circles” based on their interests and objectives. Nan admits that this is not a clean process, quite messy in fact, but they all recognize that the learning that comes from the experience is expansive and not just academic. Participants become part of the “Crossing Borders Leadership Team,” a citizen-based committee which further facilitates the creative engagement.

Changes can happen when people work together

I know there’s a lot in here, even without the fantastic pictures (check out their site!) and details that Nan shared from her work but the message is certainly timely. While we need to continue doing all that we do to provide information, resources, services, and programming, we need to be equally accountable to our communities as space facilitators ensuring platforms for collaborative inquiry and public creation. I can’t think of a more fitting mandate for all of us in this, the community that is WebJunction, as we move through this year. We are in the process of developing a number of exciting enhancements to the site, all part of our ongoing goal to facilitate a highly engaged online community for library staff. We’ll continue to look to you, the WebJunction community, for your participation and leadership in the co-creation of a “community commons”—as we refine and sustain the tools for facilitation and as you continue to share your strategies that ensure libraries remain core to civic engagement. So yes Paula, we are meeting about change.

A prime example of a thriving library.

Your own community supporters will expand far beyond our group. They probably include foundations, government agencies, schools, churches, hospitals, businesses and dedicated volunteers. I’m also betting that your relationships with each of these institutions vary depending on your resources, community, and vision for your library. But no matter where you and your partner are, there are some key concepts that can help foster your community relationships. Here’s what I learned from our session:

1. Identify each others goals for the partnerships: this will allow you to identify shared values and make sure each partner is getting their needs met.
2. Communicate often: provide regular updates to keep everyone on the same page and recognize successes.
3. Show appreciation: spread your enthusiasm for the work and your partners’ valuable contributions.

The best synopsis of this material came from a fellow participant: Partnerships are between PEOPLE—not institutions.

I hope our Member Reception provided another opportunity to build relationships with one another. The relationships we build with each other makes us stronger and better able to articulate our value as we move outside the library to seek new partnerships.

As Darwin discovered, it’s not necessarily the swiftest or strongest or largest species that survive; it is those most adaptable to change. The dangerous ideas conversation is all about adaptation and change. It begins with the question “What if …?”

What if librarians would promote and participate in the development of Wikipedia?
What if we made decisions that are not based on scarcity?
What if libraries large and small invest together to adopt open source solutions?
What if teens in the library were our partners instead of our problem?
What if we learned to advertise the allure of libraries as successfully as soft drinks and junk food?

(This is just a sampling of the provocative questions raised.)

Half of the “what ifs” above came from the audience as a result of the refreshing level of interactivity. (What if all conference sessions stimulated participation from the audience?) Questioning assumptions is contagious and uncomfortable. There was anxiety and reaction mixed with excitement. In the atmosphere of brainstorming “unthinkable thoughts,” the point is to confront the discomfort, find the opportunities, and then move forward with actions.

One audience member suggested that the next PLA (2010) should be totally focused on “what if?” Someone else said we can’t wait that long—that the next PLA should be one grand discussion of the results of two years of action.

Catch the fever at whatiflibs.wetpaint.com.

*Presenters: Deirdre Routt/Omaha PL, Stacey Aldrich/California State Library, Brian Auger/Howard County Library, Amy de Groff/Howard County Library, Rivkah Sass/Omaha PL

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.

It’s an interesting sign of an increasingly globalized world that international policy documents, including the Library Bill of Rights, are being referenced as guides for creating local policy and service. While libraries are subject to local legislation, Garcia-Febo, and other presenters made the case that libraries can be advocates for the rights of all the residents of their communities, documented or not. These international policy documents can serve as a guide and compass for human rights-based local policy and law.

Renee Reed of Minneapolis Public Library discussed in the same presentation the climate of fear that many undocumented residents are living in, which impacts their perception of the library as a safe and welcoming place. I unfortunately had to leave in the middle of her presentation, though I’m sure she had many good ideas to share.

As often happens in conferences, sessions on topics you are interested in are held at the same time. I wanted to hear some of next session The Digital Revolution and Libraries–Where are We and What’s Next? (see session 144).

I walked in and “collaboration, collaboration, collaboration” was the topic of the presentation, another appropriate topic for the “global” frame of mind I was in. Another example of how session jumping can sometimes produce surprising connections between unseemingly similar topics. In this presentation, it was talking about collaboration for technology resources and policy.

OITP is attempting to create a policy for standards for connectivity and bandwidth to accommodate library services, library applications, web 2.0, and future unknown uses that patrons will have of public access computers. While people are dealing this on a local level, those of us concerned with public access computing are realizing that guidance is needed as to what will be needed to plan for future bandwidth needs. The first question at the end of the session was about our rank in the global community for connectivity, and about developing countries connectivity. One presenter noted that our 50 states are like 50 individual countries which makes for a complicated legislative environment.

Tomorrow, I hope to attend more sessions, such as Bilingual Subject Access for the 21st Century and The Cutting Edge: The Latest Information on Web 2.0.

PLA kicked off with keynote speaker John Wood, founder of Room to Read and author of Leaving Microsoft to Change the World. On top of being engaging, energetic, and funny, he really is changing at least a portion of the world. In the eight years since Wood delivered the first load of books on the back of a yak (named Zach) to a remote Nepali village, his organization has established over 5,100 libraries in South/Southeast Asia and South Africa.

For a striking comparison, Wood displayed a bar chart comparing the number of stores opened by Starbucks around the world since 2000 with the number of libraries opened by Room to Read. At first, Starbucks held a strong lead over the fledgling non-profit, but in the last three years, the library effort has surged ahead. More than a frivolous comparison, it’s a challenge that Wood took on, one he dubbed the “Starbucks test.”

“If they can open Starbucks at a rapid rate, why can’t we open schools and libraries at the same rate?”

Photos of kids beaming with excitement shone from the screen; heart-warming stories were told of the priceless rewards that come from empowering kids and communities. It’s inspiring to see what can be done in so short a time. Of course, we gave him a standing ovation.