LibConf.com from Information Today

Lisa Carlucci Thomas posted the video from this session on Vimeo. Be sure to check it out. Lisa will be back at #CILDC this year.

Gaiman said: We are now in an age of too much information. Libraries and librarians are more important than ever. Children want stories. They want information.

Computers in Libraries 2010 ran smoothly for both attendees and organizers down in Crystal City, VA back in April.  As educational and entertaining as it was, there is always room for improvement.

Like any good conference, Computers in Libraries is all about meeting the needs of you, the attendees!  Because of this special focus ,there are five things you can do, every year, to help us make the event better and better.

Jane Dysart messaged me earlier on Twitter and bounced over the idea about using the #CIL2010 TwapperKeeper Notebook to create a Wordle.  I took one look at all the tags and abbreviations and realized that would be messy, but her idea sounded fun if we just used the Twitter ID’s of those who used the #CIL2010 hashtag.

This Wordle is made from  the Twitter ID’s of everyone who used the #CIL2010 tag 5 times or more whether they were in attendance or not (yea, I mean you Tom Bruno/@oodja).

During Computers in Libraries 2010 we used QR Codes as an easy way for attendees to grab the URL’s for the many bloggers at the conference. For some folks, this use of the two dimensional encoding squares was old hat, and for others it was their first time seeing this 16 year old technology in action.

After years of use in Asia, QR Codes use is increasing in the US as a direct result of widespread adoption of smart phones with bar code scanning capabilities like Android powered phones and the Apple iPhone. The simple codes we used are just the beginning of what QR Code technology can express. The code on the right provides a link to the website of one of the Bloggers@CIL2010 – if you don’t have a phone with a barcode scanner, you can use one of the free online decoders like this one from ZXing.

Mark Sprague has written a very comprehensive post outlining QR technology and its many extensions and uses. Some of the designer codes he showcases are very cool. There are even QR codes with embedded graphics or company logos. I’d like to also thank Paula Hane, one of the LibConf bloggers and News Bureau Chief at Information Today, Inc. for featuring Mark’s post on Facebook since that is where I first saw it.

Read it at Understanding QR Codes.