Last year at Computers in Libraries 2012 the F Track focused on Library Issues & Challenges.  This track was moderated by Jennifer Koerber and Michael P. Sauers and worked as a discussion stream where a roomful of colleagues sat at round tables to focus on a series of topics of interest to innovative librarians. From crowdsourcing for training to applying meaning-based computing, to hot topics and the next big thing.

Session 103 on Wednesday was Reframing Our Roles:

The No. 1 issue for libraries planning their future is engaging staff in future planning and changing the way they view their jobs. Many library staff fear that future changes will result in their jobs being eliminated or require new skills they may have difficulty learning. Yet if everyone in the library reframes or looks through the new “frame” together to see the future, these shifts to roles, skills, and ways of working become clearer,much less frightening, and much more exciting.

Listen to the the audio from this session here.  Mr. Robert’s slides are below the audio.

At Computers in Libraries 2013 Mr. Ken Roberts will be providing a pre-conference workshop titled Building Workable Relationships: Libraries & IT Departments.

Jeffrey Phillips

The opening Keynote address at Computers in Libraries 2012 was by Jeffrey Phillips, VP, OVO and Author, Relentless Innovation: What Works, What Doesn’t – And What That Means for Your Business

In creating innovative libraries, we have to understand the key success factors and practices that will enable libraries to excel. Our experienced speaker, author, and respected blogger on the topic of innovation, shares a framework, practical tips and techniques, as well as working examples of innovative organizations. Gain some great insights from the business world and be inspired to implement innovative practices in your organization and community.

This audio track includes Tom Hogan and Jane Dysart’s introduction to the conference. The keynote begins 11 and a half minutes into the track. View the Computers in Libraries Final Program online.

Everyone who worked so hard to make this conference a success deserves a round of applause:

• Tom Hogan, Sr., President of ITI and conference host, for his overall wisdom and guidance,
• The program planners who recruited an excellent lineup of speakers,
• The ITI conference planning group, who made all the local arrangements and ensured that we were all comfortable,
• The ITI technical staff, who looked after the websites, this blog, the Wi-Fi, and the PCs that the speakers used in their presentations, and who bailed us out when difficulties arose,
• The hotel staff who carried out the arrangements, set up the refreshments, breakfasts, and the reception in the exhibit hall, and those who set up and dismantled the exhibit hall and the meeting rooms,
• The ITI graphics group who made the signs, and prepared the program for production,
• The ITI administrative group who prepared the materials that went into registration packets, assembled name badges, registered the attendees, collected the registration fees, and did a host of similar tasks,
• The staff behind the registration desk who distributed registration materials to the attendees,
• The exhibitors who came and displayed their products,
• And finally, all of you, the attendees, without whom there would be no conference.

As you can see, a conference just does not happen by itself. It takes a tremendous amount of coordination and effort by many people. And it is not very long after one is finished before planning begins for the next one.
CIL 2013 will again be at the Washington Hilton on April 8-10 . Mark your calendars now and plan to attend!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2012 Blog Coordinator

Unisphere Research has been doing studies on library budgets and spending for the past few years. In a Friday afternoon session, Thomas Wilson, Unisphere’s president, presented recent statistics to a panel with real world experience in many spheres of the library market. The panelists, Dick Kaser (Information Today), David Lee King (Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library), Frank Cervone (Purdue University Calumet), Mike Diaz (ProQuest), and Joe McKendrick (Unisphere) reacted to the numbers, giving the audience their interpretations of what was behind Unisphere’s findings.

Panelists react to Unisphere's statistical findings

Not too surprisingly, King and Cervone had different approaches to the materials on which they spend money. Public libraries don’t buy scholarly journals; university libraries do. Both are interested in ebooks, but the type of titles are very different, with publics looking at popular fiction and universities opting for books that support the curricula. Diaz commented that libraries, at this point, often want titles both in print and as ebooks.

All agreed that cloud computing would have an enormous effect on library services going forward. The influence cloud computing would have on library budgets could depend on the size of the library and which services could migrate to the cloud.

It’s always interesting when statistical tables, which were the slides on the screen for this session, take on a life of their own as people explain them in the contexts of their working lives.

Are you marketing your library to your community effectively?  Why not?  Nancy Dowd, Project Lead, EBSCO Publishing; and Janie Hermann, Public Programming Librarian, Princeton Public Library addressed an overflow audience and said that there are no more excuses for not doing so!

Nancy Dowd (L), Jamie Hermann (R)

What does your library mean to your community?   What do people in your community think you are doing?  Are we getting all our knowledge out to the community?  In these difficult economic times, no library can afford not to prove its value.  We are not only educating our audience but are persuading them to use our services.  We are expected to market our libraries. Nancy discussed the steps to be undertaken in a marketing campaign:

The first thing to know is the needs of the community and who they are. Think in terms of market segments. Create conversations through social media, and listen to what your community wants. You can use that knowledge to develop your programs and services (the old way was to develop the services first, and then we wondered why people would not uses them). And don’t forget to go back over the program, evaluate it, and make necessary changes.

Jamie has developed many innovative marketing campaigns at the Princeton Public Library and makes heavy use of social media.  She noted that there is a large segment of the population that is difficult to reach and may not know very much about the library and its services.  For example, some Python programmers needed a place to meet and form a user group, so she offered them a room in the library, thus exposing many of the attendees to the library for the first time.

It is important to keep your focus local and connect with the community.  Jamie joined the Princeton LinkedIn group and was able to connect with many local business people who did not use the library.  She provided meeting space for a speed networking group, spoke at it, and marketed the library.  She also has embedded herself in Facebook groups for participatory marketing.  It is important to connect and be authentic, but still maintain the brand.  She has put a collection of photos of flyers for past events on a Flickr account, and it has proven to be very popular.  The Library as an Incubator Project has good suggestions for marketing children’s programs.

Electronic newsletters are still relevant as communication vehicles.  They have proven to be the library’s biggest marketing tool and have a wide readership in the community.

There are no more excuses–reach out and engage!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2012 Blog Coordinator

Data, of course, has been around for many years, but with new technologies and capabilities for manipulating it and analyzing it becoming available, it has become a topic of high current interest.

Abigail Goben

Abigail Goben, Reference Librarian at the Unviersity of Illinois–Chicago, gave a fascinating and informative look at the current hot topic of data and what librarians must do to become informed on this topic. Many researchers do not realize that the library can be a useful source for them.  In fact, at a recent AAAS meeting, Abigail heard people saying, “We need to go around the library.”  But data is becoming a significant aspect of many library jobs.  Abigail tracks library job advertisements that include a data component on her blog and has listed over 100 of them in the last 6 months.

The major things to be learned are the basics of data, software, and library components.  You need to know what good data looks like, how to analyze it statistically (with software packages such as SPSS, Mathematica, and even Excel).  The library components include metadata, ontologies, and data management plans.  Learn how to find, acquire, describe, and provide data access to users.

Here are three excellent resources to help you get started learning about data:

These are some introductory books on statistics.

These are some useful websites:

Finally, some people that data librarians should be listening to (note, many of them are not librarians!) and blogs they should be reading include:

• @libskrat (Dorothea Salo) and @researchremix (Heather Piwowar)
• FlowingData (what people are doing with data, working charts, etc.
• KDnuggets (industry focused, list data science jobs not seen in libraries)
• mathbabe (professor, puts things in context)
• Retraction Watch (tracks retractions in major journals and comments on them–many retractions are data-related).

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2012 Blog Coordinator

Michael Edson, Director Web Strategy & New Media, Office of the CIO, Smithsonian Institution, delivered the keynote speech on the third day of Computers in Libraries. He began by telling the audience to “Go boldly into the present.” The present? Huh? Edson continued, “To talk about where we go from here, you have to think about where we are and where we’re going to. We’re no longer in a culture of continuity.”

When he began at the Smithsonian, Edson thought strategists were visionaries. He’s now concluded that strategy should be a physical tool, a shared story, that makes something happen. We’ve been galvanized over the past few years about how quickly things disappear. We need tools to think about new ideas. Innovation is an endurance race.

Snap out of the idea that strategy is about the broadcast idiom. He cited books written between 2002 and 2006 that recognize the importance of community. These ideas are absent from strategy workshops. You can build real strategies from the long tail, Joy’s law, cognitive surplus, network effects, and Moore’s law and mobile, and the recognition that every user is a hero. We’re not in a read culture, it’s a read/write world. We can build on these ideas, they’re not new anymore.

Big piece of what we think of as the distant future is here now. It presents us with a real, bankable opportunities. For example, the World War II Museum in New Orleans sees results of digitization as a reputation and revenue builder. Cheap platforms and successful examples are all around us in abundance.

What can we do differently to create value? How do we pivot? Edson described five patterns.

1. Extraterrestrial space auditor: Compare what organization says it does with what actually happens.

2. On ramps and loading docks: Innovation is likely to happen somewhere else, not inside walls of organization. How can we get ideas and volunteer labor into our organizations. Think expansively about what a platform is.

3. Edge to core: Innovation happens at the edges, but edge innovators need a commons

4. Focus on the mission: Have big, audacious goals

5. Place the bet. It’s all about execution.

Michael Edson

Finally, ask yourself, what world am I living in? What impact does my country, my city, my organization want to have in that world? What should I do today? This is your job and society needs you to succeed at it. Think big, start small, and move fast. Go boldly into the present.

As always, the CIL exhibit hall was very popular.  At the opening night reception, ITI authors were signing their books for attendees.  Free (yes, free!) “cybertours”, 15 minute presentations on various topics were well attended.  And of course, the vendors were happy to see the crowds in their booths!

ITI has a new booth design featuring its books

John Bryans, ITI's Publisher, visits with authors

ITI Book Authors

A typical exhibit hall cybertour

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2012 Blog Coordinator

Google+ (G+) is Google’s entry into the social media space. It has enjoyed a remarkable growth rate, achieving 25 million users within a few months of its launch. This session was entirely prepared and presented using G+; one speaker even attended and participated remotely. Nevertheless, G+ is not the answer to all your social needs; if you have a large network of friends on Facebook, you probably don’t want to move to G+ and start your network over again.

Google+ Panel: (L-R) J. Shore, Julie Strange, Joel Shields

J. Shore, MEDLINE Systems Librarian, said that if you have a GMail account, you have a G+ account (look at the upper left of the black bar). G+ is a social media site incorporated into the family of Google products. Companies can have a G+ page. G+ operates with circles, which are organized into two groups: those in your circles and those that have you in theirs. Everybody can see who you are following as a default. You can put people into various circles and control your audience.

Julie Strange reviewed what you can do with G+. However, she noted that if you have an active community on Facebook, you may want to stay with it. Don’t use technology just for itself. G+ is just another tool to push things to your community. Content + Community = Libraries.

Circles let you tailor what streams you look at and control what you are pushing out. You can tailor content to a specific audience (circles can be based on almost anything: geo location, parents of school age kids, members of a team, specific interest, book discussions, attendance at a certain program or event, etc.). Here are some library applications:

You can create circles for internal teams or people you are interested in bringing in to the library. Once you have created a circle, you can share it with others (curated groups in a community).  They are a way of connecting people more easily.

Think outside the circle. You can create an account for a character in a book, or a theme to facilitate discussions around it. You can use G+ solely for your private network, as a travel journal, or as your blogging platform. It is fast, easy, formattable, and shareable.

Let your community recommend you. Find people or resources you trust. You can recommend individual pieces of your brand. By disabling comments on a circle, recommendations can be used to conduct polls.  Or if you have a  private group, you can disable sharing of entire posts.

Patricia Anderson, who participated in the session virtually, said that hangouts, a unique feature of G+, are a bold new feature that cannot be ignored. They are a killer app. Hangouts are a video conferencing system with up to 10 simultaneous participants. One can share windows, videos, Google Docs, or screens. Hangouts are Very powerful for team meetings and work planning sessions. They are different than Skype because people can join or leave them at will, which leads to a constantly changing and serendipitous environment.

Hangouts can be used for telecommuting types of work. Job interviews are being done using them because they are richer than a phone interview but lots cheaper than bringing people in physically. Another application is outreach to homebound people. People are teaching courses on cooking, running help desks, troubleshooting, scavenger hunts, science fairs, etc., etc.

Joel Shelds wound up the session and addressed a common concern:  privacy. Google’s new privacy policy states that they will share information from any of their services to any other one.  Big Brother is watching you, and it’s Google!

Search results on Google will now show hits from G+. Don’t think of G+as a social network; it is actually a community network. G+ is now tagging information from Android phones and updates it on your G+ account.

On G+, there are no APIs; everything is being generated by humans.  Nothing is private on the Internet!  But don’t take this personally; Google does not care about you.  They only care about the information you are putting out, your search patterns, your travel patterns, etc. and how it can be used to increase their revenues.  Unfortunately, the only way you can be completely private is to unplug your computer!  Google has issued a “transparency report” that describes some of the ways they are making the flow of information through their system transparent.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and CIL 2012 Blog Coordinator

All is not serious learning at Computers in Libraries. Thursday evening featured Battle Decks: Dead and Innovative Technology, where “battlers” faced an array of slides they’d never seen and had to create, on the fly, in front of a large audience, a coherent presentation, theoretically about the theme of dead and innovative technology. Not only had they not seen the slides before, they had to get through every one of them in 3 minutes. Since battlers controlled the clicker, they had to move quickly through the slides, without pausing to scrutinize them. It was a fun evening!

Battle Deck contestants and judges