Opening Session Notes

Well, just finished the opening session of the 100th OLA conference. 100 years ago 13 librarians gathered for the first ever library conference in Oklahoma and discussed all the important things of the time. I'm not really sure what the topics included -- I can hazard a guess or two -- perhaps how to acquire land for you library, the employment of women in libraries, and huh, well I'm not sure what else they could talk about.

But I can share with you what was discussed today (I'll be correcting spelling of names as I find them):
Awards

Ruth Brown award winner is Food & Fun Chickasha Church & Public Library… Meets needs of underprivileged children in low income families – free lunch program for the summer prenatal -18yrs free bag of food & books to nourish mind and body.

Special projects award: Let’s talk about it Oklahoma – Dr. Jennifer Kidney and OLA Marketing Committee

Special Meritorious Service Award: Jennifer Paustenbaugh and Rose Mary Moran

$120k so far in Endowment -- Kathryn Lewis, Pat Weaver-Myers, Lynn MacIntosh, Jennifer Paustenbaugh (Endowment work) win Special Project Award.

Kenynote speaker: Stephen Abram (brief notes I'll elaborate on them later)

30% Chinese use e-readers; 250,000,0000 books online by 2010; future is already here just not evenly distributed;

Has studied 5k students K-12 learners – studied their research behavior. Harvested 3k libraries of data to show that people who buy books read differently than those who borrow books. Have to accommodate other learning styles in your web presence. Have to do user centered design.

Libraries core skill is not delivering information – libraries improve the quality of the question and user experience.

It’s an information ocean not a highway.

Libraries are a community “exploration space” not merely a collection space – reading by millennials is up 40% -- books are not at risk but libraries may be because of their focus and ways of providing service.

Entertainment learning experience – children’s librarians are great. No kid runs across the library to give google a hug – they hug the librarian – need to supply that experience for everyone.

Become the purple cow – what will we do to – let people talk to people – need to be in the social place. Google answers more questions in ½ hour than every library everywhere in 8 years.

All that matters is Community, learning, interaction…google can’t add that personal experience for the elderly…the user is not broken.

IM instant messeging…
Go where the users are… Go where colleagues are…

Google Issues:
Broadband through hydro
SEO ads optimization
Default ot local GIS
Google scholar, librarian, education
Google office/ Sun OS


Use
2 way communication like blogs
Use library 2.0 tools
Use social we tools like facebook
Use IM
Use tags, visual, etc…

So what are your thoughts on my notes? Some are verbatum from slides while others are parts of his talk. Anything new you didn't know? Well I'm off to see a vendor or 2 or 12 :)