Library Camp @ Syracuse, part 1

Today is the first day of our Library Camp and today's focus is The Future of Libraries. We have more than 80 people who have signed up for the two-day event, including librarians from school, academic, public, and special libraries (hospital & museum) as well as a couple consultants and a couple of SU faculty members. People have come from Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton, Watertown, Albany, and Corning -- so this is truly an Upstate NY event.

Feedback so far is very positive. People like the conversations, the ability to "talk shop" during the sessions. One person mentioned that the unconference is calm, less hurried than normal conference. People have shared ideas and web sites. People are offering support to each other, which is very appreciated.

The first session I was in was "2.0 Show and Tell" which had 24 participants. Jen Sullivan was the host of the session and Kat Burturla was the scribe. Since this was the first unconference session of the day, the conversation started slow, but once it started, it kept going! People mentioned that they (the librarians) are more advanced using 2.0 tools than some of their patrons. They need to be able to use and teach about the tools, since their patrons are coming to them for help. Some grandparents are feeling pressured by their grandchildren to learn and use some of the social networking/web tools. Others mentioned that students don't want to be networking through Facebook, etc., with library staff.

One person mentioned that the need to prove return on investment for these tools. Just knowing about them is not enough. Can we prove the benefits?

One person said that she is building the library's web site using HTML, not only to keep it simple but also because that meets her users' needs.

Tools/sites mentioned including:

• Wikis
• http://www.buffalostate.edu/library/
• http://askehbl.wordpress.com/ (The blog for the Buffalo State Library.)

The second second in the Technology Track was "Open Source" with 13 people. Mark Costa was the host and Kathryn Lulofs was the scribe.

• N-view (composer)
• OPALS
• Drupal
• Open Journal
• Open Conference
• Google --> Sites
• RIT Ghost Map, http://library.rit.edu/
• http://www.opensourcecms.com/
• http://www.wikimatric.org/
• http://www.eol.org/

We also talked about open access journals (content) while "open source" is the structure.

What is a librarian's role in open source?

The error rate on Wikipedia is similar to the error rate on a printed encyclopedia. However, errors in Wikipedia can be corrected more quickly.

After a buffet lunch (excellent food), the third session was "Social Networking" with 13 people Kathryn Lulofs was the host and Mark Costa was the scribe.

We began by brainstorming ideas for a school library system on doing a "teleconference" using different web-based tools. She took lots of notes and walked away with ideas to follow-up on.

A participant from RIT showed us the widget that they built for searching their library catalogue from Facebook. Ken from Buffalo State showed the Meebo Me widget that he has placed in Facebook for doing chat reference. (Good anonymity and good for the deaf community, for example.)

One school librarian mentioned that students need to understand the implications for social networking tools. Since there is no access from schools, teachers and librarians cannot help students understand the pros and cons of these tools that they are using outside of the school setting.

What makes the library's homepage the community's homepage? What should be on the homepage to entice people to come back? What makes "a page" a page people will use everyday?

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Technorati tags: unyunc, Technology, social networking tools