I’m sitting here at the Rural Libraries Conference in Traverse City, MI. This should be WAY cool because two of the keynotes are Michael Stephens and Jenny Levine! I haven’t yet had the opportunity to see either of them talk in person, so this should be an extra special treat…like a banana split instead of a hot fudge sundae!
Right now, they’re covering your basic “housekeeping” stuff, promoting the conference, etc. Of course, as many of you know, I’m horribly notorious for not paying attention to things like that. If I have a problem, I’ll just ask Ang (Semife, to all of you SL-ers). She’s good like that.

I’m not a rural librarian by any means, but working for the Michigan Library Consortium requires exposure and collaboration with all types of libraries in Michigan. Hence, my presence here.

Michael started by talking pics of the audience for their flickr accounts, which was rather unnerving to me, but all cool and all 2.0 nonetheless.

It was interesting to know that Michael has been vacationing in Traverse City for years. he and Jenny apparently arrives yesterday, and immediately went kayaking. Cool!

Talking about trends, Michael talked about user-generated web content. He just pointed my table out as the “blogger table”. Yay! I have to admit I blushed! Don’t tell!

He pointed out the way cool TIME Person of the Year, “You”.
I just love 2.0 stuff, for the same reasons that Michael is speaking about: Interaction.

2.0 commonalities

• open
• participatory
• decentralized
• tags
• comments
• rss feeds

Blogs

Jenny begins by speaking on blogs. She told on how blogs are way cool because it makes it SO easy for libraries (directors especially) to post content to the internet. Not only can libraries post, the community can comment, and thus contribute to the content.

She covers some general instruction on what it takes to post on a blog. I must admit I like it because that’s what I’m teaching on Wednesday at my class (more on that later).

RSS

Next, jenny spoke about RSS (Really Simple Syndication). You can publish content in one place and display it somewhere else.

Wow. This is what I’m covering at my second class!

Meebo Me -Yay!

Wow. Jenny’s teaching my whole class for me, LOL. Jenny asked how many people in the room use IM. I have to admit I was really surprised with how few people raised their hands. She also showed how you can install Meebo on your library’s webpage.

Flickr (Photo Sharing)

Yay.. Week four of my class. I’m trying so hard not to crack up. Okay, I’ll stop talking about my class now. I’ll post on it more tonight.

She showed a library who posted those posters to their flicr page.I think it’s fun how she plugged the new ALA Reads poster software thing.

jenny’s presentation seems to be more geared toward showing examples of 2.0 technologies, and giving basic information on how to utilize those technologies.

Podcasting

She gave some examples on who podcasts, and how to podcast. I haven’t really gotten into Podcasting. I’m not really personally into podcasting, on either side.

Wikis

We all love Wikis. Okay, I love Wikis! Jenny is giving some really cool examples on how libraries are using them

Onlilne Calendars of Events

I don’t have one of these, but I think it’s something maybe we should look into. I’e used other peoples, and it’s really helpful. You can also connect to other peoples’ Google Calendars.

NETFLIX@ your library

This could be really cool…

Gaming

Yay! jenny is going through all of these topic pretty quickly, but giving a TON of information. I can tell that it will be very useful to people not familiar with these technologies. Obviously, I have blog… because I”m here…blogging on my blog.

Supr glu

I’m not totally clear on what this it, it takes stuff from a lot of different places, and puts it all in one place? Mashes it all together, apparently. So, ever time a library puts up a bookmark, adds a pic, etc.. it goes here. It sounds like it could be interesting.

Why did we play this game?

new tools can

• level the playing field
• can make your more efficient
• can make your job easier
• let you offer new services to users
• let you recycle your content in multiple places without any extra.. stuff

The Offspring of Web 2.0

• Law 2.0
• Media 2.0
• Advertising 2.0
• Library 2.0 -> Librarian 2.0

The library encourages the heart

the library is human

the library recognized that its users are human too

–Stephens

OCLC Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources

• 96% have used a library at least once
• 51% Have used instant messaging
• 30% have never heard of online databases
• 84% Use search engines to find information.
• 1% go to the library website
• 24% Use Wikipedia…

Cluetrain manifesto - read it. Michael Stephens says so.

Adopt a 2.0 Philosophy

• Throw out the culture of perfect. “NO TYPO’S” LOLLOL
• Tell Stories - blogging and flickr tell stories!
• Create experience online and in person.
• Technology is a tool…it is only a tool”
• Play! Flickr toys, etc. - I LIKE THIS ONE!!!
• Create a Culture of Trust - Books and people plus trust… from Darlene… something like that
• WordPress, RSS, Trillian, Media Wiki, all free! All you need is staff time.

• 5 Phases I hope I never hear in libraries again
• We’ve always done it this way
• he or she is a roadblock to anything new
• the it department won’t let us
• I don’t’ have time for……
• Our director doesn’t like technology

• To Find out more
• Squidoo.com library 2.0 reading list
• Ning! yay!!! Ang and I are of course members of the Ning network.

• Try learning 2.0
• create a what’s new blog
• Explore ways to put the library out there, that automatically updating site.

Learn to Learn

Adapt to Change

Scan the Horizon

AIM:Mstephens7mac

I’ve never really felt this way, but for once, for the very first time every, this talk was TOO SHORT! Wow… that says something… either that I’m getting geekier, or they were way cool…most likely a combination of both. I’m going to go ahead and post this now, even though it does not yet make sense…for the sake of live blogging. Formatting and corrections to come.