Computers in Libraries 2007


Got back from Washington, D.C. last night around 2 a.m., which put a down note on an otherwise very positive trip. The main things that I got out of the conference were hearing about all the support for gaming and learning in the library community, and the positive steps to an open-source future for the ILS. I met a lot of great people, and I had a lot of fun. I want to just give a couple highlights now, and let my brain continue to absorb what I experienced. But for me, these were the best moments:

The Sunday afternoon workshop presented by Jenny Levine and Aaron Schmidt was a great way to start. I was lucky enough to arrive a little early, so I got to play Jenny's Nintendo Wii for a bit before we got going. Jenny and Aaron are both very engaging, and they definitely got the point across that gaming has a big future, and librarians need to jump in. Aaron's this young guy, probably not even thirty years old, and he was wearing jeans and a hoodie, and Jenny brought a bunch of games along with the systems: the Wii, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, although PS3 was not available. I still haven't played one of those things.

Jenny opened with the "theory" behind the fun, describing The MacArthur Foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative, and we discussed some of the recent books that explore the issue. There is a lot of activity going on in the field. There's a conference in late July in Chicago, BTW. I'm in a rush, so I'll have to link to it later. I've mentioned this some on this blog, about the way my sons attack problems, work together, and share their "knowledge base" when they play, and it's the same way I do things at work. Organizations, businesses, that have incorporated this and give it their blessing are going to be the innovators. Jenny brought up the example of the guy getting hired by Yahoo! for his management skills, learned by running a guild in Wow. Aaron spoke more about the practical side of running gaming nights, holding tournaments, which games to use, etc. I left there pretty pumped. The YA librarian here received a grant to get some consoles and games, so we are definitely going to be having gaming nights at CPL. I met an interesting retired librarian who does consulting now who also plays WoW. She has two level 70 characters (!) and she plays it on a Mac too. Very cool. I loved being surprised by that.

My coworker went to what he said was a very good RSS how-to workshop while I was slacking in the gamer one. So we were both full of motivation on Sunday evening. We ended up taking the Metro to Foggy Bottom and walking to Georgetown, although being the dumbass that I am, I had us going in the opposite direction for 15 minutes. We had dinner in a bistro and we were both amazed at all the foreign languages we heard. I kind of take pride at picking them out, but there were a couple of women seated behind me that I just couldn't get a bead on.

Jessamyn West's talk on pimping the Firefox browser was very entertaining. It was a very practical talk, here's this addon, here's another extension that does this, here's the cool stuff that Greasemonkey can do for you, etc. I didn't even know about the developer stuff, which will really come in handy. Which reminds me, just an aside, but Apple laptops were everywhere at this thing: it's especially surprising given that practically none of the ILS's run on Mac. I mentioned that to Aaron at the workshop, and somehow we ended up agreeing that we're both getting an iPhone when those puppies come out this summer.

We were lucky to get a staff tour of the Capitol building on Monday. We heard the news about the Virginia Tech shooting while we were waiting. We had called our state rep's office about a month before, and we were escorted around by a college student from Methuen who is interning for the semester. The whole complex is amazing: the catacombs below, the marble everywhere, the symmetry, etc. We also had a brush with fame: Newt Gingrich was going into the men's room as we headed over to the House chambers. Woohoo! We all wondered what he was doing on the Hill. After the tour, we bummed around the Rayburn Office Building looking for other offices of representatives we knew, then we headed over to the National Archives. We saw the totally washed out Declaration of Independence, Constitution, etc. Then we explored some of the exhibits. The one that sticks in my mind is the Presidents at school exhibit. They had report cards and class photos, essays and other objects on display. I didn't know that Nixon could play so many instruments, or that Eisenhower was so good in Greek and Latin and math. We stayed till close at 7 p.m.

I'm already getting my days mixed up, but sometime in there I went to the National Gallery of Art. Very enjoyable. I especially liked the French sculptures and the portraits. I wasn't very impressed with the Jasper Johns exhibit in the East building, except for his Numbers stuff. The version in lead is cool. That building is so empty, it felt underused.

Back to work, I enjoyed listening to the state of the ILS on Wednesday. I'm glad to hear that Evergreen is still looking promising, and that no one is very happy with the proprietary ILS's. Roy Tennant's talk was also good, although the height of the Potomac Room's ceiling was making me claustrophobic.

I saw a little of the Ancien Régime toward the end of the conference. There was one presenter from a public library, who was probably in his late forties, early fifties, who used a lot of military analogies in his talk, and it really bugged me, at the reptilian brainstem level, his "business" speak.

Overall, I thought it was a very good conference. I'm definitely pumped.

Posted: Thu - April 19, 2007 at 08:17 PM      

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