Thanks PALS!

Sorry for not posting this yesterday but I'd like to officially thank my hosts and all the attendees of the Prairie Area Library System's PALS Day this past Wednesday. The weather was perfect (sunny on the day I got to hike through the woods, and rainy while we had to be inside for the presentations) and I wish I could steal your park and its facilities and transport them to about 10 miles outside of Lincoln, NE. Everyone was wonderful to me and made me feel welcome. Feel free to invite me back any time.

ICIW2008: Closing thoughts

Well, the conference is over. Here's the thoughts I've been left with.

When military folks talk about "open source" they're not talking about "OpenSource" as we know it i.e. OpenSource software. What they mean is non-military sources i.e. the mainstream media. Once I came to this realization several things I'd head in the past two days had completely different meanings.

This was my first "academic conference" and it's not what I'm used to. What I'm used to us presentations about software, and events, and "here's what we did". At this conference it was 20 minute presentations of the research presented as papers in the conference proceedings. I understand that this is the standard for academic conferences but I'm just not used to it. That doesn't mean didn't enjoy the conference but it was a tad frustrating hearing "and you can read more about it in my paper" in most of the sessions.

Overall I enjoyed my time over the past two days. I thought I was going to be in over my head but surprisingly I wasn't. (Except for that last session.) It's always interesting to step out of your comfort zone and learn some new thing and new perspective.

Information Warfare and Security Conference

Today I'm attending day one of a two-day conference titled he 3rd International Conference on I-Warfare and Security on the University of Nebraska, Omaha campus. I'm very interested yet I'm sure I'm in over my head. There are folks from all over the worls here including major universities and a lot of Air Force personnel. Here's the sessions I plan on attending today:

• Outsourcing and the Insider Threat: An Increasing Security Risk
• Interactive Visualization of Fused Intrusion Detection Data
• Using Markov Models to Crack Passwords
• The Impacts of Vista and Federal Destop Core Configuration on Incident Response
• Understanding IRC Bot Behaviors in a Network-centric Attack Detection and Prevention
• Implementation of a Multilevel Wiki fro Cross-Domain Collaboraton
• Religion, Ideology and Information Warfare

I'll do my best to blog throughout the day but I'm not sure how much I'll be able to easily and clearly explain on the fly. However, here's the ironic thing: I got in for free. This was through someone at the Univeristy Library. However, it seems I didn't make it on to the ist of registered conference attendees. No problem, they took my name, said come back later as they'll make me a badge, handed me a conference packet, and told me to enjoy the conference. By thew way, did I mention this was a "security" conference? On another note, the WiFi here is working great and I'm doing all this on the Cloudbook.

How to create a Twitter conference feed

I'm not sure I want to make a habit of this but I've received another request to blog on a particular topic. I've been meaning to write this post for a while so I'll just look at this as the push that I needed to actually do it. ;-)

So, for three conferences now I've created a Twitter RSS feed for those who are not at the conference to read the posts of those that are. The method or system isn't perfect but I think I've got the major bugs worked out. So here's how you do it.

1. Create an account using the name of the conference and/or some abbreviation thereof. For example, the last one was "CIL2008". Be sure to use an e-mail address that you've not previously used to create a Twitter account. (Twitter only allows one account per e-mail address.) If you plan on doing this for another event in the future, I suggest using a throwaway e-mail service so you don't run out of e-mail accounts you actually use.
   
2. Write a tweet or two while logged in as that account telling people that there won't actually be any content here as no one will actually be tweeting under that username.
   
3. Write a tweet telling people that if they're attending the conference who to contact to be added as a friend. Early attempts had me telling people to direct message me or the conference account with the request but this proved unreliable for people with protected Twitter accounts. I suggest telling people to e-mail you directly with their request.
   
4. As people contact you, log into the conference account and follow that person. Follow anyone who says they'll be at the conference and will be Tweeting from the conference. (Following people who are not attending will just clutter the resulting feed with non-relevant information.)
   
5. People only need to follow the conference account if their tweets are protected. Otherwise, following the conference account is technically pointless since there won't be any actual tweets from that account. (You'll be busy tweeting from your personal account.)
   
6. Instruct those not attending to follow the RSS feed found at the bottom of the conference account's "With Others" page.

That's it. I hope I've explained it well enough for others to recreate what I've done for other events. Feel free to post requests for clarification in the comments below.

CiL2008 Slideshow

I took over 650 photos at CiL2008 and have uploaded them all to a flickr set. As it was to be expected, some where better than others. Here, IMHO, my 70 best.

Academically speaking

Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving two talks at the University of Nebraska Council of Libraries Spring Staff Development Meeting, Let's Get Social and Library 2.0. (The linked Library 2.0 presentation is a slightly older version than the one I gave yesterday but the differences are minor.) My presentations and points were, judging by the lunchtime and end-of-day comments, well received and it sounds like I've given the University of Nebraska librarians a lot to think about and discuss amongst themselves.

One interesting suggestion I heard about over lunch was that they hire a "librarian at large" who would not be tied to working in the library but would make themselves available all over the campus in a roaming manner; today in the student union, tomorrow in a dorm lobby, the next day in a popular eating establishment near campus with free WiFi, etc. I'd say this is a wonderful idea and even know someone locally who I think would be perfect for the position. If you follow through on this idea please let me know.

At one point during my Library 2.0 presentation one librarian who stated that he was a fan of Andrew Keene and was a self-described "elitist" do make the argument that in some cases we're dumbing things down to meet the needs of newer students. (Please keep in mind that I'm paraphrasing here but I believe I've got the gist of his statements right.) I don't want to continue the debate here but I do have two short follow-ups. One, I am rarely in support of bringing things to the lowest common denominator and you can ask several of my co-workers for confirmation of this. However, I don't believe that offering such things as IM-based reference (the topic I was addressing when the issue was raised) would be considered dumbing things down, merely opening an additional access point for a different type of library user. My second follow-up is to point those interested to this blog post in which I respond to the writing of Mr. Keene in some detail. (Also, I just found a blog post by Librarian In Black Sarah Houghton-Jan regarding her attending a recent symposium which included Mr. Keen.)

I'd also like to point out that I attended the other two talks of the day one on Mary Bolin's project with Open-Access Online Peer Reviewed Journal "Library Philosophy and Practice", and Paul Royster's Digital Commons project which is the university's institutional repository. I'd previously not known much about either of these topics but from what I can tell both of these projects should be considered as models for other institutions interested in pursuing either of these types of projects.

Unconferences Rock!

Two days ago I spent an amazing day in Manhattan, KS with about 99 of the most amazing professional colleagues at the Library Camp Kansas unconference. What's an unconference you ask, it's the best parts of the conference and nothing but. There are no presentations, there are no people spending a half-hour just talking about what they do at their library, just conversation, conversation, and more conversation. Topics were suggested by the attendees in advance but the first business of the day was to decide, on the spot, what we wanted to talk about. There were three sessions, morning, lunch, and afternoon and in each case there were 5-7 topics to pick from. As a topic suggester, I got to be the leader of the morning talk about "cheap and inexpensive tools" (unofficially known as "cheap & inexpensive with Michael") and the lunchtime discussion of Creative Commons. In the afternoon I participated in the discussion of "2.0" issues. For those that didn't attend, most of the notes from the sessions have been posted on the unconference's wiki I've already linked to. Photos from the event can be found in flickr of course. If you're looking for other blog posts and media from attendees search your favorite places for the tag "libcampks2008".

There is no real way to express how fun this was and how re-energizing the whole experience was for me. For my readers in Nebraska, keep an eye on the NLC blog as there's already a small group working on bringing such and unconference to the state in the Fall. Once it's announced sign up fast as space will be limited.

Tips for Conference Bloggers

I printed this out a while ago and just found it again in a pile on my desk. In preparation for the upcoming spring conferences I feel this is something that everyone planning on conference blogging should read. (Also, it's a great excuse to play with embedding documents via my Scribd account.)

Integrating RSS Into Your Web Site

And here's the final bit, the slides for my RSS preconference @ Internet Librarian 2007.

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LBI @ IL2007

In case you missed "the Dutch boys'" presentation, here is my 10 edited version of the live portions of their presentation.

Second Life, Second Thoughts

Here's my Second Life presentation from Internet Librarian 2007.

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(I'm having a little trouble uploading my other two presentations to SlideShare at this time. I'll get them up as soon as I can.)

Participating in the Creative Commons

Here's the first of my two Cyber Tours from Internet Librarian 2007.

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The Sony Reader: eInk has arrived

Here's my second presentation from NLA/NEMA 2007. (I'm posting it early as I know what my post-presentation schedule is going to be and if I don't post it now, it might never show up.)

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What is Second Life?

Here's my Second Life presentation shown yesterday at the NLA/NEMA 2007 conference in Kearney, NE.

(Especially for those of you that attended and wished to actually see the videos that refused to play during my presentation.)

Interactive Conference Booth

In the Commission booth at the Nebraska Library Association conference this week there will be a lot going on. We'll have the laptops for e-mail checking and plenty of video games including DDR on the XBox 360, Guitar Hero II on the Playstation 2, and Wii Sports. (If you ask the right person, we might even hook up an Atari 2600 for some 8-bit old-skool gaming.) We'll also be running a series of library-related YouTube videos. Those of you who can't attend can view the videos here.

My SDLA2007 Keynote

In an effort to stop myself from making further changes to my presentation, here it is, my opening keynote presentation for the South Dakota Library Association 2007 conference to be presented this afternoon at 4pm CDT.

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No, don't hold back. Tell us what you really think.

The ALA wrap-up blog posts are starting to come in and of course I'm going to read KGS'. And, as usual, she's got a way with words. Here's the best part in all its poetic glory:

"Speaking of which… seeing the wireframes for the proposed ALA website and feeling underwhelmed. It’s not grotesquely ugly like the current site, but it’s a static organizational page about as inviting as a cold speculum. Where’s the engagement? Why are blogs squeezed way down on the right? Why does the “divisions” link exclude the Round Tables? I give it an “ix-nay,” and I’ll go into depth later."

CIL2007: Pre-conference Day

Not much to tell as I'm already as tired as if I'm on day four. My session went well but as usual I had too much material for the time allowed. I did do an audio recording of my session but I've not yet secured permission to distribute it. I'll work on that tomorrow.

I ended up trying both Wii bowling and Guitar Hero after Jenny and Aaron's session on gaming. There is video evidence of this but I have not yet secured a copy of said evidence. In the mean time, here's a video I too of David Lee King battling Aaron Schmidt in Guitar Hero. (I don't remember who won.)

I went out for dinner (sushi for me) with Louise, Jenny, Amanda and Aaron and most of us ended up meeting up with many others including Meridith and Jessamyn at the hotel bar.

Tomorrow, the sessions start. NO real plans just some intentions when it comes to attending particular sessions so you can be a surprised as I am when I post.

Update: Paying to speak

It turns out that Jane was not being asked to pay to speak. It was all a misunderstanding. However, I still agree with the underlying point of the story: don't charge your speakers to attend your conference.

Paying to speak

Jane has posted about Why I May Not Be Giving My Preconference at TLA and I can't agree with her more. I once pulled out of LITA National as I was not going to pay to present and others have blogged about this issue before. Jane, you have my full support.

Internet Librarian 2007: Call for Speakers

The Internet Librarian 2007: Call for Speakers is out. Do you have something to share? Submit a proposal today.

March of the Librarians

An altenative view of attending and ALA conference.

Thanks Rosario!