I was lucky enough to be one of the 75 attendees at Friday’s ALA Unconference, which was created as part of ALA President Jim Rettig’s Creating Connections initiatives. As Rick posted, we, the attendees, gave ten presentations and participated in close to thirty discussion groups, all on topics suggested and voted on online.

Many of the presenters and discussion group moderators have already added their presentations and resources to the wiki. I got a lot out of the whole experience, but one of the most valuable parts of the day for me was Matt Hamilton’s presentation on Libraries and Innovation (download the presentation for his full notes). We’re in a time of great change in my community and at my library, and as Matt spoke about, that presents a terrific opportunity for innovation. One of the most difficult things in a time like that is for the big idea people, those who are often most excited about and impatient for change, to take the time to let change incubate. The other side to this is that even if it’s not earth-shattering or revolutionary, an idea given time to take shape allows people to see the process, to know that it’s okay to try new things and see what happens. This freedom to take chances can open up a whole new culture in your organization, one that will hopefully follow the vision the big idea people have laid out.

One notion about leadership that came up throughout the entire day was the concept of pushing leadership down the org chart. An empowered staff is a productive staff, and the more independent (in whatever way that takes shape in your organization) staff are, the more opportunity there is for innovation and for neat things to happen. You have to have trust in the people you work with.

As library budgets shrink in these tough economic times, less people are going to be able or inclined at attend conferences. If I didn’t have the opportunity to see friends between info-sponging, I’d probably just tune in to the twitter feed and hope folks made some interesting blog posts.

This is something that librarians from rural and small libraries have always faced. Often they don’t have the time or budget to travel to conferences. Yesterday, I attended the Tiny Libraries, Tiny Tech, Innovative Services session even though I work for rather large system because innovation at any level is worth investigating. Smaller branches of bigger systems can experience similar staffing, resource, and support issues.  And, I agree with justnathan who tweeted, “Next year someone give this talk: What Small Libraries can Teach Big Libraries (and Everyone Else).”

Jessamyn West (see West’s CIL-related hand-outs, files, and links at librarian.net) opened the session and related, “The people who work in rural libraries rarely leave.”

As I’m looking over my notes, my coffee-low brain is having trouble putting together coherent thoughts, so here are some bullet points from the talk and West’s PowerPoint:

• “If you complain with numbers, people will listen to you.”
• “There’s a lot of stuff you can be in charge of if you’re willing to do the work.”
• Rural librarians don’t always have time to “play” and explore things like a 23 Things program
• You can convince folks to get online by telling them the library will save money: “Let us save a stamp.”
• Patrons just want things to work. They don’t necessarily care about cutting-edge technologies.

The second half of the session highlighted My Kansas Library On the Web (KLOW), a program that allows Kansas libraries to request a website (a WordPress blog) that they can easily update and maintain. As West stated earlier, rural librarians often cannot attend conferences.  The two other presenters, Brenda Hough from MaintainIT and Heather Braum from Northeast Kansas Library System, showed video of Kansas librarians talking about the program.

I’m going to try to dig up the video links, but for now enjoy the following quote from a Kansas librarian that I wrote down: “I wouldn’t wait until everything is perfect to get something started.” Words to live by.

After strategic planning BootCamp last week, I’ve had Nelson and Garcia’s 18 service responses on my mind non-stop.  It’s a significant step to drill down the services we can offer at public libraries to 18 clear bullet points.  My last post on this blog offered a few anecdotes advocating for simplicity in the communication arts.  Having 18 concise service responses for public libraries to choose from is a great starting point as we strive for simplicity.  The next piece of Nelson and Garcia’s process requires that a library creating a strategic plan pick only a few of these 18 responses as priorities.  My assessment of the current climate is that public libraries have had a really hard time spelling out their mission and vision in the digital age, and that is one of the reasons we have wishy-washy statements of purpose.  A little while back Wendy Lukehart of the DCPL wrote a great piece about “Mission Envy” on the Urban Library Council’s Foresight 2020 discussion board.  I republished it here a while back on my old personal blog and it’s a really nice piece.  Read it, and consider how you might clarify your library’s mission.

Still, I keep coming back to my favorite service response offered in the 18.  It is a rather new service response, one that likely does not land high in the priorities at my library.  I suspect that at this point it is not the highest priority at many public libraries at all, but its one that I am interested in and hope to see more libraries embrace in the near future.  Without further ado, it is:

Express Creativity: Create and Share Content

Residents will have the services and support they need to express themselves by creating original print, video, audio, or visual content in a real-world or online environment.

It is easy enough to imagine tackling this priority at your library with physical-world activities.  You probably already do so via arts and crafts programs, poetry slams, or any collaborative activity that results in a finished product like a mural or an exquisite corpse drawing or a work of fiction.  It’s a little harder to figure out how that creative process can be facilitated by a library in virtual or networked setting.   I’m aware of two tools/projects that become activities supporting this initiative, no doubt there are more. I thought I’d share the two I’ve been looking at and invite people to post similar projects.   As I find new things I’ll do my best to keep posting them to this blog as well.

1) Available at Cleveland Public Library, and perhaps at other libraries: Scratch.

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art — and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also gaining a deeper understanding of the process of design.

2) Currently in development at IIT Institute of Design: ThinkeringSpace.

ThinkeringSpace is a system, made of both physical and virtual environments, that aims to promote creative and critical thinking skills for the 21st century. Celebrating the book, it presents opportunities for doing things together, sharing ideas and authoring in new ways. Focused on school-aged children in libraries, the project is part of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative.

How will the business of public libraries shift to meet the needs and preferences of next generation learners? How will libraries support knowledge creation in communities in 2020 and beyond?

That’s what I’m hoping to find out today.

I landed in Anaheim yesterday, and I’m doing a twofer this trip.  The day before the beginning of the ALA 2008 Annual Meeting, I’ll be blogging the Foresight 2020 conference, presented by the Urban Libraries Council.

The one-day program includes sessions like “What Does Learning Look Like in 2020?” presented by Dr. John Seely Brown, Visiting Scholar and Advisor to the Provost at the University of Southern California and Independent Co-Chairman of a New Deloitte Research Center, and “Taking Action and Innovation Ideas Further – Key Tools, Partnerships and Strategies to Consider, Pitfalls to Avoid” presented by Omar Wasow – NBC Internet Analyst and BlackPlanet.com founder.  The program is delightfully rounded out by interactive Talk Tables to discuss and learn from the presenters and each other.

I’ll likely be tweeting the session like a fiend, so if you want to follow along real-time, check out my Twitter stream for anything hash-tagged #fs2020.  I may even post a few Utterz from the conference, we’ll see.

The Polaris Innovation in Technology John Iliff Award honors the life and accomplishments of John Iliff, early adopter and champion of technology in public libraries, and recognizes the contributions of a library worker, librarian or library that has used technology and innovative thinking as a tool to improve services to public library users.

The purpose of this award is to encourage innovative user-oriented thinking and practical solutions using old and new technologies. The award provides a $1,000 honorarium, a plaque, and a bouquet of roses for the workplace of the awardee. The cash award honors the recipient’s efforts, while the roses sent to the workplace honor the environment that helped nurture the recipient’s innovation.

Visit PLA’s PLA Online Awards Application to apply or nominate a colleague for the award.