Tag: Libraries

DML, Maker Spaces, Libraries, and Ignite

Hi blog. It’s been awhile. I wonder if anyone still reads you….

What’s been new? Information Overload presentations. Grad school work. Day job. And DML2012.

DML2012 was. incredible, and had me wishing more librarians had been present.

With the increased focus in some part of our profession on the potentials of maker spaces (read David Lankes’ latest encounters with the Fayetteville Library Fab Lab), media labs, and community spaces for learning, DML2012 was the conference where those situations were on center stage. More librarians needed to be there to join in the conversation — go next year — it’s in Chicago!

Other parts of the conference dealt with gaming, different learning approaches, and other education-related things (sorry to sum it up all so fast). John Seeley-Brown’s keynote set the stage on Thursday. I highly recommend you take some time to watch it online. You won’t regret it.

I spent the rest of the conference attending sessions on maker spaces, and a short talk panel that included sections on a research project into student digital use and Evernote used in an academic library orientation. My notes are somewhere on my iPad in scattered form. The collaborative notes from conference participants is a much better place to gain an idea of the conference.

My other part of the DML Experience was giving an Ignite Talk. Thanks to Buffy’s encouragement, I turned in the idea, “Lifelong Learning @ Your Library from Birth to the Grave.” Surprisingly the conference organizers took the proposal, and I had to give the talk. Eek!

What’s an ignite talk? It’s a five-minute presentation, where the slides auto-advance every fifteen seconds. The presenter prepares the slides and an accompanying script. See Wikipedia for more information.

The video of the talk is supposed to be posted at some point online. But until then, here’s my slide deck. If you view the slideshow on Slideshare and click on the notes tab below the slides, you’ll be able to read the script as you advance through the slides.

DML2012 Ignite Talk: Learning from Birth to the Grave @ Your Library

View more presentations from Heather Braum

The ignite talk was definitely an experience, and I was incredibly nervous. But it was an amazing opportunity to share the awesome possibilities in libraries, especially from the ones here in Kansas. I’ve been using the presentation in our board trustee training this week in response to the future of the library in light of the coming age of eBooks, and it’s been well-received. Kansas, we really do have an awesome library community!

Libraries and Enchantment

My dear friend and colleague Buffy Hamilton gave a talk on Enchantment and Libraries at ISTE 2011 and the video is finally online! All librarians need to see this talk. It gets to the heart of our mission, regardless of our library size, type, location, or community served. May it challenge and move you as much as those who have seen it and heard it have been moved and challenged already.

In her blog post, Buffy also provides a link to her enchantment slidedeck and a quick overview video of Guy Kawasaki’s “Enchantment” book.

Effective Instructor Quote

I’m quickly skimming through Jessamyn West’s outstanding new book, “Without a Net: Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide,” and ran across this statement that is important for any trainer teaching any level of technology to any group of students, especially those uncomfortable with technology. In a lot of ways it’s common sense to anyone who’s worked with anyone learning technology, but it’s still always good to have the reminder.

I hope you take it to heart as much as I have (and read the whole book!):

Part of being an effective instructor is about putting technology use into perspective for people and helping them find a place for it in their own lives as something other than an insurmountable obstacle” –p74, Without a Net

KLA 2011 Wrapup post

At the KLA 2011 conference this year, “Share the Vision”, I stayed sane, and only presented once. And I plan to act accordingly at KLA conference in years to come. Last year’s insane presentation schedule was fun to do (I ended up doing 4 separate sessions with panels of people, plus taught a pre-conference), but I didn’t get to enjoy the conference at all — I’d crash between presentations in my hotel room.

I won’t do that again. And I don’t recommend this at all (friends don’t let friends do crazy presentation slates — remember that!). Conferences are meant to be enjoyed and a time to visit with your colleagues and peers, and also attend sessions (yes, I advocate the priority of talking to people above attending conference sessions; conferences are a great way to meet new people and learn from one another)

This year I only gave a presentation with the fabulous Liz Rea, on online security tips, “Naked in the Library: Keeping Your Private Information Private, Online“.

Side note: Previously the funniest (and most useful) presentation had been the Cloud Computing presentation Sharon, Liz, and I presented together as a team at different times in 2009 (which reminds me, after TEDxOKC and hearing from a member of the Chrome OS team, I think we should resurrect the cloud computing presentation again; it’s even more relevant today). End Side Note

I didn’t think we could have more fun than using silly cat pictures to describe the wonder and perils of cloud computing and what it can mean for libraries. But Liz and I managed to do just that with “Naked in the Library“. People get bored or overwhelmed or confused or lose interest in security presentations or conversations; we’d both experienced this. So how to get people’s attention when security is more important than ever, especially as cloud computing is an exploding trend? With a combination of live simulated hacking, videos, and the Keep Calm and Channel Han mantra, we had our audience participating, laughing, engaged, and appearing to remember what we’d discussed over about 40 minutes. I have a feeling we’ll be doing this one again. [Presentation info: Slides, Handout, Resources]

I spent time at the conference helping produce and moderate two virtual track sessions — great fun to hear from Susan, Leah, and Gail in their sessions, and I just realized I have another set of notes to type now from their sessions to share (another day). I thought the sessions went well and we have fantastic archives of information that I hope people listen to post-conference. (For fun, here’s the Xtranormal video promoting the track and the Xtranormal video thanks).

Note: If you registered for the conference or the virtual track only, you have access to these sessions; see Cindi Hickey’s message reminder on KANLIB for more info. If you haven’t seen the message or are interested in getting the archives to the sessions, contact Cindi directly; her contact information is on the virtual track page.

I attended a few other sessions, including Heidi’s Silent LIbrary: Using MTV as library outreach programming, library advocacy in Kansas update (notes coming), one of Maribeth’s sessions on computer security (notes coming), In Pursuit of Library Elegance, and Placing a Hold on the Love of Reading.

All in all it was a great couple of days in Topeka. Royce, Mickey, and the other conference organizers did a great job bringing the conference together. I had a wonderful time connecting with good friends (had a bit of fun in downtown Lawrence and laughed way too much; thanks Kate, Heidi, and Rachel — SLIM will forever connect us 🙂 ), talked to many other library colleagues, and continued to find intersecting threads of thought that were still in the process of being pulled together. Some had been present for months, some came at CiL, some came at PLAVSS, and some came at KLA.

Then I left Topeka and drove to OKC for TEDxOKC on Friday. The drive down to OKC went by quickly thanks to phone conversations. Between a conversation with a college roommate and a marathon phone conversation with Buffy Hamilton (I think we talked 3 hours!), the 4.5 hour drive went by quickly. I stayed with Kirsten, talked library shop as always, and headed to bed. I knew Friday would be exciting thanks to knowing a lot about the TED and TEDx concepts, but I had no clue how exciting and life-changing it would be. The threads I’ve been seeing merged, exploded, and came to life. Stay tuned for those notes and reflections over the next few days.

Silent Library: Using MTV as library outreach programing

Presentation is available online through Prezi.

Presented by Heidi Blackburn, K-State University at Salina Libraries

Silent Library TV Show (MTV game show)

Lessons Learned

The library used the Silent Library TV show concept to market the library during the orientation week to just meet the librarians and know where the library was. Purpose wasn’t to go over services or provide instruction classes. This can be used in public libraries, too.

  1. Venue: think about your space. Selling the idea: Look for ways to tie into game nights, summer reading, freshman orientation, standalone teen night. Tie into interdepartmental relationships, collaboration, etc. Use the words donations and volunteers.
  2. Volunteers: volunteers helped get the donations for the event. A letter was available to give to community businesses; the businesses really liked this. Hand-deliver the letter, don’t mail it. They like it when you come in person. The library targeted getting donations from businesses that their target audience would frequent (freshman: Sonic, BBQ, Target, banks). Silent Library was also explained to the volunteers, for those who didn’t know what the Silent Library TV show was and what activities were coming during the event. People will be more comfortable helping out if they know what they’re getting themselves into. Library targeted volunteers from key campus staff for the event: academic advising, career services. For the public library: get teachers from schools, community members who interact with the target audience. Heidi had a checklist to get everything done.
  3. Verbalize: Waiver and assumption of risk form for people participating. Peer pressure got a lot of people to sign and participate. To campus: flyers around campus that showed who sponsored the event, the name of the program, and tiny print that said you’ll need to sign a waiver (the waiver text is what people read the most); moving weekend, handed out the flyers; flyers in the cafeteria and in the library. Advertise all the places for students to notice the event.

It was all about bragging rights. Make sure you have the floors covered in plastic. People were bringing things to do from the back throughout the entire event.

30 people participate and 50 people were in the audience. Teams came in already formed. Librarians didn’t test the events, but everyone had input on what would work and what was over-the-top.

You might want a cellphone or camera clause as part of this event, to not allow it to be filmed or have stipulations for what can and cannot be filmed.

Prizes and drawings held at the end. Judging who kept the most quiet — microphones didn’t work quiet so well. Put the plastic in all directions, including shelving.

Talk to faculty and volunteers and make sure they show up if they said they’d volunteer.

12 total challenges during the event. No one knew what challenge they were doing until it happened. Need lots of people to help to rotate the activities.

Captive audience. As activities were introduced, different campus people introduced themselves and led the challenges, just like a commercial. Several of the students who came to event know Heidi’s name and come in and say hi. It’s all about getting them in the door and knowing the librarians that are in the building.

Cost: out-of-pocket expenses, under $50. All the other materials, people donated (Pickle juice, peanut butter, etc.). Donations for prizes. Time and effort were the biggest costs.

Assessing the benefit: 29 students showed up to participate and 50 students showed up in the audience, on a campus of 600. Success just for people coming through the door. Feedback came anecdotally that night and the day after. People were saying things in the hallway or in the parking lot about the event.

Those viewing didn’t have to sign a waiver. Two orientation events were going on the same night — didn’t seem to conflict. People still showed up!

Presentation is available online through Prezi.