Keynote Presentation: Stephen Abram
Vice President, Innovation SirsiDynix and Chief Strategist, SirsiDynix Institute
Social Libraries: The 2.0 Phenomenon
There is a global conversation going on right now about the next generation of the web and the next generation of users. It’s happening under the name of Web 2.0. It’s the new hot web where true human interaction takes precedence over merely ‘cool’ information delivery and e-mail. It’s about putting information into the real context of our users’ lives, work and play. Concurrently, there's another big conversation about the vision for what Library 2.0 might look like in this Web 2.0 ecosystem. The social web is coming fast and it’s BIG! What are the skills and competencies that Library 2.0 will need? Come and hear what Web 2.0 is and the adaptations we’ll need to make to thrive in the future. Are we focusing on the real end user's needs? Are we preparing our learners for the world that will be or the one that was? The Millennials and the post-Millennials are different, very different. What can we do to prepare our users and learners for this new world? Stephen Abram, a library futurist, will run us though the changes that are being wrought by Google, the Millennials and 2.0. It’ll be a roller-coaster.
Comments and Notes:
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The speaker was very humorous. I'm don't have an iphone either.
Excellent use of humor; nice to see a user-oriented, forward-looking perspective. Are higher-level, decision-making administrators hearing his message?
Stephen was a delightful speaker. He has a great sense of humor.
My long comment follows:
While driving on my way to Energize 2.0, I kept thinking - No more road rage till 3:30 p.m. How sweet! The atmosphere for breakfast at Kovens led me to believe that we’d have a great day. I was not disappointed. Once in a while I repeated in silence the Wiki Prayer a colleague showed me only days before: “Grant me the serenity to accept the pages I cannot edit, The courage to edit the pages I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.” I went upstairs to hear the opening keynote and claim my space. I was remembering my co-worker who could not attend because SEFLIN had to close registration. I never expected to see such a big crowd. This would compensate for my having missed ALA this year. It would keep on getting better all day long. That’s when MySpace became OurSpace – creating communities together.
During one of the excellent breakout session on Wikis, Blogs and Collaboration, I said out loud that Blogs and Wikis are a clear demonstration of democracy in practice. I said further that de Tocqueville (today) would want to revise his opinion about obsessive individualism as an American trait. Why so? Today, I Bolg; we Wiki; we edit. The virtual landscape changes with astonishing speed in unexpected and rewarding ways. In spite of this it would be misleading to believe it’s all about “Here today, gone tomorrow”. We only need to look at look at a few access points in the new world of virtual space. There are Categories, Bookmarks or Favorites – and living behind “Hide” is a deformed Marc Record. The enduring imprint of the library simply is – seen and unseen. However this fact is seldom publicly acknowledged and is little known outside the library profession.
It is not therefore surprising that librarians tend to see the chaos and order of Blog and Wiki as a kind of mixed challenge. As evidenced in Energize 2.0, several of our colleagues are expressing the instinct to be innovative and creative, even as others among us debunk the effort in Maricopa to adapt bookstore style displays to libraries. We thank the keynote speaker for correctly emphasizing the need to be at least willing to discard [weed] the impulse which says: We have always done it this way. Energize 2.0 offers the promise that we can in comfort and with fun inhabit the virtual worlds of Gen. X and Y. Bliss is it in this dawn to be alive; to Blog or to Wiki is to be very Library.
Comments (1)
Anonymous said
at 2:18 pm on Jul 18, 2007
Stephen was a delightful speaker. He has a great sense of humor
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