I just completed giving my part of the Creativity and libraries keynote Library 2.012 Conference Thursday 4 October with Mal Booth. .

Here is the little movie I created when I did my run-through a couple of days ago, showing my slides and what I said, Creativity and libraries: you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.  I did not wear a rainbow-striped top when I did the real thing.

.. you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Mal Booth and I are teaming up to keynote the Library 2.012 Worldwide Virtual Conference at 21:00 WST on Thursday 4 October.

Here is a summary of what we will say:

TITLE: Creativity and libraries: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

 tl:dr summary: Creativity. Kathryn will talk about how libraries and researchers talk about it. Mal will talk about how UTS library does it with flair.

 Abstract: Libraries often claim to increase the creativity of their communities, with an implication that this is an important role for our future. “Creativity”, however, is defined by creativity researchers in many different ways. Kathryn Greenhill’s section of this keynote will give an academic’s point of view, looking at how libraries use the term “creativity” and whether different definitions of creativity can help us be more precise when we talk about it, measure it and use it to justify our futures. Mal Booth will take a practitioner’s view and discuss the exemplary initiatives and approaches to creativity implemented by the University of Technology, Sydney.

 This conference runs non-stop for 3 days, presenting continuous sessions of up-to-the-minute issues in libraries from practitioners around the globe. 150 sessions with 10 keynotes. FREE!  You can see the schedule using Perth Western Australia time here: http://www.library20.com/page/library-2-0-schedule-gmt-8-1 .

You can browse the topics here http://www.library20.com/forum/categories/library-2-012-accepted-conference-presentations/listForCategory . Topics  are as diverse as:

•  library services to youth in prisons
• digital storytelling for information literacy development
• ebook delivery models
• outreach using mobile apps
• recruiting library volunteers
• social media tools for job searching,

Here is some more information about the conference.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The Worldwide Library 2.012 Virtual Conference is next week, and kicks off early Wednesday, October 3rd. We have an amazing (and packed!) global schedule of 150 accepted presentations and 10 keynotes that will challenge your ability to get any sleep during the two days of the conference.
1. The full hour-by-hour schedule for the conference has been posted, with instructions on connecting and participating. http://www.library20.com/page/sessions-and-schedule. Once on this page, choose your time zone, and click on the links to the individual session titles for more details and, starting on October 3rd, the links to the specific virtual room for each session.

2. We still need volunteer moderators! You don’t have to be a Blackboard Collaborate expert, but if you are, or you take the one-hour training, then you are qualified and we could really use your help. 🙂 Please see the information for volunteers (and join the volunteer group) at http://www.library20.com/group/volunteer-group-library-2-012.

3. Spread the word! Library 2.012 is free to anyone to attend, so please let others know about the conference. Last year we had almost 10,000 attendee logins, and we’d love to see even more people become aware of the conference and the terrific community. Logos you can use for blog posts, emails, etc. can be found athttp://www.library20.com/page/2-012-press-media. At the bottom of this note is a short text message you can use as well, especially for emailing. Please take the time to send to your colleagues or community.

Thank you, and see you online!

Steve

Steve Hargadon
Co-Chair, Library 2.012
http://www.stevehargadon.com

As promised in my presentation at the State Library of Queensland, here are my slides with audio commentary that I recorded at my desk a couple of days before flying to Queensland.

The event was called “Libraries in a Google World” and aimed at public librarians. I was the first speaker so I wanted to set up some background information, ensuring that we were all on the same page for the panel discussion afterward. I also wanted to raise some ideas that may be worth debating afterwared.

I ended up really focussing a lot on Google search and how it is different from the information environment that public libraries are creating for their users. I wanted to make sure that when the audience next heard “semantic search” or “triples” they realised that they should actually be paying attention and working out how this may affect them, rather than presuming that someone else has to think about these concepts.

Here is the video of my slides, G is for Google, H is for Harry and L is for Library .

The ten ideas that I suggested for public libraries were:

• Idea 1: Use consortia to provide the generics. I don’t care if you think that you can’t get along
• Idea 2: Focus on the deeply local. We have a remit to get our local information and history digitised, metadata added and available for online search and remix.
• Idea 3: Not all of our potential users obey the law when obtaining content
• Idea 4: Illegal content supply is a hidden competitor
• Idea 5: Public libraries should not be funded to serve everyone. Everyone should be welcome, but many users will use other information sources. We should focus on those who really need us – those without information access due to disability, illiteracy, poverty, discrimination or age.
• Idea 6: Hybridize. Drop the word “library” if necessary. We may find ourselves converging with art galleries, museums, archives, records offices and public broadcasters and will probably need to share expertise, staff and venues.
• Idea 7: There is no Gympie branch of Google. Value Venue.
• Idea 8: Democracy, advocacy and community are out points of difference from other information suppliers
• Idea 9: Report outcomes not outputs
• Idea 10: Stop doing one thing, then another

 

I am at the State Library of Queensland, talking at their “Libraries in a Google World” conference. My slideset with audio is being published at 10am in a separate post.

Here is a CoverItLive window displaying all the tweets from my @libsmatter account and those with the hashtag #LiGW2012.

I love it when the Internet makes me feel clever just because I can follow instructions. I just used the Automator that comes with the Mac. I created a little application to do what Powerpoint could not.

Smug Windows users do not need to read this. Your version of Powerpoint allows you to insert an album of images and instantly have one slide created for each one.

For the Mac, this functionality does not come with Powerpoint.

I decided to use Keynote for the first time when creating my presentation for the State Library of Queensland on Thursday. I used one of the funky fonts that came with Keynote and – of course – when I exported my slideshow to Powerpoint and tried it on someone else’s PC, all the pretty font formatting disappeared. I knew that I would have to do what Kate suggested – export each slide as an image and then import it into a new Powerpoint slideshow.

I *may* have *cough* over 100 *cough* slides, so did not fancy inserting each image one by one.

So – bless the little cotton socks of Stephen Rinsberg who created the PPTTools site. His page about how to BATCH Import Images into PowerPoint page showed me how to open the Automator, add in an “Ask for Finder Items” Variable, then add a “Create PowerPoint Picture Slideshow” , save the thing to my desktop, click to run and SOLVE MY PROBLEM. It did leave a white border around each slide, but since most of my slides had a white background anyhow it does not look bad enough for me to manually adjust each one.

Note to self: Play with the Automator. Find out more about it. It looks fun and powerful.

Next week I am flying to the State Library of Queensland to be part of a forum discussing public libraries in a Google World. Thank you very much to SLQ for the invitation.

Five of us are giving our opinions on the topic, then we are part of a panel discussion.  I will be joined by Kate Davis, Jemima McDonald, Caroline Gauld and Francis Kneebone. My talk will touch on Harry Potter, underwear, planets, pirates, Angry Birds and Lego – the usual fare from me.

Registration closed today (Friday 15 June) for those in Queensland (contact details are on the flyer below). If you cannot make it, you can watch it webcast live through the SLQ website and follow the Twitter tag #LiGW2012.

Con started it.

After her blog was hacked, she mentioned that she still wanted to keep blogging, but was not sure what form it should take. “Me too” I thought.

I love the clarity of thought that is forced by blogging and the challenge to get a message clear before one reaches TL;DR zone. I love the surprise at the end of the post when I find out what I really thought about something. I love being forced to get my facts straight and to create an argument as I write. I love the record it keeps of both thought and fact. I love the feeling that someone is reading what I write or maybe that no-one is,  and the conversation that is sparked when readers share what they know. I also love co-creating with Con.

So – Fortnight Question (FQ) is our response to commit to doing what we love in a way that is manageable and will keep us interested. Here is how we describe it on the blog:

“Fortnight Question” is a commitment that we will write at least one new post every 14 days, answering a question posed by ourselves, each other or by readers of the blog. We will answer with opinion rather than carefully constructed research. We want to write, rather than be right.

We have launched it on the first day of #blogjune, a collaborative effort where Australian library bloggers (and friends) aim to make a post a day for the whole of June. You can see more about the event and who is playing on LibariesInteract , Blogging every day of June? #blogjune . During #blogjune we will both answer the same question over two days, then start on a new one for the next two days. Then we go on to our regular aim of at least two posts per month. I don’t think I will write much on Librarians Matter, though.

Of course you want to nip over to FQ right now, so here is some more information to get you started.

• The blog is at: http://fortnightquestion.com
• You can subscribe to the RSS feed by clicking here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/fortnightquestion/rqUm (we aim in the future to add feeds for each category, so if you just want library news from us then you will be able to  just follow that category)
• The Twitter account is at: https://twitter.com/#!/FQBlog (it pushes out each new post as we add it)

 

If you enjoy well-informed, interesting discussion around the future of the book, then you will not want to miss Sherman Young speaking in Perth on 23 May at the City of Melville for National Year of Reading  during Library and Information Week. This is courtesy of the Cities of Fremantle, Melville and Rockingham.

Young is author of   The Book is Dead (Long Live the Book ) , published in 2007. There are interesting ongoing updates on the topic in the book’s companion blog, The Book is Dead . I heard Young speak at the Web 2.0: Beyond the Hype Symposium in Brisbane in January 2008. He had a very wide knowledge of the history of the book and very clearly explained his point of view and backed any assertions that he made in ways that made sense. What I really liked, though, was that listening to him raised a number of questions that I wanted to go away and think about.

I hope that he still has that effect, as I have been invited to be on the panel that follows Young’s talk, along with the charming and articulate polymath Grant Stone and James Lush from ABC Perth.

I would love to see some familiar faces there – not just because it feels good, but because I really expect it to be a stimulating evening of learning. Bookings through the City of Melville on 9364 0115.

Here is a copy of the flyer:

I am usually meme-adverse, but I am waiting for a video to render so that I can go home and content here has been pretty conference-focused for the last little while.. soooo…

Peta tagged me to answer the following questions using my handwriting:

1. what is your name
2. blog URL
3. Write: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
4. Favourite quote
5. Favorite song (at the moment)
6. Favorite band/singers (at the moment)
7. Say anything you want
8. Tag 3-5 bloggers

Here are my results.

 

Peta mentions in her post that her usual handwriting is messier by a factor of 20%. Here is my draft and some miscellaneous bits and pieces that happened to be in the notepad. Judge the gap factor for yourself.

I am tagging:

Michelle McLean at Connecting Librarian

Fiona Bradley at the Semantic Library

Kim Tairi at Angels have the phone box