I’m at Internet Librarian again this year, which means I’m already chock full of ideas. Huzzah!

My first session of the day was Dr. Paul Miller’s talk on 2.0 and (on the side) all of the awesome stuff Talis is developing using mashups and the 3 O’s: open source, open data, and open APIs. He spoke on why this whole L2 thing is happening (it’s cheap!), how it’s happening (John Blyberg, PINES), and where it’s going (Project Cenote, Aquabrowser). The whole thing was definitely inspiring. Now I just need to figure out how to do it.

My second session was Cultivating Tech-Savvy Library Staff: Competencies & Tips. Sounds thrilling, I know. But Sarah very cleanly layed out some useful strategies for creating and implementing competencies from the tech level and outside. Then David gave a 10 list of things to keep your techies happy. He took all angles on this, and offered places where different levels could weigh in to help with happiness. I’m sure I’ll be referring to both sets of slides often, especially when dealing with training issues.

Right now it’s lunch break. Always fascinating talk going on in the background. I just learned that a very unassuming looking woman from the UK uses Skype for mini raids in WoW. Go figure.

I continued my afternoon with the Sarah and Dave show. Sarah did a 20 list of ways to get your site out there. There was some stuff I hadn’t heard of, and I will definitely be visiting a few sites once I’m back in the Bend.

Dave did a bit on creating web experiences; how to get that positive experience. He went over the underlying priciples in Jesse James Garrett’s The Elements of User Experience, which I will be reading, and applied them to the library web presence. Lots of good stuff in there and a lot of things I’ve been sneaking into our web presence already. He then ventured into the 7 principles of experience economy:

1. Ask – what do you users want
2. Save extra steps – this one is my favorite and one I bring up in meeitngs when I ask agency heads what is the url of their agency?
3. Trigger points – what causes a negative experience for your users
4. Improve the dinosaur – “because that’s the way we’ve always done it” is no longer a valid excuse. Find ways to make that function more logical and with the times and tech.
5. Map a journey – your users’ searches do not start at the library web page. Keep that in mind when designing.
6. Merit badging – reward your users with experiences
7. Focused design – self-explanatory

He also mentioned Don’t Make Me Think as another must read and that the circulation desk is the best place for one minute surveys. Emphasis mine.

From there it was on to the OPAC show. Glenn Peterson from Hennepin County Public Library showed us some of the really neat things their website does with the catalog with a few cold fusion and greasemoneky scripts. (They have the same gm Amazon script as SJCPL). Then Nanette Donohue discussed Champaign Public Library’s OPAC revamp process. Keep in mind that you may just be perfuming the skunk and not making it into something usable.

To end the afternoon, I went to the Gadgets, Gadgets, Gadgets session. It was a perfect way to end a day full of new ideas and tech goodness.

I have to say that this conference is as enjoyable as it is informative. Just in the between session interludes, you can learn so much about what other libraries are doing and how they’re doing it. And I can do the same for them. I even think I convinced a medical school librarian to get some Wiis and Trauma Center for his students to relax without realizing they’re relaxing.