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Highlights and Lowlights

Highlights and Lowlights

Published by Iris on Thursday, April 10th, 2008

I’m still processing my thoughts after CIL, and I’m sure this won’t be my last post on the issue, but I thought I’d just give a quick thumbs up and thumbs down list.

Thumbs down (first so I can get it over with):

  • Arlington doesn’t seem to have a blue sky. I’ve only seen clouds. Does the sun ever shine there?
  • Vendors who clearly haven’t heard what we’ve been saying for years. C’mon people. We aren’t trying to be mean when we question your relevance ranking algorithm or your obsolete file structure. We’re just frustrated. And nothing’s changing in any fundamental way.

Kinda in between:

  • Wireless that doesn’t work. In all fairness, ITI clearly tried very very hard. There was a whole lot more connectivity than there has been at previous conferences. Unfortunately, all of our bandwidth needs have also increased and so we crashed it… regularly and with frequency.
  • And for all the guff people gave for new ideas that didn’t work (you know the ones), I think it’s great that ITI is really working to make sure this conference structure and logistics move forward with the times. It’s regrettable that many of these experiments flopped in a big way, but a track on open source and a track on new user interfaces were two great steps forward.

Thumbs up (to leave you with the good stuff):

  • The people the people the people
  • More accommodations for the laptop laden (a blogger’s row in the front of every room, complete with power strips. Yay for power strips!)
  • Watching the stenographer at work. I had no idea they did that!
  • Pecha Kucha!!!!

And even though nobody else will care, here are the top in-jokes from this year (feel free to comment with those I’ve left out):

  • One-eyed pink bunnies.
  • “Libelous and slanderous”
  • “I’m late for choir practice”
  • “Hookers and blow”
  • “I hate technology”
  • Lobby 2.0

[Edited to get the right things into the right categories. Thanks, Greg, for the heads-up. Advice to all: never blog when this sleep-deprived, no matter how much you think it’ll be fun and easy.]

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Identity, Community, and My Not-So-Virtual-Friends

Identity, Community, and My Not-So-Virtual-Friends

Published by Iris on Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Without a doubt, the best part of this last week has been meeting all those friends which up until now, I’ve called “eFriends.” I’ve known some of these people for 3 years, but never yet laid eyes on them. In many ways, this has been like what I always imagined a really good class reunion would be like. We already knew what everyone had been doing recently. We knew each other’s interests, fears, and aspirations. We’ve been there for highs and lows. And now, at long last, we know each other’s in-person mannerisms.

Now I wonder, will things go back to the way they were online or will they change? And if they change, what will that change look like? Will we be even more comfortable with each other, or will we become shy now that the subtle protection we’ve enjoyed so far, that cloak of safety in the knowledge that our companions know us but don’t know us? Of course, I hope things will be even more rich and wonderful, but I was surprised to look around one night and wonder if I was becoming shy now that people knew my mannerisms and expressions. “Will they still like me?” I couldn’t help wondering.

But all of this made me wonder again about these online personalities we have. We all bridled a bit when somebody expressed concern during the LSW presentation about the anonymity of screen names and wondered how true community could form in an environment that depends on screen names. And I firmly believe that communities do form in these environments. I’ve felt it. I’ve lived it. But I haven’t decided yet if that kind of community can be the same as a face-to-face community.

I can’t wait to see what does change, and what stays the same. But whatever happens, I’m confirmed in my opinion that these are amazing people. They make me proud to be a librarian and excited for the possibilities that can become reality with people like this put their minds to it. And I’m already pining just a little and wishing I could pop down to the lobby to hang out with the gang.

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The Story of My Profession

The Story of My Profession

Published by Iris on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Well, this is a first. I fully intended to blog, twitter, upload pictures to Flickr, and do all the other things I’ve done at every other conference I’ve attended in the last 3 years. But a combination of technical and social factors have gotten in the way. Lack of reliable internet is a perennial problem at CIL. (This year they seemed to have made a concerted effort to improve… but the wireless routers kept failing and kicking whole rooms full of people off the network.) And this year I discovered that if you know a lot of fun, cool, engaged, and social people, you might not get a whole lot of one-on-one time with your laptop. This I take as a wonderful thing, and I had the best time meeting the majority of my until-now-only-virtual friends (more on this in another post). So the upshot is, I’ve spent every moment so far either fighting with wireless connectivity or actually talking with people, not blogging… not uploading photos (or even really taking photos… sorry), not even twittering a whole lot (my phone doesn’t do the whole web connectivity thing, either, and I just don’t want to pay for a conference full of twitterers’s ideas 10 cents at a time). Does this mean I have to hand in my 2.0 credentials?

Ironically, this lack of communication directly contradicts what I think has become the unofficial theme of this conference: telling stories. A few sessions have mentioned this theme explicitly (I’m thinking particularly of the Day 2 Keynote, presented by a trio known affectionately in these parts as “the Dutch Boys”). But even when presenters didn’t actually talk directly about story telling,they’d stir our interest by invoking stories of their own. Who wasn’t captivated by the clip from Mary Poppins in the Day 3 keynote? Who didn’t love Greg Schwartz’s fairy-tale-turned-Pecha-Kucha talk?

I found this underlying focus on Story compelling. At its heart, Story requires interaction, communication, and therefore community. I’ve also found that narrative stirs some deep and vital part of people. We’ll believe a narrative that hangs together even without the “evidence” that we train ourselves from school onward to interrogate. And we’ll often remember evidence-based narratives but forget all the actual evidence itself. On the flip side of that, facts without a narrative to tie them together are just about the epitome of “boring” and “forgettable” for me. And what’s more, Story is fun! It taps into the not-work-but-fun part of my psyche and sets my default mode to trust and enjoyment rather than skepticism. (Why do you think it takes so long to teach students to read fiction critically?… because it’s made up of good stories.)

All this talk of Story has inspired me to be on the lookout for the narratives we present and narratives we could present to our communities. I know we do, and we often even do it intentionally. I’m just interested in being mindful, myself, of the power of Story for my library.

But I actually think it should be more than just an inspiration. I think this idea of Story should be a great comfort to those who feel forced to think that the only way forward is to obliterate everything on which libraries are built. Quite the contrary. Our history of service and of meeting our community’s needs is fundamentally part of our story. It’s the part that’s implied when we start in medias res. It’s the part that sets the stage when we begin “once upon a time.” It’s the part that, if forgotten, renders the rest of the narrative stilted, limp, and ultimately boring. Moving forward is the rising action of the story, not a new story.

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Getting ready for CIL

Getting ready for CIL

Published by Iris on Saturday, April 5th, 2008

I spent the morning tweaking my twitter account to be useful while I’m at CIL. I won’t be publishing my tweets here, but if for whatever reason you want to keep up with what I’m doing (whenever the notoriously spotty conference wifi will allow me onto the network, that is) you have two options: follow me on twitter or subscribe to my twitter feed.

Of course, I’ll be blogging as usual. I usually write a post or two each day pointing out the highlights of what I saw and learned. I don’t usually blog conference session notes, but plenty of other people do, so search Technorati for the tag cil2008 and I’m sure you’ll find all the session notes you need. (By the way, that same tag will work for Flickr and del.icio.us and a whole host of other tag-searchable things.)

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