Saturday at CAL

I saw Shelley Walchak of CLIC speak on improving your presentation skills. I have lots to learn, but this is was a great step.

After lunch I went to hear Jessamyn West, one of the keynote speakers. I've followed her blog for a long time but was psyched to have her at CAL--this was the first chance I've had to hear her speak. She talks about the intersection of politics, libraries, and technology (today's talk was "Towards Open Libraries") and it's always interesting to take what she says and think about the implications for the kids that we serve, and their families.

She talked about how we need to make what we do as librarians more transparent to our patrons, so that they know more and have a better understanding of it, but also so they can be participants in what we do and we can better be a community together.

When we think about the Web 2.0 stuff, we're thinking about this in terms of online community. So how do we include children and their families in this process? Children don't necessarily have the technology or the access to be online participants themselves, because of their youth. For example, my kids play on the computer all the time, but they don't have email accounts; they don't have cell phones; they're not on Facebook. About the most they do so far is put books on hold from home or Skype with their grandparents.

My kids will do more in the future. They are growing up in a very digitally connected family with lots of access to technology. But there are another set of kids who not only aren't connected now, but neither are their parents. How do we include them in our growing online community? How can we make sure they grow up to be a part of our new libraries without walls?

So now it's time for ice cream and a session about “Books in the Park” which takes library programming to places in the community where you can connect with people who never come into the library building...a non-tech take on inclusion.