Podcasts are a great way to expand learning beyond the classroom or library. Here are more recommendations from Tech Chicks Anna Adam and Helen Mowers, following up their Dec. 2007 article Listen Up!

Jeffrey Hastings, our gearhead, considers the Zonbu, a $99 open-source desktop computer.

SLJ columnist Jeffrey Hastings reviews the search utility Public Web Browser.

I Heard it from Alice Zucchini: Poems about the Garden, written by Juanita Havill, illustrated by Christine Davenier (Chronicle Books, 2006).

If you're a librarian who has a National Book Award winner visiting your library, the National Book Foundation wants to help you boast about it, via an author event listing service available to public libraries nationwide.

The Electric Company, PBS'  hit 1970s educational program, is making a comeback with a newly updated version for today’s High School Musical generation.

The Boston Public Library's Homework Assistance Mentoring Program (HAP), is winner of the 2008 Urban Libraries Council Highsmith Award of Excellence.

 PMOG, the passively multiplayer online game, has players waging war across the entire Internet. Could this be the next big thing for libraries? Christopher Harris thinks so. Read his feature article, "Masters of the Universe."

The public will have access to all of Donnell's collections and services during construction of a new library.

Registration for the 2008 ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium is now open! Last year we sold out at 300, and this year we expect the 350 spots to go quickly, so we encourage you to sign up early.

We're in full swing for planning the second annual ALA TechSource Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium, which will take place on November 2-4, 2008, in Oak Brook, IL (a western suburb of Chicago).

There's some preliminary information on the site about registration, the location, and keynote speakers, but we've also just posted the official Call for Presenters. If your library is doing something innovative with gaming, if you're doing research around gaming and libraries, or if you have ideas to propose and share, please submit a proposal. We want to offer another great program chock full o'the best sessions, and that could include you!

The deadline for submitting your proposal is June 15, 2008, and we'll respond by July 1. Help us make GLLS2008 even better than last year's event!

About forty years ago Sunsweet Pitted Prunes ran a famously funny TV ad, written by Stan Freberg.  It featured a stuffy British character actor complaining about the fact that prunes contained pits and were wrinkled.  Once you have a prune pit in your mouth, there is no graceful way to extricate it.  All wrinkled fruit is abhorrent.   

Then he is offered a new Sunsweet pitted prune.  He displays some interest and enjoyment, then reminds the off-screen pitchman that the prunes still contain wrinkles.  Cut to the punchline: "Today the pits, tomorrow the wrinkles. Sunsweet marches on." 

I was thinking about that classic commercial today as I pondered how librarianship marches on.

Today the Users

Remember those genteel discussions we used to have about what to call the people who darkened the doorways of our physical libraries?  Calling them patrons was rather patronizing.  If we called them customers, that contained a whiff of filthy lucre.  To call them clients straddled the fence between business and the professions, which made us uncomfortable, as fence straddling is wont to do.  Referring to them as users made them sound like they were information addicts.  Perhaps they were. 

Then the Internet and the Web came along, spawning phrases such as "remote users" and "remote patrons" and the "library without walls."  It was all very exciting.

The funny thing was, no one I spoke with about this naming issue ever entertained the notion that "none of the above" should be considered as a suitable sobriquet for library users.  One lesson of recent history is that "none of the above" was the correct answer all along. 

Turns out, many library users did not want to be mere users of libraries, library systems, and library services.  They wanted to contribute to the richness and value of "our" systems by adding reviews, comments, tags, ratings, and even -- perish the thought -- their own original creative works.  They wanted to help us make library information systems even better and more useful, and they didn't want to do it merely by completing an annual feedback survey. 

Now these "Creative Artists Formerly Known as Users" are pushing the notion of communal information systems in interesting, sometimes troubling, ways.  They are the pits, and I mean that in the sunniest, sweetest way.

Tomorrow the Objects

Have you ever noticed how much of what we do as librarians relates to information objects?  We select objects (books, electronic resources, digital audiobooks, etc.), acquire and organize them, describe them, circulate them, archive them, convert them, and mollycoddle them in every way imaginable.  We are so object-oriented, sometimes it is difficult to see the forest for the trees.

Not only have we given information objects a lasting professional embrace, but we also have designed our information systems so that users and "Artists Formerly Known as Users" should show proper obeisance to information objects.  We expect them to search for, cite, save, print, copy, and share information objects.  Many people have come to accept that using an information system is all about searching for and using information objects.  If an information experience were not object-oriented, what would it feel like?    

Here's an interesting wrinkle.  What if the future of experiencing information will be less oriented toward objects and focused more on the total experience?  Experiencing information will be more like taking in -- and then immersing one's self in -- a scenic vista than counting and hoarding blades of grass.  Some of the recent developments in "serious games" and virtual worlds seem to point to such an information future.  

This does not mean that information objects will become useless.  Each gestalt information experience will be constructed of information objects, which are carefully crafted and organized by librarians, end-users, and other experience creators -- the artists formerly known as content creators.  While attention to information objects will continue to be essential during the initial design and redesign phases, the creative, immersive use of information systems will emphasize the learning experience, not the individual information objects.     

Today the users, tomorrow the objects.  Librarianship marches on. 

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting and speaking at the new Loyola University Information Commons on the campus of Loyola University just north of Chicago. It was a blustery, rainy cold day along the lake, but the space and the library folk were warm and inviting. Before the visit, I checked out the Web site for the Commons, eager to read about the project. From the Overview and Philosophy page:

The concept of an Information Commons (IC) is part of a national trend which has three objectives:

• First, focusing on the needs of undergraduates
• Second, providing a one-stop shopping experience for all types of information needs: library research, technology, and more, and
• Third, considering how and why we access and use information.

The Information Commons idea is also a response by libraries to the current trends of technology in higher education, globalization as it relates to information, e-learning, and the need for flexible hours by students. In the past decade, librarians have observed that students need and expect to have

• A. spaces to meet and work together
• B. access to up-to-date technology
• C. the ability to communicate easily with friends, family, classmates, etc.

For universities to be competitive for students, these needs must be addressed.

Dean of Libraries Bob Seal took me on a deluxe tour of the facility that sits right on the lake side. The first floor includes computers, seating areas and a help desk staffed by student assistants. The second and third floors offer more computers, group study/collaboration space and are designated as quiet areas. The library and university folk planning this space allowed for louder spaces for collaboration and quieter spaces for studying. There is even a "no technology," quiet reading room designed to look like a traditional library space. Bob was very pointed when he described entering into the project with the planning team. Three things, he said were of utmost importance for the new building. The Information Commons would be a place for:

• Collaboration
• Connectivity
• Community

Macs, PCs, outlets, wireless, and comfortable seating were in abundance.

I was particularly impressed with the media production space, designated as resource for students to create digital content, print in color/large size and have access to circulating equipment. This was the first time I'd ever seen a circulating equipment area. Technologies included digital video cameras, portable hard drives for saving large files and more.

I spoke for an hour to library staff and invited friends from the library community. I had a ball referring to my tour in the context of The Hyperlinked Library and concluded the talk by urging the visitors from outside Loyola to checkout the Commons and the student-centered technologies, spaces and features. Throughout the day, I was constantly reminded of how student-centered the Commons seemed to be. It makes sense: students want a plugged in, digital learning experience. They're consumers in many ways. The Information Commons would certainly impress me as a potential student. I wonder how potential students might react to other less-inviting spaces? What did the Commons philosophy state?

For universities to be competitive for students, these needs must be addressed.

Are you planning a new or renovated space in your academic library. It might be just the ticket to look at the photos, the philosophy and ponder how you might create a technology-equpped space to serve learning needs. Kudos to the planning team, including forward-thinking dean Bob Seal for creating such an innovative space. As I was leaving we hatched plans for Dominican GSLIS field trips to see the Commons in action.

Flickr set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelsphotos/sets/72157604487385068/

I was very lucky to share a podium with Jen Maney, Pima County Public Library, and John Blyberg, Darien Library, on Friday morning at the 2008 Public library Association conference in Minneapolis, MN. I wrote two pages of hurriedly scribbled notes while Jen spoke and I really wanted to share them here. They tap into some of the themes I've written about at TechSource since we began in 2005.

Jen opened her talk, titled "Let's get Excited (and Realistic) about Web 2.0," by noting that there is no magic wand we can wave to make your library suddenly be in the 21st century. Web 2.0 is an individual thing. Each person - and I would say each institution -- brings their own perspective to the tools. Because Jen works in the Web area of her library, she's participated in a lot of discussions of choosing and using emerging technologies.

"Get over it," Maney said about taking on some of those emerging tools and social media - "Experiment." She also echoed some of the current thinking around exploration and learning. "Play," she said. "It's what your users are already doing." What an excellent reason to start a Learning 2.0 program -- something Maney noted her library and the State of Arizona were taking on! WooHoo!

The motto in her department is "Designing for Uncertainty." We have no idea what the future holds with services, technology, etc. This way their planning is timely and focused on the users.

Then Maney noted the importance of adopting and using the tools that WORK for the institution. This is the evaluation piece that Casey and Savistinuk made part of their original definition of Library 2.0:

It is a model for library service that encourages constant and purposeful change, inviting user participation in the creation of both the physical and the virtual services they want, supported by consistently evaluating services.

Maney's take was "lonely is bad." If that blog, discussion forum, IM service, etc is unused -- thus lonely -- take it down and focus on something else that might better suit the institution. Monitoring usage, hits, comments all come into play here. "We can't do it all," she said -- to applause from john and I, and severl folks in the audience. "Pick and choose the ones you want to try." I was happy to hear this coming from someone in the trenches of practice -- I've been addressing the same issues in my recent talks. So are some incredible library thinkers in Australia.

Finally, Maney shared what she's learned designing online spaces for library users:

• Web-based participation works best when it's built around a library program.
• RSS News feeds are good fit for the library, but also teach users how to use RSS
• Get your stuff into the catalog at the point of need
• It helps to have staff that like to experiment
• There is no one thing -- no one answer - for every library.

Jen really fired me up with her talk - and luckily I went next so I was able to build on and re-emphasize her points with my presentation. John followed with an incredible take on Andrew Keen. It was great fun!

Thanks to all who attended our program at PLA.