The MS Library 2.0 Summit is back! We’ve re-imagined it as the MSU Libraries Emerging Technologies Summit, and we are already starting to get great submissions for the Steal-This-Idea sessions. We are so excited to have Jason Griffey as the keynote this year!

This conference started in 2007 with Michael Stephens introducing about 100 folks from eight states in the region to new technologies that were poised to change the library world. Along the way, some have–and some have disappeared–but the culture of learning that took hold after his visit has changed the MSU Libraries. We had cutting (bleeding?) edge presentations that have echoed in the library community since (mind you, this in was 2007):

A report from Southeastern Louisiana’s SMS virtual reference project (an early report from the pioneers of text messaging reference)
A workshop on the impact of social media, and Facebook in particular, for marketing in academic libraries
A panel on the challenges of institutionalizing 2.0 technologies in libraries

Enthusiastic about our work in the area and wanting more, we invited Sarah Houghton-Jan to come in 2008 to give us a big-picture for the state of 2.0 in the library world. Her timely keynote, Sustainable Web 2.0 Services for Small and Underfunded Libraries, came just as we were all beginning to feel the pinch of the economic downturn. Other sessions were perfectly timed for this Wild West period of 2.0 development in libraries, including:

Managing Identity in Social Networks / Information Overload
Using Google Analytics in Libraries
How Viral Marketing Can Help Your Library

Though we weren’t able to host the Summit in 2009, it has given us time to reflect on what we would like to know about (and talk about) at this point–in particular issues around assessment, sustainability and the future of social media in a post-2.0 environment. Now that we are using these tools, doing this outreach, in a culture of learning and growing, what’s next?

As we’ve done in the past, we’ll be podcasting and archiving the Summit, but nothing beats actually being a part of the discussion. If you’ve got something you want to talk about, consider submitting a proposal.

Robert Brewer posts poetry prompts on Wednesdays. I’ve found that this gets me into a practice of writing–even if it’s awful. Today’s prompt is to start a poem with “I think…” Let me know if you make this happen. I’m not publishing my poetry in this blog, but I do have an email list of people who are also writing the prompts if you want to
join–and you can also post your poem on Brewer’s blog to be part of that community.

So I haven’t blogged since June. It’s now October. I’ve been studiously ignoring this blog. I just found a wonderful comment that I missed from said studious ignorance (thank you Ellen). I am so immersed in MSU Libraries and our emerging technology efforts, Facebook, Twitter, and Virtual Reference. Honestly, I’m tired of it. Maybe even burnt out. We aren’t going to be able to do the MS Library 2.0 Summit this year because of the current economic climate–even though there has been passionate interest in doing it again. Maybe it’s because I didn’t make a more compelling argument?

Lately all I seem to be interested in is poetry and art. Fourth Fridays. The cre8tive warehouse. Launching a new graphic novels bookclub in Starkville. Housekeeping. I’ve even started writing poetry again when I get exhausted from writing academic papers on Virtual Reference.

I just found myself sitting at my desk, trying to figure out how I could push the information I’m gathering about these topics. I thought about Facebook, but I needed an RSS feed. I thought about Twitter, but I needed more than 140 characters. Then I remembered this long neglected blog. Could I really do it? Aren’t I supposed to be a professional/librarian online? Am I allowed to have a personal-ish blog? More struggling with Online Identity. Is it better to have a dead blog if I can’t think of anything to say anymore about 2.0 and Libraries? Should I just kill it altogether and make this site a CV?

But then I remembered that my goal is to experiment always. My job is to find new ways of using technology–sometimes they have applications for libraries and sometimes they don’t. I was reminded about Carol Greider, who had been conducting “irrelevent” basic science research–quietly studying an enzyme with no application in mind. An enzyme which eventually became critical in understanding cancer and aging.

So maybe everything I do doesn’t have to have an application. Maybe it’s okay to just do something to do it and let the cards fall.

Well, I haven’t blogged for an entire semester. I took the Graphic Novels class (excellent), did costumes and crewed our Community Theatre’s entry in the MS Theater Competition (won that competition, won the regional competition, and headed to nationals in June), and appeared on a panel at a national conference among other things. But I’m back to blogging, largely as a result of giving up on peer-reviewed publications on social networking topics. I’ve moved on to the much simpler Virtual Reference topics for which I have copious data. With that in full swing, I don’t have to feel like I’m cheating on my research by blogging. Or that is what I currently believe.

So I’ve been bottling up tons of ideas hoping to turn one magically into a paper, and now I need to get them out. So here they come…ready or not.

Well, I’ve done something odd. I went back and tagged my old India blog posts. I guess I’d intended to let them sidle out of sight, since this blog has continued to change so much. But after the events of this past week, it suddenly seemed disloyal to be hiding my wonderful trip to Mumbai under a basket… So, you will notice links to pix from the trip and the cloud tag now also contains tags from the trip… I can’t imagine Mumbai will be a huge topic going forward, but reading this OP ED in the NYTimes from Sonny Mehta, I suddenly want go back and reclaim the Mumbai I remember. I read Mehta’s Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found in preparation for my trip. It’s an amazing read–all the disparate elements that make up this character that is Mumbai. I even had a bibliography for my trip that at one time was attached to this blog, but has disappeared. And I have to stop looking for it right now because the Third Year Review (TYR) is due tomorrow. I need to (sigh) read it one more time.

I’ve been making connections in my frazzled brain about why Graphic Novels are a natural next step for me. One is my (occassionally hidden or obscured) passion for all things Sci Fi and Heroic. Like all latch-key children of the eighties, I absorbed the cartoon ethic. I would watch anything from Godzilla to She-ra to GI Joe with equal fervor. It was what we did. As I grew older, I hid my love of cartoons until I fell in with computer scientists and anime fanatics in Boston. I saw all of Cowboy Beebop on “Anime” night with Fletch and Kathie and Will, along with several things I’d love to forget. I’ve watched every episode of Farscape, Stargate, Babylon 5, Deep Space 9, Star Trek Voyager, and on and on. I adore almost anything the SciFi channel is willing to serialize, though I generally can’t stand any full-length movies they air. Must be the attention span issue.

I also love mysteries. I didn’t grow up reading comics or graphic novels, I grew up reading Agatha Christie and Trixie Belden. My first job was in editorial at a mass market publisher working with mystery novels. I have a deep appreciation (along with an occasional loathing) for the formulaic. I am a House addict.

I see every animated movie that comes out. Luckily my roommate shares my passion, so I’m not alone with the tots and the parents in the theater. Or even worse, with the teenagers. So, combining my passion for the literary, the formulaic, the mystery, the cartoonish, the weird, the sci fi, the bizarre, and you can see that Graphic Novels have no doubt been standing in my path for some time now.

As an aside…I cannot bear most grown-up movies–I really only like the emotionally disconnected ones. Like Lost in Translation or anything by Wes Anderson—LOVED The Darjeeling Limited. But, thanks to my stepmother, it has become apparent that I am turning thirty-six on the eleventh of this month. So I’ve done this piece of analysis in part to redeem my childish nature, and to justify my love of all things graphic with my well-earned literature degree. (I was really excited about turning thirty-five–I’d even considered having a party.)

In the process of writing the TYR, I have finished Watchmen and read Dark Knight. Loved both of them. Analysis will have to wait until I don’t feel like I should be editing the TYR (which I do…right now…so I have to stop…).