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.

Looks like we may be able to do the Summit again this year! Still thinking about assessment and writing up the proposal now. Any thoughts about what you’d like to see? I’m wondering about trying to do a virtual component, in case people can’t travel all the way to Starkville… How did the Handheld go this year? Glitch-free? Any tips from people on that? I wasn’t able to attend because of work conflicts, unfortunately.

So excited!!!

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.

Great session today at the webinar. The archive of the session is now up in all of its Wimba glory. Feel free to go and check it out.

I really liked the discussion that came out of it, especially the response to questions about assessment of Web 2.0 tech in Academic Libraries. We’ve been thinking about doing an MS Library 2.0 Summit themed on Assessment for the Fall. Interested? What do you want to have numbers for? What is tricky to assess for you? Or do you already have a great 2.0 assessment program going? Maybe you could be one of our speakers! The normal structure of the conference is to have a keynote and then nine or so “Steal this Idea” speakers. These are just regular folks who’ve found something that works for them that they want to share. It’s been a huge success in the past, and we are trying to make it even more value-added and targeted this time around.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what this blog is for now. Or what the MS Library 2.0 Summit blog is for, or what I should put on Facebook, and how is my Twitter status different that my Facebook status (and it really is), and when or why I should log on to my Myspace account. This all comes up for me because my dear friend Thomas just shared this link with me, and I wanted to share it. But I wasn’t sure where to put it…hence my identity crisis. (Also, it is perfectly acceptable to give gifts, imho…and in Pattye’s).

10 Commandments of Facebook

The fact that I didn’t know where or with whom to share the above brings me back to my latest preoccupation…creating identity. Specifically how we create our identities in social networks. I suppose I’m having a bit of an identity crisis with this blog. So I’ve decided to examine what I’m doing and why I’m doing it there. Sort of an online navel-gazing activity. Where am I on the web and why. Who am I in these spaces? How are they different? So far, this is what I’ve come up with:

1) Personal MySpace: locked down, no identifying features, no new friends, some occasional confessional type poetry, sigh.

2) Work MySpace: pretty obscure, Library not supporting it, low priority, also getting slightly harrassed by strange person from a town 30 miles away

3) Facebook: work, family, friends, try to keep it decent and not weird, friends find it weird that I list in my interests Plant & Soil Science–but that’s my liaison dept at work (and my family does have a farm…). I have had to un-tag myself in pictures that were unbecoming, and I’ve become obsessed with all the privacy controls. Closest thing to really living my life online.

4) Twitter: true love? I follow people from Starkville randomly–I hunt them down using an RSS Feed from Twitter Search which looks for posts that include the word “Starkville” or “Mississippi State” (which people use frequently instead of MSU). I listen a lot, and I’m not really sure what to post. I only have a handful of “real” friends on Twitter. Mostly it’s an experiment for work…but I’m obsessed. Especially after Hurricane Gustav. This is the one I read even from my Blackberry…I feel like I have to keep up with what everyone is doing somehow. Like a never-ending TV sitcomitragedy.

5) FriendFeed: Mostly I stalk Steve Rubel. I read his entire Life Stream every day. But I actually read it in GoogleReader. I’ve also created FF “Rooms” for Agriculture feeds (not feed, lol) to add to the LibGuides we are developing. I’m sure I will find more to do with it, but I don’t really interact with it. I do have my life stream posted to this blog and on my Facebook page…so it’s aggregating my stuff for me.

6) GoogleReader: Holds my blogs, RSS feed goes into FriendFeed so I “broadcast” (if anyone was listening) what I think about the blogs I’m reading.

7) Delicious: Could not live without it. Could not switch to Chrome because I cannot live without it. The RSS also goes into my FriendFeed, as well as the items tagged “MSU” onto the MSU Libraries Fan Page. I rarely keep a tagged item private, and it’s a good record of what I do during the day.

Personal Flickr: Like Personal MySpace, totally hidden (I think). Largely because it consists of a repository of thousands of pictures of me and my best friends doing stupid things. Also some pictures of family unwrapping presents. And at least 500 pictures my 8 year old godson took of his shoes and the stairs and various food items when I went on a book tour with him and his mom. I have organized them as far as I had energy to do so, but I only have eight contacts. I rarely put anything up right now…no energy.

9) Work Flickr: Pictures of work stuff, my office, the campus, library-related trips or events, screen captures of my work blog, screen captures of my Facebook and Myspace privacy tutorials.

10) Work Blog: Slightly unstable (we’re working on it) Library 2.0 blog.

11) This Blog: Started out as a blog for my trip to India in August 2005, then about my move from Boston to Mississippi and small town life, then the community theater, then library 2.0-ish stuff, now…I’m not at all sure. Apparently things like this. Maybe.

I do almost nothing (except Twitter) from home.

That’s sort of it. Nothing else is particularly sticky right now.

Hmm…..