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.

Tomorrow June 30, 2009, I am conducting a webinar with Baylor E-Learning Librarian Ellen Hampton Filgo on how we have worked to bring 2.0 into our academic libraries–pitfalls and pratfalls included. Webjunction is hosting it, and we just finished our rehearsal. It looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. Here’s the description:

When the goal is to be “where they are, when they need us,” what does that require at a university library in 2009? As students, staff and faculty move their lives online, university libraries must choose whether to move with them or get left behind. But where is the value in a university library when Google is the new ready reference desk and the libraries’ resources are increasingly digitized? How does a library remain relevant in a socially networked academic world? From their perspective as, respectively, virtual reference and e-learning librarians, Amanda Clay Powers (Mississippi State Univ. Libraries) and Ellen Hampton Filgo (Baylor Univ. Libraries) will discuss how libraries can readjust and move their most important resources online—their people. By using social networks and other web-based technologies, libraries can become a value-added member of their community— both online and in person. By using these new tools, librarians can once again hover by their reference stacks with an offer to help that’s just a click away.

Sound appealing? It’s free! Just register!

You can also find out more about it on the Facebook event page posted by Webjunction.

We will be taking questions, etc. and if you do come, let me know what you think. They event will be archived too, so you can go back and look at it if you miss it. You can even get a group together to review it and use their Wimba chat feature with each other…pretty cool.