DIY Librarian

This is a revision of an earlier announcement - note that there is now a prize for the best poster! (You maybe wondering, what is a poster session?)

The Social Science Division and the Museum, Arts, & Humanities Division invite proposals for a poster session to be held during the DSOC & MAHD Joint Open House at SLA 2008 in Seattle, Washington. DSOC and MAHD will award a one-year SLA membership to the first author of the best poster.

In keeping with the SLA 2008 conference theme, “Breaking Rules, Building Bridges,” the theme for the poster session is “Building Bridges with Collaboration Tools.” Proposals should focus on the use of collaboration tools (blogs, wikis, etc.) in libraries or information work. Posters may include examples of collaboration tools in use, innovative ideas for future uses, comparisons of available tools, or any other idea relevant to the theme.

The poster session will be a relaxed and informal time to share ideas with your colleagues. We welcome proposals from any SLA member, new or experienced, and especially from students. In the event we receive more qualified submissions than we can accommodate, members of the two sponsoring divisions and student members will be given priority.

Proposals should be submitted by March 1, 2008 via e-mail to murray@pop.psu.edu or mail to Tara Murray, Population Research Institute, Penn State, 601 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802. Please include a title and description of about 250 words, and your name, institution, e-mail address, and address. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee for relevance to the theme and quality. We will notify applicants of our decision by April 1, 2008.

The Open House and Poster Session will be held on Sunday, June 15 from 8:00-10:00 p.m.

Wondering what a poster session is? I like this definite from the University at Buffalo Libraries:

Poster sessions are frequently used as a means to convey information in a brief format (typically 4′ x 8′) in classrooms, conferences and symposia, and workshops. Designing effective poster presentations is an art unto itself.

Here’s an opportunity for SLA members to share ideas with colleagues at the Social Science/Museums, Arts and Humanities Open House at SLA 2008:

Call for Posters: Building Bridges with Collaboration Tools

The Social Science Division and the Museum, Arts, & Humanities Division invite proposals for a poster session to be held during the DSOC & MAHD Joint Open House at SLA 2008 in Seattle, Washington. The Open House and Poster Session will be held on Sunday, June 15 from 8:00-10:00 p.m.

In keeping with the SLA 2008 conference theme, “Breaking Rules, Building Bridges,” the theme for the poster session is Building Bridges with Collaboration Tools. Proposals should focus on the use of collaboration tools (blogs, wikis, etc.) in libraries or information work. Posters may include examples of collaboration tools in use, innovative ideas for future uses, comparisons of available tools, or any other idea relevant to the theme.

The poster session will be a relaxed and informal time to share ideas with your colleagues. We welcome proposals from any SLA member, new or experienced, and especially from students. In the event we receive more qualified submissions than we can accommodate, members of the two sponsoring divisions and student members will be given priority.

Proposals should be submitted by March 1, 2008 via e-mail to murray@pop.psu.edu or mail to Tara Murray, Population Research Institute, Penn State, 601 Oswald Tower, University Park, PA 16802. Please include a title and description of about 250 words, and your name, institution, e-mail address, and address. Proposals will be reviewed by a committee for relevance to the theme and quality. We will notify applicants of our decision by April 1, 2008.

Previously, I argued that Library 2.0 applications (e.g., those that encourage social interaction) should not necessarily use the same privacy standards as traditional library services.

A recent news story about the nastiness of anonymous commenters has further solidified my opinion. (The story is about vicious comments posted to the Orange County Register’s Web site in response to news about a woman who had given birth only 2 weeks after learning she was pregnant.) Anyone who has used anonymous or semi-anonymous message boards is probably familiar with this phenomenon. I’ve personally witnessed it on wedding-planning and running boards.

I’ve done a little searching to find other people’s opinions about this, and I came across a blog post about Library 2.0 and privacy issues by Rory Litwin on Library Juice. The post is very thoughtful and well worth visiting (or re-visiting). While I still think that libraries are not under obligation to preserve absolute confidentiality when offering inherently social applications, Rory brings up many related issues that librarians should be thinking about as they implement 2.0 ideas.

I’m a bit (okay, quite a bit) behind on my reading, so I’m just now reading Michael Casey and Laura Savastinuk’s excellent Library 2.0 article in Library Journal.

In the article, they say that Library 2.0 should safeguard patron privacy to the same extent that Library 1.0 did:

Libraries should remain as vigilant with protecting customer privacy with technology-based services as they are with traditional, physical library services. There are ways to preserve privacy, such as by allowing anonymous comments and tagging within the catalog. Library users should not be required to identify themselves publicly in order to participate in virtual services.

I’m not sure I agree with this. Providing a public space for collaboration is a very different service from providing information, and libraries have always provided services that are not private. If you show up to storytime, the other people at storytime know that you were there and which story you heard. If you come to open mic night and step up to the mic, you are engaging in public performance.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t offer patrons anonymity and privacy in Library 2.0 services. I’m just wondering whether we are obligated to always offer complete privacy, and where something like tagging the library catalog falls on the public-private continuum.

It seems that one of the real attractions of 2.0 is the ability to make connections with other people, and libraries shouldn’t ignore this. Libraries have traditionally fostered these kinds of connections, after all—for example, through book clubs.

I’d love to know what others think about this.