Laura @ NELA part one

Greetings from Burlington, VT where I am sad (or happy as the case may be) to say that the trees are all green. A little early for fall foliage, I suppose. I came a few days early to take in the sights of Burlington, Vermont, including the lovely University of Vermont campus and the nearby Shelburne Museum. A good way to drown my sorrows in the wake of Terry Francona leaving the Red Sox. (Apparently winning two World Series in four years doesn't do much these days for your employment!) The conference started yesterday and here are some highlights from some of the sessions I have attended:

• Killing Librarianship
  This was the keynote address by R. David Lankes from Syracuse University's Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The main focus of this talk is that in order to save libraries, librarians need to be innovative. In fact, the three big keywords to saving libraries are innovation, participation, and democracy. While this is something we may have all heard in one form or another, Mr. Lankes made very good points about the importance of libraries as well as discouraging people from believing articles such as this one. He talked about what to call people who use the library: are they patrons, users, readers? He suggested members as a term that encourages more participation. A very good presentation that I enjoyed despite the dig he made at my beloved Red Sox.
• Social Media @ New York Public Library
  Before I talk about this particular program, I have to admit to getting a chuckle when the speaker from the New York Public Library said that a lot of the NYPL's Facebook fans were actually people from out of state who are fans of Ghostbusters. This fan is guilty as charged! This was a great presentation in which NYPL employee, Lauren Lampasone, shared the way social networking has worked at the famous library. There are several blogs for a variety of interests. One fun blog was the Mad Men reading list. Definitely something up my alley as well as a certain member of our reference department. Another blog post about an unusual edition of Don Quixote led to the discovery of a special related piece. Ms. Lampasone also discussed how the library is using Twitter, Four Square, and Facebook. My favorite social media functions of the NYPL website are http://menus.nypl.org/ and http://maps.nypl.org/warper/. The menu site is especially cool. It is a collection of vintage menus and users are invited to transcribe the menus.