Opening Keynote - Libraries Solve Problems!
Regency Ballroom
9:00 AM – 9:45 AM

Lee Rainie, Director, Pew Research Center's Internet Project Author of the book "Networked: The New Social Operating System"

Rainie discusses the findings of a major national survey that examined how Americans use the internet and libraries when they face significant issues or milestones in their lives. The survey looks at the pathways people use to get to the information they want and the kinds of information they use when facing issues such as health problems, furthering their education, and exploring government benefits. The Project’s work pays particular attention to those who have limited access to the internet and the ways in which libraries might serve them.

Discovering and finding information is a shared goal of info pros and their clients, as well as consumers.  These programs look at what's new for researchers and highlights many tools and tips for information discovery and search.

Want to turbocharge your web research? This popular session by a confirmed super searcher is updated to the minute and jam-packed with valuable tips about how to search the web more effectively. You dont need to be an expert to use these techniques, but even long-time researchers will learn from them.

This session from two experts looks at the latest mobile search providers and potential applications for librarians and information seekers. Users on the go dont want to wade through long lists of web results, extensive scrolling, and clicking. Hear what the latest search providers deliver through SMS (texting) and web interfaces, how mobile search differs from regular web search, and see some of the more unusual and specialized mobile search services now available.

The federated search landscape market is bursting with vendors offering a multitude of systems with different feature sets. From basic search and retrieval to clustering and visualization, this describes the array of products available and helps you get a handle on the dynamic federated search marketplace and what steps you need to take for your environment.

Librarians can use visualization software to prepare information for their customers. This session reviews some of the research discovery software packages available, gives examples of research using one of them, VantagePoint, and shares lessons learned.

Indiana University and ChaCha, a search engine company, entered into "a strategic alliance for research, development, and services for the next generation of internet search tools and practices. One of the initial outcomes of the alliance has been the development of an online IU community, using ChaChas search engine architecture and guide software to enable IU librarians and information technology staff to assist IU faculty, staff, and students in finding information. The libraries have expanded their digital reference service to include technology staff to answer technology questions and extended the librarians expertise beyond the libraries web site.

FEATURING:

MEET THE AUTHORS
5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Meet authors Rachel Singer Gordon (What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros and The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide), Marylaine Block (The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times), Randolph (Ran) Hock, (The Traveler’s Web; The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Second Edition; and Yahoo! to the Max) , Michael P. Sauers (Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide), and Jane Dysart and Mary Lee Kennedy (Intranets for Info Pros) on Monday, April 7, from 5:00–5:45 pm at the Information Today, Inc. booth. Stop by to meet the authors and get your signed copy!

Learn about the latest approaches, research findings, and case studies describing the development of innovative library web sites and services.  Expert web managers and developers from many different organizations share their best practices, research findings, knowledge, experience, and insights on how to develop relevant and engaging web services. 

This session is for libraries struggling to provide innovative web services with little resources to devote to staff, software, or hardware. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 sound great in concept but are seemingly impossible to implement in smaller, poorer, and/or under-technology-staffed libraries. But we too can offer excellent online services to our users! There are dozens of quick and free services that any library can add to its website. This session covers 20 easy steps that libraries can take to improve their websites with ease. If your library hasnt yet implemented new technologies on its web-site but wants to, this is the session for you.

Looking for ways to speed up, clean up, and optimize your site with minimal effort? These 35 1-minute upgrades show you how to fine-tune your sites code, design, and structure to make your site faster, more flexible, and more standards-compliant. Do one, do 10, or do them all to maximize your sites performance in minimal time.

From widgets to interactive subject guides, libraries are exploring ways to improve library web services. Penn State staff show how library widgets (small, portable versions of library tools) can remove barriers and enable users to add widgets to Facebook, iGoogle, or any place they want them.  DeVoe and Badman describe how Temple University tackled a subject guide makeover. Using a product called LibGuides, a subject guide management system, they incorporated dynamic content such as RSS feeds, widgets, audio, video, search forms, and user comments. Learn how LibGuides encourages librarians to experiment and provides library patrons with an engaging experience. Take away new ideas, strategies for development and implementation and lessons learned rolling out these new services. 

Hop on board and look at some great tools that can help make your life easier and delight your visitors. Our experts and popular speakers are back with a whole new roster of free or inexpensive tools covering the gamut of Web 2.0 gadgets and widgets, hosted applications, server side scripts, and desktop tools. They highlight tools for people who are just starting out as well as some advanced applications for webmasters who like to dig their teeth into a bit of code.

Many libraries are interested in millennial customers and ways to serve them.  The University of Guelph Library team, immersed in emerging services development, asked 2,700 students a number of questions to learn about their use of technology, their preferences, and online behaviors in their day-to-day lives as well as preferences with respect to online courses, searching for information, and seeking help. Hear the research findings, which challenge some of the assumptions made by librarians, and provide good information for developing new services. Law discusses ProQuests exploration of how student researchers search in their native habitat, sharing insights and audio and video excerpts from the study. Understanding the research habits of college students provides information for strategic initiatives to make libraries even more relevant to this process and for removing the chief inhibitors to using library resources successfully.

FEATURING:

MEET THE AUTHORS
5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Meet authors Rachel Singer Gordon (What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros and The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide), Marylaine Block (The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times), Randolph (Ran) Hock, (The Traveler’s Web; The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Second Edition; and Yahoo! to the Max) , Michael P. Sauers (Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide), and Jane Dysart and Mary Lee Kennedy (Intranets for Info Pros) on Monday, April 7, from 5:00–5:45 pm at the Information Today, Inc. booth. Stop by to meet the authors and get your signed copy!

The Web 2.0 participatory world creates many new ways to build and support communities and collaborative work. Join our speakers as they discuss building community with local information, collaborating with customers and colleagues, creating professional networks and community spaces.

The internet has been quite effective at making information globally accessible, but local community informationinformation about the neighborhoods, towns and cities where we live, work and playhas been slower to move online.  The internet has been localizing with maps and map mashups, local search engines, place blogs, locally focused online communities, and local online news sources (closely tied with citizens journalism). Hear how Web 2.0 technologies are enhancing online access to local information, Local 2.0, and building community. This session is filled with examples of how libraries can and are using technology to get more deeply involved with the flow of local information within their communities and creating their own locally focused resources to increase their importance within their communities. 

Increasingly, research organizations are evaluating the impact of their products and results as a means of demonstrating return on investment (ROI) and proving value. NISTs Library Liaison program is collaborating with customers in innovative ways to perform these types of analyses, including creating high-visibility publishing strategies, assessing the level of investment in specific research areas, and contributing to forecasting studies. The liaisons use a variety of technology tools ranging from internal databases to commercial resources to create data sets and package results. As the liaisons collaborate with customers to demonstrate NISTs impact and effectiveness, value is demonstrated to the organization.

The first speakers share their experience with the free-form Library Society of the Worldan informal group of librarians who keep in touch via a wiki and Meebo chat roomand discuss the benefits and other examples of the latest ways librarians are building professional networks with blogs, wikis, IM, and more. The second group of speakers pools their resources and use a group-authored blog, infodoodads, to review and discuss new and existing tools, services, and technology for finding information on the internet.  Hear how they manage the blog and their current favorite tools.

Despite the perception that patrons are abandoning libraries and conducting all their research online, library as place remains important for many users. For example, at UNLV, approximately 90% of students are commuters and Lied Library is a primary gathering place. In what ways can technology enhance patrons library experience? Many libraries have embraced the idea of a "Learning Commons" to keep pace with students technology expectations. This session reviews what innovative libraries are doing with gathering spaces to make the library experience more enlightening and fun, while also using technology to make the library a place of destination.

In addition to traditional published data (books, databases, etc.), new content streams from blogs, wikis, network-based forums (MySpace, Facebook), multimedia sites (Flickr, YouTube), etc. are everywhere. How do we integrate the new social media tools, learn from these content streams, and deliver platforms that incorporate user-generated content?  Our seasoned practitioner considers the next generation of tools which may handle the increasing volume of content and looks at new opportunities for user-generated platforms.

FEATURING:

MEET THE AUTHORS
5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Meet authors Rachel Singer Gordon (What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros and The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide), Marylaine Block (The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times), Randolph (Ran) Hock, (The Traveler’s Web; The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Second Edition; and Yahoo! to the Max) , Michael P. Sauers (Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide), and Jane Dysart and Mary Lee Kennedy (Intranets for Info Pros) on Monday, April 7, from 5:00–5:45 pm at the Information Today, Inc. booth. Stop by to meet the authors and get your signed copy!

Libraries excel when technology advancements match the people capabilities and connections. This series of sessions looks at leading-edge activities of libraries using innovative initiatives that keep the customer in mind.

This session highlights front-of-the-pack online initiatives and innovations in all types of information enterprises that emphasize how libraries and information services provide high touch with high technology!

Discover ways to bring Web 2.0 tools together in new ways to bring people together or provide them with better services. Hear about blogging or twittering from Second Life and using widgets to embed information into existing webpages. This session provides an overview of applications and is filled with best practices examples.

This popular, fast-paced overview of trends in mobile tools and applications for libraries looks at the current hardware available and how new technologies are making hand-held computers essential for on-the-go users. Fox highlights the latest developments in applications for mobile and hand-held tools and how these can and are being utilized by libraries and information seekers of all kinds. Come hear whats happening with traditional information vendors and mobile interfaces, the mobile optimized web, point-of-need answers, reference texting, and multimedia (such as podcasting and location-free TV) for your mobile device.

Panelists illustrate high tech with high touch through their services: Catch the Beat at Your Library statewide summer reading program for children, teens, and parents; and Patient Education Matters!, which involves educating patients and their families, no matter their ethnic, linguistic, or literacy background, with web-based resources and staff blog. Learn about the successes, challenges, and rewards of integrating high tech with high touch!

Even in an age of Second Life, Facebook and IMing, many people still prefer to learn new things in “First Life,” i.e., the real world. Staff training is something every decision maker wants to offer, but when the budget rubber meets the time-crunched road, are libraries able to make it a priority? This session looks at the options—in-house training programs, elearning, outsourcing—and how the high tech Web 2.0 world can merge effectively with the high-touch needs of most learners. It relates this issue to recent research performed on behalf of WebJunction, which provides a snapshot of the state of staff training in U.S. public libraries, including dollars spent, perceived RIO, and formats offered. Gain insights and facts related to training in libraries and look at the challenges and opportunities offered by new technologies.

FEATURING:

MEET THE AUTHORS
5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Meet authors Rachel Singer Gordon (What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros and The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide), Marylaine Block (The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times), Randolph (Ran) Hock, (The Traveler’s Web; The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Second Edition; and Yahoo! to the Max) , Michael P. Sauers (Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide), and Jane Dysart and Mary Lee Kennedy (Intranets for Info Pros) on Monday, April 7, from 5:00–5:45 pm at the Information Today, Inc. booth. Stop by to meet the authors and get your signed copy!

How are today’s cutting-edge web technologies being used by industries other than libraries? Hear about current and future web strategies from industry leaders in fields ranging from newspaper publishing to politics. How are top brands engaging their users by embracing emerging trends in web development and mobile technologies? Come and learn how libraries can build on the knowledge of these experienced web professionals.

The recent redesign of the New York Observer website (www.observer.com) transformed the paper into a daily social news source and a revolutionary experience for its readers. By incorporating blogging, alternate content views, user commenting, tag clouds, and social bookmarking, the New York Observer has set the bar for the future of online news delivery.

Ron Paul’s campaign (www.ronpaul2008.com) illustrates how new web technologies are effecting democracy in America today. His campaign videos are on YouTube, his supporters on Meetup, his campaign gear sold on CafePress, his photos on Flickr, his schedule on Eventful, his social networking on MySpace and Facebook, and his news on digg.

The Save Darfur web initiative (www.savedarfur.org) utilizes new technology to expand awareness for its cause through its main website and campaign microsites such as Eyes on Darfur. Website visitors can read about and view images of the cause, participate and become involved by signing petitions, spreading the word through emails to friends, and sending correspondence to officials all through the website. The Save Darfur site also provides RSS feeds and blogs, personalization tools such as user profiles and friends lists, as well as social networking features such as groups, events, and user blogs.

The Real Estate Board of New York (REBNY) has created a brand-new “ultimate” website that serves as a one-stop shopping tool for home buyers in NYC. Powered by the Trulia search technology, Residentialnyc.com strives to be one of the most consumer-friendly real estate interfaces by providing users with a wealth of information and cutting-edge tools such as heat maps, saved searches, email listings, and RSS feeds.

Track moderators lead an interactive discussion of highlights from the day’s industry speakers, what tools and techniques might be used in our libraries, and spark some innovating thinking for the future.

FEATURING:

MEET THE AUTHORS
5:00 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Meet authors Rachel Singer Gordon (What’s the Alternative? Career Options for Librarians and Info Pros and The NextGen Librarian’s Survival Guide), Marylaine Block (The Thriving Library: Successful Strategies for Challenging Times), Randolph (Ran) Hock, (The Traveler’s Web; The Extreme Searcher’s Internet Handbook, Second Edition; and Yahoo! to the Max) , Michael P. Sauers (Blogging and RSS: A Librarian’s Guide), and Jane Dysart and Mary Lee Kennedy (Intranets for Info Pros) on Monday, April 7, from 5:00–5:45 pm at the Information Today, Inc. booth. Stop by to meet the authors and get your signed copy!