Do content containers matter anymore? Paper objects implied an entertainment or learning experience, but now we experience content via new containers like learning objects, multi-mode contextual experiences. From books to learning experiences and images to streaming media, the movement in content containers is changing. These shifts are creating hybrids which are gaining popularity. However, models, regulation and laws, channels, licensing, and pricing, are still all up for grabs and in flux. Hear from our industry watcher what is on the landscape and what we can expect in the near future.

With the debate over copyright raging, some are calling for the end of the “all rights reserved” regime; schools and libraries are caught in the middle. What are the alternatives? Harris discusses licensing issues and strategies especially appropriate for libraries. Sauers talks about the principles of CC, the most respected alternative available today with its idea of “some rights reserved” as set by the content creators themselves. He shows how you can easily apply it to your intellectual property today, and how you can use CC to find material that you and your patrons can legally reuse in the creation of new content.

Keller, a member of the Federal Library and Information Center Committee (FLICC), shares some of the digitization practices of federal libraries and their research into more detailed information about the community’s digitization practices. DeRidder shares a methodology for organizing and standardizing a digitization and file storage system in a way that is being leveraged for automated long-term storage in LOCKSS and talks about more open and varied opportunities for online access and delivery. Buckland and O’Neill discuss the digitization of special collections, making them openly accessible, as well as providing digitize-on-demand and print-on-demand services.

With the current advancements in ebook services and the deluge of ebook reading devices into the market, the choices are endless. This session looks at the current state of ebook technology: devices available, vendors, incorporating ebooks into your collection, and considerations when circulating ebook readers. It helps you understand the options and implications for dealing with ebooks in your environment.

The first case study looks at the experience of purchasing 40 devices that were lent to faculty and staff for 1 year. Those individuals were surveyed during the year and a clearer picture of library-appropriate use emerged. Since then, dozens of the readers have been lent to users who have been surveyed, leading to a distinct model for ebook reader use in libraries. Hear about their experience with the devices, including a discussion of their Kindle ebook reader lending model. The second case looks at a lending program for iPods, for digital audio/video media, and electronic Kindle book reading devices. It focuses on the processes followed in development and implementation as well as technical and legal considerations and lessons learned.

As mobile devices become central to our information experience, the need for information fluency extends into the mobile landscape. Mobile literacy is a proposed set of skills for information professionals and end users for efficiently and effectively engaging information with mobile devices and providing info services via mobile technologies. This session explores a new fluid set of skills that must now be considered core competencies for keeping our info skills current and relevant in the mobile world.

We know it’s critical that libraries are ready to meet their users wherever they may be. And we know that where they are now, and will be more and more, is on their mobile smartphones. How can your library create an effective mobile website? From content and service selection, to creation, to testing and deployment, learn how to meet your on-the-go users quickly, easily, and with minimal effort.

Houghton-Jan focuses on tools for public libraries — what mobile technologies, content, and vendors work best for such services as text messaging, ebooks and other downloadable content, online databases, web catalog tools, and more. Clark provides best practices for delivering video and images through optimized websites that work with the next generation of smartphones and mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry Storm, Palm Pre, Google Android, etc.). OSU Libraries speakers discuss their development of a mobile library website including a searchable catalog and how staff used content adaptation techniques to provide an optimal experience to mobile users. Users on web-enabled phones with smaller screens receive an attractive interface tailored to the limitations of their device; users on smartphones, such as the iPhone, receive a data-rich interface. All speakers highlight best practices for mobile web design, provide tips, and share lessons learned.

This session highlights case studies of mobile strategies and practices in libraries.

Our long time industry watcher and expert reviews new and exciting mobile initiatives and looks at what the major search engines are doing to support the mobile world as well as some of the more niche-specific search tools/sites. She includes a discussion of how image/location/speech is being used in the mobile world and implications for libraries.

Check out this toolbox of new, useful, and fun tools to delight web visitors and webmasters. Our experts and popular speakers tour through free or inexpensive tools that save you time, pain, or both as a web content provider, developer, or manager. Best of all, many of the tools can be used by anyone regardless of their tech know-how. Engard emphasizes open source tools, those whose source code is made available for use or modification, and provides links to a toolbox full of freely available open source products to use in libraries. As always, speakers sprinkle in a few more advanced tools for webmasters who love to code.

In the online world of information, tech tools, free and open source software, we are overloaded with possibilities. As tech fans, we tend to jump from one tool to the next, only using the old tools for as long as we can remember our password. These tools are supposedly making our lives more productive and efficient but are they? How do we know which to choose? Why use one versus another? How do you find out about other possibilities? This fast-paced, interactive session provides a demo of the presenters’ favorite tools, giving reasons why they like them and how they use them, providing pros and cons for each one, and comparing their functionality with other products. Using audience feedback through Poll Anywhere, a set of best practices for each product will be created and shared with the audience.

Social software is rapidly changing the way we provide information to our consumers, work together in an organizational structure, and communicate. Going beyond SEs, this session highlights cutting-edge tools and techniques for libraries, hot new trends, resources, and advice. This session is jam-packed with Cohen’s A–Z listing of the hot social software and RSS tools on the market today.

As more and more data and services move into the “cloud” what does it mean for libraries? This session takes a closer look at what cloud computing is and how outsourcing computing and storage services to the network level, or cloud, can open up new opportunities for library application development. Clark demonstrates two digital video mashup projects that were enabled by using cloud computing principles to leverage the network and create robust digital video apps with little overhead cost. He shares lessons learned, tips and tricks for using web services from blip.tv and YouTube, and shows how to utilize cloud computing principles at your library.

Many libraries don’t have a dedicated web services staff, much less a single dedicated webmaster. This session is for those libraries struggling to provide innovative web services with little resources to devote to staff, software, or hardware. The articles and blog posts about Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 can sometimes seem impossible to implement in smaller, poorer, and/or under-technology-staffed libraries. But we too can offer excellent online services to our users! Take advantage of the quick and free services that any library can add to its website with minimal time or expertise. This session covers up-to-the-moment easy steps that libraries can take to improve their websites with ease. If your library has no money for services, less staff time than you did last year, and still want to have a substantial web presence, then this is the session for you!

So you’ve completed the 23 Things program and have launched a blog, learned about RSS, and explored various channels of social media. But what’s next? How do you apply these new communication channels and technologies to library services? And how do you help your library thrive in an online world that has become decentralized and loosely joined across a mega landscape of social media tools? Join our speakers for a look at the 24th Thing and explore how you can help take your library to the next level.

Do you struggle with naysayers and opposition to new ideas in your organization? If so, there are proven ways to deal with this. Using the latest research in the areas of persuasion, group dynamics, and organizational psychology, this session provides tips and concrete methods for helping your organization move into the future, even if you’re in a risk-averse organization with shrinking budgets. Key books that inform this talk: Influencer, The Power to Change Anything, and Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

Join Greg Notess on this fast-paced journey through some of Google’s lesser-known search features, forgotten databases, and its latest experiments. Wander through strange corners of Google’s searchable databases and then move on over to Google’s services. From Reader to Docs to Talk to Translate, Google features an ever-expanding collection of services that can be used in a variety of interesting and unique ways.

The Microsoft Surface is a touch-interactive computer that enables library users to interact with media and information in new and exciting ways. Hear how an academic library is developing custom applications for its three Surfaces, including an interactive tool with which anatomy and physiology students explore digital content and images triggered when “body parts” circulated  from reserves are sensed on the surface. Then learn about the Darien Library experience, one of the first public libraries in the country to purchase a Microsoft Surface. The library staff wanted to send a clear message to kids and parents alike that they were firmly committed to putting cutting-edge technology in the hands of youngsters. Learn what happened once it wound up on the floor of the children’s room.

What happens when another organization wants to adapt your training for their staff? Flinchum discusses how one public library system met the challenge of adapting its Web 2.0 training program from library-focused to something applicable to every department of the local city government. Lessons learned in this project could be applied to providing help and training to organizations far outside those typically served by libraries. Koerber offers a variety of concepts of what 23 Things for Patrons could look like, a survey of organizational tools and models that would scale best to a large, diverse participant base. She provides relevant examples and looks at the latest developments.

What does it take to create information fluency in library staff in an increasingly technological environment? How do we best blend the so-called “soft” skills such as teamwork, active listening, and decision-making with the “hard” technical skills expected of today’s library staff when we have to train across boundaries of race, gender, age, and technical agility? Hermann looks at how, to offer staff development opportunities throughout the year that actively teach technology and other important skills while engaging all staff in the learning process. Harris and Chimato discuss the managerial skills necessary for library staff who must adapt to rapidly changing technologies and how to help your staff develop and maintain the technical skills your library needs to keep its competitive edge.

In a large government organization with almost 100 information professionals embedded in several divisions, a small group of people developed a training program to help colleagues build the information research skills and digital literacy needed to do their jobs efficiently. They established an informal, bimonthly peer training program in which staff introduce each other to new electronic research tools and concepts, provide tips and tricks for using existing electronic resources more effectively, and share highlights from professional conferences and visits to overseas libraries. Along with promoting the digital literacy of the programs to participants, the benefits of this peer training program have spread to the larger organization.

Blogs, wikis, electronic discussion groups, and webinars provide an excellent opportunity to provide the best information and training to more than 700 interlibrary loan personnel in New Jersey. A training program that began in hands-on labs throughout the state of New Jersey has gone green through the use of these latest technologies. It has greatly increased the number of people who attend and participate in sessions while it has dramatically decreased the amount of travel time and expense for N.J. State Library staff. Podcasting is a low-cost, innovative way to reach out to users and supplement in-person teaching. Speakers discuss both instructional design and technological how-to, drawing on their own and other libraries’ experiences producing library podcasts for undergraduate students, and ways to integrate podcasts with other instructional activities.

To improve reference encounters with students in a university instructional materials center (teacher resource center), a simulation-based game was designed to teach student workers and staff about problem-solving and patron-handling skills. Hear why they chose the simulation game format and how each decision led to further choices in an answer and response format that simulated a reference interview. “Ref Desk Adventure” was created using JavaScript and XML to be modular and flexible, allowing simulations to be set up for numerous types of situations. Speakers explain how the game was created and its adaptation for other uses.

The U.S. State Department manages information centers in 182 embassies around the world. These information centers are staffed by over 500 foreign service nationals who have varying educational backgrounds and experiences. The centers are guided by regional foreign service information resource officers who consult with the centers in their regions and are responsible for training the centers’ staff members. The countries range from the most underdeveloped in the world to countries that are more technologically advanced than the U.S. Their challenge was to create a selfpaced, cost-effective learning experience that could take advantage of good internet access at these employees’ workplaces — the embassies. Using a blog platform on the State Department’s intranet, they adapted Helen Blowers’ successful 23 Things program for this international audience, maintaining its fundamental Web 2.0 training focus but adding a few specific job-related things (such as SharePoint, mobile technologies, and website optimization techniques) for a 14-week program. Get tips on creating a program for your environment.