Internet pioneer Vint Cerf, called one of the “Father’s of the Internet” and most recently listed by PCWorld as one of the web’s 50 most influential people, believes that the internet and the web are still young yet “poised to become the greatest communication platform humanity has ever known.” Hear the founder, curator, and voice of “LIVE from the NYPL,” Paul Holdengraber, interview Vint Cerf about digital publishing, preservation, and practices.

So what’s happening in search engine land? Sherman examines how things are changing in the search space and makes predictions of what we should be paying attention to in the coming year. He discusses the implications of the evolving changes for internet librarians and gives us some insight as to what to expect in 2010.

One of IL’s most popular sessions returns to turbo-charge your web research. Our celebrated super searcher and host of Searchers Academy provides an updated-to-the-minute and jam-packed with-valuable-tips talk about searching the web more effectively. You don’t need to be an expert to use these techniques, but even long-time researchers will learn from them.

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. By putting it in the children’s room of their new building, the library 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 why they got one, how they got it, and what happened once it wound up on the floor of the children’s room.

Keeping up with all the changes in our industry and staying one step ahead of our clients require solid strategies to deal with this challenge. Our popular expert shares his ideas, learnings, top tips, and techniques from the search and search engine world to ensure that you stay in step with the fast-changing 2.0 online information world.

Feeds, blogs, wikis, vlogs, Tweets, digs. We have heard the call to incorporate social media tools into our libraries, but in such a rapidly changing landscape, how can we make sure we are finding the most credible, current and relevant sources? Two media researchers present a framework for discovering and evaluating online resources using the hidden data in their favorite (and free!) social media tools, explain how to build a top blogs list, how to quantify “buzz” and how to identify the most influential voices in an industry. Then Anjos discusses an application to easily create “my/our collection search engines” widgets to insert in webpages at the library, personal, or thematic level.

Tighter budgets are forcing libraries to cancel subscriptions to some indexing and abstracting databases.  With an increasing number of fully or partially open access sources from government agencies, professional associations, academic institutions, and commercial publishers, there are options that can compensate through stand-alone databases, digital repositories; the free, instantly available mega-subsets of abstracts in the digital archives of the largest academic publishers; and in the aggregated collections of their digital facilitators, such as HighWire Press MetaPress. Jacsó discusses open access indexing/abstracting sources that can be used as substitutes or alternatives, their advantages/disadvantages, and software tools that can be used to freely and efficiently search and retrieve the bibliographic records and abstracts from the most relevant sources.

Imagine your users’ customized homepages populated with miniature library applications that serve to both push library content out to where users are and hook them back into your own library web spaces. With tens of millions of iGoogle users, such library-rich personalized information portals are now a reality. Find out how MSU Libraries has exploited Google gadget API technology to allow students to create their own search dashboards filled with library modules. Learn how to populate basic, preprogrammed, ready-to-use gadgets with your library’s content and take a look at an iGoogle page that contains a wide range of gadgetry including tabbed gateway searching of catalogs and databases, flash-animated library subject maps, a YouTube channel of library videos, Flickr slideshows of rare photographs from MSU Libraries’ special collections, a search box for local electronic theses and dissertations, a gadget of highlights and links to the MSU Libraries blog, and a gadget for communicating with reference librarians—all on one webpage!

In the current economic climate, libraries of all types have the opportunity to be positioned at the center of their user communities by providing relevant events, services, and opportunities for outreach and creating space for sharing, discussion, and connection. Free discusses how libraries can apply the models of online community building, customer service, and outreach with free online social tools and tagging to encourage new connections with local communities. Smith discusses using social reference sites such as AskMetafilter, Yahoo! Answers, and AskOnTwitter to allow members of online communities to ask and answer each other’s questions, creating an invaluable archive of community experience and expertise. She highlights implementations of this new social reference model using group blogs, wikis, and other online forums to allow open discussion and resolution of questions from users, library staff, and librarians alike. She touches on how to “grow your own” social reference site and address the issues of library authority, community, and trust.

Twitter, Facebook statuses, YouTube comments, blog comments ... where do you start? King describes the interactions taking place within modern social networks and explains what types of conversations work well in different social network settings, gives ideas on achieving user engagement, and provides tips on holding conversations online ... in 140 characters or less. Top Twitterers illustrate how to use this popular application to connect with customers and colleagues, reach new users, and get 24/7 personal and professional development using “Twitterbrarians.”

Many libraries don’t have a dedicated web services staff, much less a single dedicated webmaster. This session is for those struggling to provide innovative web services with little resources to devote to staff, software, or hardware. Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 can sometimes seem impossible to implement in smaller, poorer, and/or under-technology-staffed libraries. This session covers up-to-the-minute free services and easy steps to improve your website. 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, this is the session for you!

The proliferation of Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and other 2.0 technologies is nothing short of astonishing. These technologies seemingly spring up overnight, demanding our attention and immediate adoption. Individuals can meet this ultimatum for agility; libraries usually cannot. If they are to be part of “creating tomorrow” within their work environments, information professionals must evaluate the technologies and services in light of their organizations’ goals, expectations, and culture. What is actually of value to our users? We need to guard against adopting and promoting technologies just because they are new, shiny, and cool. Beyond that, how do we convince management to allow us to implement these technologies? Getting buy-in from IT is far from a trivial concern, since those professionals worry about losing control and security. This session gives practical tips for evaluating, recommending, and justifying today’s and tomorrow’s 2.0 tools in library settings.

Have staff members run in the other direction any time you mention anything related to the social web? Hear how one library tricked staff into happily using blogs, Goodreads, Delicious, Flickr, and more. Learn how to get your staff started using social web tools as our speakers share tips, tricks, and just plain sneaky tactics to get staff to use (and enjoy!) these tools to create and contribute content. And if you have already done a Learning 2.0 project, given out your prizes, and created an appetite for learning, now what? Reed explores ideas to continue informal learning and leverage the momentum built by successful Learning 2.0 projects. Technology is here today, and library staff must stay current to stay relevant.

Cervone highlights newer technologies and trends, litigation in the elearning vendor arena, open source and open access, and evolving standards contributing to a dynamic environment requiring continuous monitoring. Reed focuses on fostering a culture of learning with buy-in from management and staff and using free and other available tools to create quality elearning.

To engage learners in understanding the complex world of information and finding and using information effectively, libraries are leading the development of modifiable learning objects. Databasedriven solutions allow authors (instructors, librarians, course assistants) to add content that directly addresses the research needs of their students. This session showcases an ongoing crosscampus project to create a community-driven tool to generate modifiable, interactive Information Literacy learning objects. The tool allows customization to course-specific needs by instructor and includes a robust back-end database. Speakers discuss the impetus, philosophy and actualization for these learning objects, results of pilot testing and next steps to full implementation.

As the new gold standard of course delivery, learning management systems are central to learning environments. Hear how libraries are incorporating mashups, RSS, desktop sharing, Jing, Twitter and embedded librarians into LMS to make courses more dynamic and meaningful.

The competition for library users today is fierce, with challengers for what had been traditional library terrain coming from all directions. Law shares his findings on the research habits, needs, and demands of next-gen users and ways libraries can respond and attract these users. Godfrey looks at what roles wikis, social networks, videos, and other technologies play in increasing students’ accessibility to and awareness of library resources. While bibliographic instruction is rarely a priority for first-year students, there are opportunities to instill good academic research practices by integrating library resources into their studying habits and research environments.

Using Drupal, University of Toronto’s Mississauga Library is moving from a static website to a portal perspective to tailoring resources to students’ courses. The library repurposes web content for digital signage and has built the Drupal presence to respond to the needs/requirements gathered from 1,500 very vocal undergraduate students.  Leveraging social media tools, relationships and content expertise, the Information Services team at Sun Microsystems has integrated info/knowledge into programs like engineering, marketing, sales and learning to drive connections, discovery and knowledge sharing.  The focus is on employee learning, keeping the organization smart and providing good information to drive good decisions. See  the use of Social Learning Exchange, wikis, blogs, Twitter, and virtual worlds to create an integrated learning experience for Sun employees.

Qian describes how they use Wiimotes (Wii remotes), interactive whiteboards, and bibliographic instruction software to better engage students in developing information literacy skills. The presentation covers the potential of interactive whiteboards in BI, the WSU Libraries’ prototype session, and the lessons learned along the way. Borrelli presents WSU Libraries’ experience with the Information Literacy Education (ILE) Project to deliver scalable IL instruction to both on-campus and distance courses to more than 3,700 students in four colleges in its first year.

Author of Managing the Digital Library, Technology in Libraries and the American Libraries’ Digital Libraries column for 10 years, Roy is an expert who is well-positioned to describe the current state of the digital library landscape, the technologies and trends altering the terrain, and what we can expect during the next year.

The National Academies (the National Academy of Sciences, National Research Council, The Institute of Medicine, and The National Academy of Engineering) has been digitizing the full-text of Academies’ reports since the mid-1990s. Through a partnership with Google and the NAP, the library digitized more than 5,000 books in 2008. Hear what these presenters learned and how they kept a sense of humor and sanity through the journey of strategies, contracts, logistics, and the final product. The University of Arizona has several digital projects that preserve primary resources from local residents, including architectural plans from the 1920s–’30s by a local architect and another of images from a Smithsonian Research Expedition. This presentation discusses how metadata provides search success for users and acts as a marketing tool.

As more and more data and services move into the “cloud,” what does it mean for libraries? The first presentation discusses how to take advantage of cloud computing—where all of your documents and data live on the internet—to facilitate work while also increasing the ability to coordinate and collaborate with colleagues anywhere and how to help patrons create their own networks. Clark demonstrates two digital video mashup projects, TERRA, the nature of our world, and TERRApod, in which cloud computing leveraged the network and created robust digital video apps with little overhead cost. He shares tips and tricks for using web services from blip.tv and
YouTube and illustrates how lightweight IT and low cost does not always mean low quality.

Visualizing sets of data can expose new and vital information about essential parts of a library.  The first presentation discusses two sets of visualizations using Graphviz, an easy-to-use opensource software; one maps staff communication and the second highlights critical patterns, relationships, and structures in library operations and resource usage. The second presentation looks at how newer technologies present desktop virtualization options that can also be used to secure public internet access rooms, information literacy training rooms, and the information commons. It compares three virtualization environments to determine the best and most cost-effective solution, and to identify how virtualization provides information access to remote users, distance learners, branch library locations, and embedded librarians.

Do you collaborate on documents within committees that are made up of members scattered around the world or your institution? Are you looking for alternatives to email discussion groups that will push your content out to committees and beyond? And, most importantly, are you interested in tools that manage documents that can easily be transferred as staff and committee rosters change? The first presentation discusses the pros and cons of some of the best online and open source tools for simultaneous creation, sharing, and management of content. Newman covers a variety of cloud productivity tools, including word processing, spread sheets, wikis, presentation, calendars, task managers, and other free applications. Ipri discusses how the move away from desktop applications is influencing academic libraries. Many libraries are investing time and money in restructuring their public areas into collaborative learning spaces. Will the move to cloud computing assist or undermine these efforts?

Many libraries integrate their digital collections into their catalog, but how do you market your digital collection to catalog users that may not be looking for it? And how do you successfully integrate your digital collection into your catalog while still maintaining the robustness of the collection?  Learn how to get the most impact from your digital collection by increasing access, empowering your users, and keeping them coming back for more.