Patricia Martin, marketing expert and author of the popular book, Renaissance Generation, shares her most current research on what we can expect from the coming cycle of re-birth. A sought after strategist, Martin has worked with clients such as Discovery Channel, Microsoft and Target. She reveals what lies at the beating heart of the social movements forming the next wave of prosperity. Martin understands our challenges and provides solid ideas for how libraries should respond so they are reborn, not left behind. You will learn how to apply the insights to position your library as a critical asset in your community, whether it's a town, a campus or an organization.

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 the future.

One of our most popular sessions returns to turbocharge 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 latest buzz word in metasearching of library resources is "discovery." Many libraries are moving to discovery tools like Summon, Primo, and World-Cat Local to enable easier and more comprehensive searching of library resources. Explore the current state of the art in these discovery tools, and discover where they work well along with their gaps and search failures.

Our experienced searcher and popular publisher Price provides a guided tour of the features and benefits of Bing for searchers and then interviews Microsoft Librarian Program Managers who share more search secrets and strategies of the search engine and also some directions for the future.

The first talk describes the results of usability testing with students using the Summon Discovery Layer, a hosted search service provided by Serials Solutions. Summon searches the library catalog, index and abstracting databases and full-text journal collections (as well as other targets). It reports on a comparison of results between Summon and Google Scholar, and how journal usage changed after Summon was implemented. The second presentation explores the use of semantic technology for more relevant search. It describes the downloading and conversion of PubMed/Medline records from the given XML to Resource Description Framework (RDF) using the Dublin Core metadata vocabulary, then linked to a MARC data set. It shares results from the searcher’s perspective and discusses the implications for the future of search.

What’s the real scoop on next gen interfaces? Come to this session and hear the good, bad, and ugly on how these next gen interfaces work in the real world. Our implementors pull no punches in evaluating and assessing the state of the next gen landscape of discovery system interfaces for finding what you really want.

This session describes the planning process and key decisions in creating an eBranch — from choosing a CMS, web developer, Drupal themes, item and event carousels, embedded video, Flickr, social sharing tools, booklists and, more. Find out how user accounts can simplify access to databases, downloadable ebooks/e-audiobooks, and the catalog using autologin. Learn how to effectively engage staff in content development and improving the catalog user experience with SOPAC 2.1. Speakers share insights and lessons learned in development and rollout of an eBranch.

Great websites are easy to navigate and find the information you need.  Speakers with experience in navigation and findability share insights into building a solid website foundation that helps users. Emanuel tackles the “disorganized” website built by well-intentioned staff with no significant training on usability, accessibility, or information architecture. She focuses on strategies and practical tools systems staff and librarians can use to inform each other about information architecture practices to create and maintain a better website. Erdman takes the view that perhaps it’s not in the content but in the delivery that encourages users to start with Google and other search engines rather than libraries, which have so much more content. She describes how one library changed the way the website is navigated in order to give users more confidence in selecting databases and easier access to help if they need added support. Goodbye lists and links, and hello browseable, sortable, and discovery-based website.

In a car, you rely on the dashboard to indicate important data about the operation of the vehicle. Digital library dashboards give views of the data and statistics you need to smoothly run your library. Balsamo explains the process of creating a digital dashboard that allows users to customize which data they see and how it is visualized. He discusses the collection of disparate data, the design of the instruments, and the final solution that provides the data needed by staff anywhere and anytime. Trainor shows how to take your library beyond anecdotes to start putting the data to work and emphasizes the importance of choosing the right indicators for your dashboard. She explains how one academic library is using readily available statistics to aid in making decisions about library hours, website design, strategic planning, and collection management.

As libraries create profiles and mini-sites on social networking platforms, how can they manage their identity across a variety of interfaces and tools? Koerber draws on examples from Blogger, Google, Flickr, Delicious, Library-Thing and Facebook to provide a checklist of steps to create a professional, consistent identity through writing, visual elements, skins, and overlays. Many organizations do not have a web strategy that is in alignment with the overall organization’s strategy, often resulting in an understaffed web library, the first and primary contact. Ho looks at what is involved in running a web library and its virtual service points (Facebook, Twitter, mashups), and proposes a staff model to make a web library successful. Brazil discusses tools and procedures that can effectively help you manage your virtual customer interactions (especially complaints), provide immediate virtual technical assistance and help you use the data collected to improve services. Employing techniques shared in this session can result in less staff stress and confusion about responding to customer feedback and, most importantly, happy customers who are satisfied that their voices have been heard.

The Colorado State University Libraries team shares the results of test-marketing Google AdWords and Facebook advertisements as a method of reaching students who will likely never make it to the library homepage. They discuss ways to reach an audience for whom the word “library” is not synonymous with “information” or “research.” Hear how three Rhode Island academic libraries are using QR codes, Jing, XtraNormal, blogs, social networks, e-branding and more to create informative and eye-catching marketing campaigns for their communities. Tips from recent books and reports, including Marketing Today’s Academic Library by Brian Mathews and the “2010 Horizon Report,” emphasize their points. Speakers provide many practical take-aways that have little or no cost to start up in your environment.

Have you seen jobs listed lately? Digital initiatives librarian? Digital branch manager? Digital strategies manager? Ever wondered what these people do at a library, and why they’re needed? This session introduces you to a digital strategies manager job and a digital branch. Panelists discuss their unique roles in their libraries, what their day-to-day jobs look like, and the unique challenges they encounter along the way. And more importantly, they provide tips on how you can use this new role in your library and in your current job.

With the recent mobile explosion, it’s becoming increasingly important that libraries have a mobile presence. But how best to do it? An app? Which platform(s)? What about a mobile website? Is one better than the other? Wisniewski looks at the options available to libraries to establish a mobile presence, the pros and cons, and provides valuable tips for choosing a mobile strategy that’s right for your library.

The first presentation highlights a mobile version of an academic library website that values accessibility and functionality that was developed using core features and custom modules of Drupal’s content management system, an open source product. The site is accessed using any mobile browser but is optimized for the iPhone and other JavaScript-enabled mobile devices. Hear about all the features (catalog search, Ebsco’s mobile interface for journal searching, text, IM, email and voice, hours, Google Maps, the library’s Twitter feed, Facebook, and library blog). McLaughlin discusses the process of building and hosting a web app for the iPhone using the jQTouch framework. District of Columbia Public Library released its iPhone app at the beginning of 2009 and was the first of a handful of libraries that currently have apps in the App Store. Without the necessary programming resources in-house or the funds to pay for outside development, you can rely on existing personnel (web developers) and resources (a web server) to build a polished web app in-house. Open source tools such as jQTouch offer a framework for developing a single app that works across iPhone, Android, and webOS devices. These apps have the look and feel of a native iPhone app and can be updated at any moment by the library, rather than on Apple’s timeframe

“Check in” at this program and check out the hot tech trend of locationbased tools and games that is sweeping the web and changing the way we interact with places and with each other via our mobile phones. Learn about services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown, and more, and become familiar with their uses and functions. Hear all about the tools and concepts of this trend and its impacts on libraries. This session gives an in depth exploration of possible library applications of these geo-based mobile/social gaming services, looks at library projects and web applications that make location a primary browse and search point, and discusses implementation considerations. Participants will learn everything they need to know as information professionals about location-based social networks in this interactive session that will employ the technologies themselves to enhance hands-on learning.

As libraries increasing look to develop a mobile presence, it’s important that this mobile presence be user-friendly. While usability testing of our standard websites is something many libraries have experience with, testing and evaluating mobile is new to many. This workshop explores usability considerations in designing mobile sites, looks at the special considerations inherent in testing for mobile, and specific ways to test and gather feedback from our mobile users.

Choosing content and providing access for mobile devices is an exciting challenge for libraries. Evolving formats, new size considerations, and platform choices affect readability, usability, and accessibility. This session discusses some ways of meeting these challenges to bring content to our mobile patrons and addresses the shifting roles of content providers in a world of mobile information.

What are some of the mobile programs currently in development? What are other organizations doing that libraries can learn from? Hear what our experienced and forward-thinking panel highlights and what we should be paying attention to in the next year to shape our plans for a mobile future. An interactive discussion of topics from the day will be included.

Rebecca Jones interview two practitioners about their approaches in working with faculty to support curriculum and deliver "learning". Hear how McGill liaison librarians (the bulk of our librarian staff) do instruction, how some liaise exclusively with faculty and grad students through scholarly communication and publishing initiatives, and how they partner on grants with faculty.  Learn how CSU is embedding librarians into online courses in the Moodle learning management system, and more.

The skills needed to be an active participant in today’s society are rapidly evolving. More is needed than the ability to read and write; digital literacy, media literacy, information literacy, 21st-century literacy, and other new literacies are all included in transliteracy. Newman begins the session, looking at the importance of transliteracy, the roles libraries play in educating patrons. and what we can do to ensure our staff and patrons are transliterate. Harris discusses the skills library staff must have to adapt to rapidly changing technologies and innovative implementations and how library managers can help staff develop and maintain the technical skills libraries need by using skill evaluation, development planning, peer-to-peer training, and more.

Creating professional-looking videocasts and podcasts is much easier and less expensive than ever. The first talk outlines a collaborative videocast project between faculty and librarians that resulted in creating a series of videocasts promoting a community health initiative. The second presentation describes the successful outreach videos created by McMaster University Library, and highlights the creative process and technology behind the creation of online video. They share preliminary data from a survey of Canadian academic libraries asking: “How can we be sure that the promotional work we are doing is adding value to the online user experience? How will mobile technology impact the library’s use of online video?”

Facebook’s Notes field is perfect for readings, the discussion forum fosters conversation, and the Wall is easy for sharing assignments and questions. Gallaway shares the challenges and successes of this twist on the classic 23 Things challenge. The second team of speakers describe their use of Facebook for two courses and offer practical suggestions on using Facebook as a learning management tool, protecting student personal information, and sharing course materials.

How do you engage students with information literacy content throughout a 3-credit hour semester course? Six librarians teaching different sections of a course in the Interactive Media Studies department bypassed institution-supported course management software. Instead, instructors chose Ning, a free site that allows individuals to create public or private social networks. Content of each network was customized to meet each section’s individual learning outcomes. This presentation describes how instructors engaged students in information literacy concepts utilizing tools such as Twitter, RSS feeds, blogs, and podcasts via Ning. Speakers give specific examples of how the tools enhanced student learning, the lessons learned, and challenges faced along the way.

By now, the 23 Things concept is familiar to library administrators and staff across the country. Some have tried it out, some have tried a version of it, and some still have doubts about whether it will work in their library. Burns has been involved with the NLC’s 23 Things online program, first as a 16 - week program in 2008–2009, and then continued in a slightly different approach. At the other end of the spectrum, Alcorn has worked with individual libraries and regional library support systems across Iowa, offering training on some of the things that encompass Web 2.0 for libraries. Koerber presents what “23 Things for Patrons” could look like. She examines the possibilities, pitfalls; a variety of organizational tools that can scale to a large, diverse participant base; and presents several models as starting points for your own community training project. You’ll come away with relevant examples, the latest developments, and a list of resources.