My two Australian talks

I’m making use of the wifi here at the Convention Center to make sure my talks are online. Both have been updated, these versions are shorter than similar versions I’ve given before. Thanks to everyone at the LocLib conference for your hospitality, attention and collegiality.

on the road

I’m on the road for a few weeks, starting pretty much now. I usually don’t even bother saying “won’t be posting here” anymore, since with RSS you don’t even have to care. However I am giving a few talks, two at the LocLib Conference in Perth Australia on March 2nd and one in Adelaide at the State Library on March 6th. I will also be going out to lunch with some librarians in Melbourne on the 10th and attending a MetaFilter meetup in Sydney on the 11th. If you are in any of these places, please try to come by and say hello. I’m also vacationing with my sister, so other than these professional and semi-professional activities, I’ll be away from the keyboard. I return on the 14th, though if the trip is anything like last time, my mind will stay in Australia for several more weeks.

I’ll take Manhattan!

I gave a two hour talk and a two hour workshop of sorts at that Manahttan Public Library in Manhattan, Kansas on Monday. It was rally fun and, I think, well received. I got to talk about all sorts of 2.0 stuff including all my favorite nerdy sites and even got to talk about the scrotum dustup from a few days ago. My talk is online here: Web 2.0, Library 2.0, Librarian 2.0, and why it’s no big deal, seriously. It’s a big expansion of my previous 2.0-ish talk that that I did at NELA last year. Big thanks to Carol Barta for giving me a cozy place to stay at her house and to Fred and Sue for picking me up at the airport and Linda for organizing it all. Also thanks to Donna for organizing the early morning coffee klatsch in “the room” and to everyone else for coming. I’m not much of a morning person, but I was glad to make an exception. I hope to be back in Kansas at least once or twice more this year.

open source software in libraries, a query

I’m putting together a little piece about open source software, sort of showcasing how it is or can be used in libraries. Some of the tools, like Firefox or Open Office, are somewhat well known while others like VLC or Paint.net are much less familiar. If your library is using an open source tool and liking it, would you mind putting a note in the comments or dropping me an email over the next week or so letting me know what you use and why you like it? Thank you.

Here are a few little things I’ve been reading on the subject this week.

– Dan Chudnov’s Talk slides: “FLOSS for Libraries: For Administrators”
– LifeHackers Geek to Live: Top 10 open source Windows apps
– Eric Goldhagen’s Open Source for Librarians powerpoint presentation.