I’m at Computers in Libraries and it’s a whirlwind of good folks, good information and some terrible rooms (and a few good ones). Wireless is working decently, so I’ll be around on Twitter and the chatmachine. Say hi if you see me. My talks, the one I gave today and the one I’m giving tomorrow, are available at this URL.
Tag: me!
SXSW bound? Me too!
For any librarians attending SXSW — which I’m gathering will be at least a few judging from the chatter I’ve been hearing — I’ll be there starting tomorrow night. Here is the short list of events I’m committed to
- Librarian meetup at the Iron Cactus on Saturday at 12:30 – more details, or here
- MetaFilter meetup Saturday at 6:30 at Mother Egan’s – more details
- The panel I’m on about community moderation — with folks from Flickr and YouTube and Etsy and CurrentTV — Sunday at 3:30
- Fray Cafe Sunday night from 8 – midnight. I’m a featured performer, come hear my crazy story.
I leave on Tuesday. Monday is an open day and I may go to the Ransom Center to see what’s nifty there.
hive mind, in Slate
I was interviewed for Slate about Ask MetaFilter. I like the way the article came out. When the hive mind works, it’s a beautiful thing.
what a super conference!
I’m getting a little R&R in after a busy day bustling around the OLA Superconference. This is my first time at this conference and I’ve really been enjoying myself. I did a variation on a talk I’ve given: Smart, Tiny Tech. As always, the slides and notes are online along with links to the things I was talking about.
I made a sort of personal resolution for 2009 to write new talks for every event I’ll be speaking at. I talk about similar things often, but I want to be a little more cognizant of my audience — showing off a 2.0 “border wait times” mobile app was fun today, for example — and a little less “Oh here’s Jessamyn with her digital divide talking points again…” Today’s talk was fun and the audience was interesting and interactive.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned lately how much I love being in Canada and talking to Canadian librarians. Today I got to have lunch with the lovely and talented Amanda Etches-Johnson and the talented and lovely John Fink. I had to miss a talk by John Miedema because it was at the same time as my talk — along with maybe 15 other presentations — but I did manage to see some of John Fink’s talk about Evergreen. Hoping to run into Walt around someplace, but I’ve been a little behind on planning since out I was out sick a lot of last week.
I’ve also enjoyed just being in the big city now that I’m healthy again. I’ve already stopped in at Toronto Public Library and asked them for help finding this museum which, alas, appears to have been closed for some time, cursed internet! Tomorrow evening there’s a librarian get together (C’est What, 6:30 pm) and then there’s a MetaFilter meetup on Saturday night (Bedford at 7 pm). If you happen to see me wandering around looking slackjawed at all the big buildings, please do say hello.
two notes about twitter
1. I saw the Providence Public Library’s Twitter feed today and I like it. A mix of library information and links to their very amusing tech blog. I like it.
2. I just noticed Phil Bradley’s list reprinted over at Tame the Web. I’m in a weird position on Twitter because I’m followed by librarians, MetaFilter members and at least a good handful of real life friends and family. I follow maybe a ninth of the number of people who follow me. My feed is open so anyone can read it, but I can only follow so many people (and I do stay up to date on my Twitter feed pretty much always so this is important to me). Here is my version of Phil’s guidelines and there’s a sort of flow chart in effect here.
a) Do they Tweet in English (or possibly Romanian but I’ve never seen this happening yet)? If yes, go to b.
b) Are they spammers or hypesters (following over 5000 people? pushing a product?)? If not go to c.
c) Do they update more than ten times a day? If so, they’re too high traffic for me. If not, go to d.
d) Is their Twitterstream just an automated version of their RSS feed? If yes, subscribe. If no, go to e.
e) Do they @reply to people as the bulk portion of their tweets? If so, they’re likely not interesting to me (for me Twitter is like a news ticker, not a conversation). If not, go to f, g and h and choose one. If none of these apply, then don’t follow.
f) Do I know them or know why they’re following me?
g) Do I find them amusing, astute, informative or otherwise intriguing?
h) Do I want to direct message with them and find that I can’t because I’m not following them
In short, my sister’s Twitter feed is one of my favorites, followed sharply by a few bloggers I barely know and a few random librarians who amuse the heck out of me. Then there are 200 other people and all told I probably scan through 600-1000 tweets per day. This helps me feel less like I’m up here in the fortress of solitude when I’m in rural Vermont and helps me stay in touch with a lot of plugged in people in the profession. I send all of my Twitter-related “soandso added you as a contact” email to a special folder and scan through it weekly. If I’m not following you and you think maybe I might like to, please feel free to drop me a note and/or a comment. I’m not suggesting this approach for anyone else, but it works well for me.