more stuff on Internet Librarian

Well, I'm still buzzing off of Internet Librarian, and I'm glad I've found a number of blogs that I can use to refresh my memory, renew my enthusiasm, and give me further technology questions and ideas to consider. I'm starting to understand why bloggers feel powerful, besides the reputed the taking down of Harriet Miers and Dan Rather. (Probably subjects for a different type of blog.) And the power comes from just how easy it is to gain access to information, and the people that provide it.

Only a month ago, I started a position as a trainer in an Information Services department for a multitype consortium. A mere 6 weeks ago, I was the head of a children's department where every day, one 14 year-old boy or another would come to the library to do something on a public access machine I hadn't even considered. And, most of the time, it was something pretty cool. So now I've got to rethink my role with all of this technology, and decide how best to follow the curve, and not feel like I'm drowning in the amount of new stuff there is to learn each and every day.

I've also been taught a valuable lesson in social computing. To be honest, I wasn't sure that Liz Lawley's presentation was for me. But, in retrospect, it was probably one of the most important presentations for me, for the simple reason that it hadn't been something I had been thinking about. I came back from the conference and immediately looked up everything she talked about including her blog. And, now, a week later, I'm getting teased by coworkers about the value of social computing as it relates to me specifically.

I created this blog mostly so I had some experience creating a blog, so I could show librarians just how easy it could be to update their sites and keep their public informed. Turns out that my little experiment has now gone public, at least for the technology in libraries people. I had no idea that my little experiment would first get a response from Aaron Schmidt and then from Michael Stephens. Both of these guys are what I wish I could be, if I ever managed to get ahead of the curve.

The big question remaining: what type of search did Aaron Schmidt do to find me? What perverse combination of pugs and the library world lead him my way? I hadn't done any of the tagging suggested by Liz Lawley as of yet... So how?