Library Ties

I’ve been fortunate enough over the last several years to attend all 4 of the summits sponsored by School Library Journal. Each one has had a different topics and a different theme. This year the focus was on remixing our collections for today’s digital students.

My favorite parts about any conference experience is the opportunity to network. The chance to share, experience, learn, and interact with my friends and colleagues always makes for a great conference. One of my big “take aways” is that networking can happen face to face in conversations with those sitting around me, or can be electronic conversations through Live Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and more. If you go to the SLJ Ning, you can see some of the conversations that were happening during the weekend. I enjoyed the time to explore with some of these resources and seeing how the conversation of the conference could be extended.

The other part of the conference that I found the most interesting was a panel discussion with Joyce Valenza, Christopher Harris (who will be speaking at the Indiana Library Federation conference this upcoming week), Jim Ulsh from ProQuest, Jay Flynn from Gale, and Terri Fredericka from INFOhio. Joyce used a metaphor that our libraries should not be like groceries stores where students can get all the food (information) they need. Instead they should be kitchens where they use all that food along with all of these tools to be creators of information. The other panelist had a variety of metaphors, but the idea that came from all of them was the idea that we want students to be consumers and producers of information and that we need to work on how we create and organize our collections (both print and digital) that are students want to use and will help them succeed.

Certainly lots to ponder and think about. I’m sure it will continue to swirl in my head for the weeks and months ahead.

Have ideas on what the 2009 summit should be about? Add your thoughts to the SLJ Ning.

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