by Cassy Lee
The Library 2.011 worldwide virtual conference was an exciting event! As both a presenter and an attendee of several sessions, I found it an incredible opportunity to learn, share ideas, and meet new people from all over the world. Dr. Sandra Hirsh, Director of SJSU SLIS, kicked it off with a keynote address about the rapidly changing world of information professions and gave many examples of the changing job market and how transferable the skills learned in SLIS are to many other fields.
I presented shortly afterward on how librarians and teachers can incorporate digital storytelling as a tool in any educational setting. I had prepared a PowerPoint presentation to go through the discussion and a CampusGuide (formerly LibGuide) as a pathfinder to share the extensive resources I had gathered in my research on the topic. At one point, I had 83 participants from as far away as the Netherlands, Australia, and Mongolia! There were some technical glitches, and I was incredibly nervous, but overall, people responded very positively. It seemed quite a few came away inspired to try digital storytelling, and feeling armed with the tools to do so. Several got in touch with me afterward to exchange information to keep in touch around how we end up using digital storytelling. What an amazing opportunity to network and collaborate with others!
Having gotten my presentation out of the way early, I was now free to enjoy other sessions. There were so many to choose from, around the clock, from the morning of November 2 until the evening of November 3. A brief experience with virtual reference in Michelle Simmons’s LIBR 210 Reference class had piqued my interest in the profession, so I checked out Reina Williams’ presentation on the topic, and while it was very interesting and extremely informative, she had convinced me this wasn’t a job for me in the first few minutes, with “I work in a cubicle.” However, all of her tips on interacting with people seeking information were wonderful and completely tied in to all I have been learning about providing excellent reference service.
It was such a dynamic community of diverse, eager practitioners in the field.
I am interested in youth librarianship, so I attended sessions like Cris Crissman’s about how she has students create bookcasts to respond to literature, Beatrice Gerrish and Phil Goerner’s about their successful high school book clubs, and SJSU SLIS lecturer Mary Ann Harlan’s about the information experiences of teen content creators. Simmons’s session about creating screencasts was very practical and useful, with excellent tips and best practices. Megan Wong discussed how her library is circulating eReaders and walked through the process in a very comprehensive, transferable way I will save for when I am working in a library.
I learned something new in every single session I attended, and not just from the presenters, but from the participants chiming in on the chat section. It was such a dynamic community of diverse, eager practitioners in the field, and I was thrilled to be involved in it. While people who don’t understand the information field continue to claim libraries (and therefore the librarian profession) will soon become obsolete, the people attending this conference proved to me that they are ensuring a vibrant, relevant future for libraries in the digital age.
Links to session recordings in order of their mention above:
Sandra Hirsh’s Keynote address
Reina Williams, Virtual Reference and Instruction: What is it really like?
Cassy Lee, Incorporating Digital Storytelling into your Instruction: A Toolkit and my CampusGuide
Cris Crissman, Live the Literature: Digital Storytelling with Bookcasts
Beatrice Gerrish and Phil Goerner, High School Book Clubs in a Digital Age
Mary Ann Harlan, Information Experiences of Teen Content Creators
Michelle Holschuh Simmons, Creating Instructional Screencasts: An overview of available tools and best practices
Megan Wong, Get Started Circulating eReaders!
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Cassy Lee is a student in the SJSU SLIS Masters of Library and Information Science program. She is interested in educational technology, youth and academic librarianship, art, and children’s and YA literature. You can find out more about her at cassylee.com/.
