Program & Speakers (2011)

Program

ER&L 2011 Conference Program (PDF)

Keynote Speakers

Amy Sample Ward is a blogger, facilitator and trainer focused on leveraging social technologies for social change.  She is dedicated to supporting and educating organizations and change-makers in the use of revolving technologies that cultivate and engage communities. In 2009, she co-authored Social by Social, a handbook on using social technologies for social impact, and has contributed to various others publications about social media.  She is a conversation-starter and thought-leader, writing about strategic uses of new technologies for communities and organizations on her blog and the Stanford Social Innovation Review Amy has helped groups in the US, UK, and around the world use social media to start creating a better world.

“Libraries: The Oldest New Frontier for Innovation”

(Presentation slides) Libraries, whether associated with a school, government, agency or geography, serve a community. And then the community changes, there’s an opportunity for the institution and the service to change or not to change. Nonprofit organizations, local and federal governments, campaigners and even businesses are trying to innovate at the speed of communities. Libraries can and should be doing the same. We are, all of us, part of many communities and it is within these spaces that we build our lives and the world. Libraries have access to information, engagement, and opportunity – it’s just a matter of setting sail. You can learn more and connect with her at http://amysampleward.org.

Sponsored by Dr. Amanda French is currently THATCamp Coordinator at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, where she helps people all around the world organize interdisciplinary and interprofessional “unconferences” on humanities and technology (THATCamp stands for The Humanities And Technology Camp). One of her primary professional interests is in helping humanities scholars, librarians, and archivists address technology issues and projects together. She has drawn on her experience as a Council on Library and Information Resources Postdoctoral Fellow to develop courses in digital methods and issues for graduate students in English at NCSU and for graduate students in the Archives and Public History Program at NYU. She recently contributed to two collections of essays: Hacking the Academy and  #alt-ac: Alternative Academic Careers for Humanities Scholars. You can learn more at http://amandafrench.net/about/.

“Toward the Digital Public Library of America”

(Presentation slides and talk paper) In December of 2010, Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society announced a planning initiative toward a Digital Public Library of America. Countries such as Norway, France, and China have already built or begun building national digital libraries, and indeed we even have a World Digital Library (which, with less than 200 items, is not as impressive as it sounds). Despite its name, the Digital Public Library of America is the brainchild of research librarians, with stakeholders on the Steering Committee from the Library of Congress, the National Archives, the Smithsonian, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the Mellon Foundation, and Harvard. What challenges will this key planning initiative face, and how can research libraries help? What benefits might the creation of such a national digital library have for research libraries?

Sponsored by Michael Porter is a librarian, presenter, author, practical technology fan, and PEZ collector. He has 20 years of experience working in Libraryland and has presented hundreds of times to library staff around the world. His writings regularly appear in major library journals around the world. In 2009 he was selected as a Library Journal “Mover & Shaker”, in 2010 was elected to the American Library Association’s governing Council and in 2011 was also elected to the ALA Executive Board. He currently works at WebJunction.org in Seattle, Washington as their Communications Manager and also serves as the President of Library Renewal, an organization dedicated to research, partnerships and grassroots support for libraries as they struggle to offer electronic content to their users in competitive ways. Read more from Michael at libraryman.com.

“We’ve Won, We’ve Lost, We’re Just Getting Started: New Possibilities for Electronic Content Access via Libraries”

We’re gathering to talk and think about managing electronic resources in the digital world. And we all likely agree that when it comes to content and libraries, people want what they want, when they want it, in the format they want. But whats a library to do when services like Netflix, iTunes, Hulu and Amazon offer electronic content much more effectively than libraries? In an era when larger consumption patterns are shifting more and more away from physical formats (print, CD, DVD), to electronic formats, and in a time when libraries struggle financially, how can we possibly offer access in competitive ways? Well, it might actaully be possible. In this session we’ll look at the electronic content access environment we inhabit and the directions we are headed. We’ll then look to our competition, our history and our institutional missions and then try to find ways libraries can take solid, practical action to remain relevant in the rapidly impending world where electronic content accounts for the most of library’s circulation.