Jessamyn West is delivering the keynote speech at the Indiana Library Federation’s annual Reference Division conference. I do wish her slides were full screen so I could see them from the back of the room. Here’s what she has to say:

As a technologist, she admits it’s odd that her own public library in Vermont doesn’t have a computer. Librarians are in the awkward teenage years when it comes to technology. Publishers are also grappling with new technologies. We’re entering an unsteady world where librarians cease being the experts. Libraries aren’t to “go to” place they used to be as the general public becomes more research-savvy and technologically adept. What’s the positive? What’s our role? Hybrid. You can’t be everything to everybody. What’s your goal? Articulate the library’s mission. Have technology plan. Have guidelines for technology use. It’s a partnership between patron and librarian.

Deal with allocation of scarce resources.

Online catalogs. It’s the only way patrons view your collection. If they can’t make it work, they think the library isn’t delivering. May require vendor advocacy and patron training. Usability tests with actual patrons.

What’s hot in dealing with interfaces? Being able to customize. Lots of people are still on dial-up and showing book covers on the screen make it very slow for patrons. Have ways to push information to patrons. Federated searching that works. Lots of bugs to work out, such as different indexing terms.

Copyright and licensing issues. You made a deal with the producer, but you also made a deal with your patrons, who don’t understand copyright. Librarians may not understand copyright. Kids think it’s fine to make multiple copies and download songs. Understanding confusing laws is the librarian’s responsibility. People over self police (a point made by K. Matthew Dames in his upcoming article on Fair Use in the November/December issue of ONLINE).

Hard time with the fact that librarians don’t know everything. Try to provide access, but say here’s what you can’t do with it. Move from ownership to subscriber models. Every single copyright law is not just and fair.

Open source versus DRM.

Filtering issues. In Vermont, funding is entirely local and they don’t have to filter through CIPA. Not a question of government funding. Want to provide access and obey the law. Sometimes they conflict. Good to understand how the filtering process works. Put yourself in

Librarian.net is deemed pornographic by the high school filtering system. Super Bowl 30 is also banned (XXX). All filtering systems are lousy, but lousy in different ways. Filtering is like collection development.

New expert balance and that’s OK, but need to learn differently how to take cues from our patrons and colleagues. User needs are getting more complicated. Customer may be always right but patrons aren’t. Google raised the bar on search. Make OPACs look bad. Librarianship is place for people who like technology and love challenges.

The title of Jessamyn’s talk is Hot Hot Robot

Finally, some good news from New Orleans, from an email sent to some SLA chapters and divisions:

“Members of the staff of The Historic New Orleans Collection were able to enter the French Quarter this week with a State Police escort. Our buildings and collections are high and dry. Much of the material was moved to a generous and accommodating institution in another part of the state.

Because the presence of armed forces is now pervasive, we feel that the museum is extremely secure. We hope to be back in operation as soon as city services have been restored.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all of our fellow citizens affected by Katrina and our offers of assistance go out to all of our colleagues, friends, and neighbors..”

Priscilla Lawrence
Executive Director
The Historic New Orleans Collection

It’s been a hectic time as I put the finishing touches on the November/December 2005 issue of ONLINE (how I hate that lead time!) and several conferences. WebSearch University will be next week in Arlington, Virginia and I’ll be doing a pre-conference session on Sunday morning (oh joy), a short presentation on post-processing tools, and moderating for the rest of the time. Then the week after it’s InfoX in New York City. I’ve been planning two of the five conferences, Business Intelligence and Innovations in Search . Then in October, I’m going to be in London for Internet Librarian International . It all seems to be coming together this week, lots of little details to work out. As a said, a hectic time.