shinylib

blashepmy

I was at a discussion of some kind while at ALA, I honestly forget which. I think it might have been the ACRL Instruction Section discussion on social software. Anyway we at the table began to debate in earnest the merits and methods of teaching students (again, the implied students are those pesky millennials) how to value their privacy.

At first I began by sharing my typical method: show n’ shock (show them stuff and attempt to shock them into giving a crap). Then the woman next to me (delightful, wish I knew who she was) countered by asking why we believe this is something we should be teaching in the first place. Then all hell broke loose. I just got it, I totally knew what she was asking and why.

I hadn’t previously been thinking about it, but I followed up on her question with one of my own. Are we sure there is merit to forcing our values on our students? I mean yes, I want them to know how much info Facebook is sucking down with the potential to sell it, barter with it, or do who-knows-what. But really, just because I give a crap about my privacy and the relationship between my online identity and this (to me) very important concept tells you just that: it’s important to me. The assumption is always that millennial students are too stupid to understand the importance of privacy.

But maybe they do get it…and maybe they just don’t care. I think that every generation can come up with a list of values they embrace that they feel the other generations just don’t get. This is probably true of most cultures, subcultures, etc. These aren’t necessarily values for the masses, y’know. If you want to blast your puketastic weekend photos all over MySpace that’s your business. I might just start approaching you with the idea that you at least think you know what’s best for your image, for your privacy. And if that turns out not to be true? Well, I’m not sure what happens then.

experience economy @ your library

While I was at ALA I attended the BIGWIG unconference and had a great conversation with David Lee King and other unconference participants about the ideas of experience economy and community development within your digital community. For example, consider the idea of Build-a-Bear (those creepy overpriced bears that you stuff on your own). It costs so much more money to build a bear than it does to just buy a plush bear from somewhere. The idea is that people want to buy the experience, if you just wanted a bear you’d go to HugeBoxStore and buy one for 8 bucks. What you’re really paying for is the experience of choosing fur, stuffing the thing yourself, selecting your own beady little eyes, and having it all stitched together within the hour: customization. Experience economy tells us that people are in search of more than a service, more than a product. Continue reading…

Wrapping up

It’s always a bit sad to leave conference. You make new friends, see old friends, and generally have a sleepaway camp feel about the whole event. At least that’s how I feel about the time spent.

Yesterday I went to the ACRL Science and Technology section (STS) program on innovation in science learning and the ACRL President’s Program. The President’s program speaker, Dan Ariely, was really interesting. So much so, in fact, that I was motivated to buy his new book. I’ve never really done much thinking from the behavioral economist perspective and his talk was quite fascinating. For me, the biggest Ah Ha! was related to the idea of free and what that means to people. Dan suggested that if a person buy’s a gym membership, but fails to use it, you motivate them to come back by reminding them that they are ripping themselves off each month for $__. In the library environment we tend to remind people ad nauseum that what we are providing is free. So, rather than emphasizing that the students have access to x number of databases for free, we need to emphasize that x  percentage of their tuition is spent on databases and they are in fact wasting $__ by not using them. Or something that that effect, he does a much better job with it.

Ironically, this is similar to something I do in the classroom all the time—and I was worried I was doing it wrong. I tell students all the time that our resources are incredibly expensive, certainly not free, and mostly paid for by them. I just don’t emphasize that they are losing out in a financial sense if they don’t use them.

The STS program was interesting although I felt that Felice Frankel, the first presenter, did not have anything for me that I could apply in the library or classroom. She’s the author of several books and is a well-known scientific image creator/photographer. It seemed the session was largely intended to promote her new book of scientific images. The imagery is stunning, don’t get me wrong, and even the concepts around science instruction. I guess I was just missing the bits on science and IL instruction—on a community college library budget. Here’s what there is from my sparse notes… Continue reading…

notes from Anaheim

Just a quick note from Anaheim to say that our ACRL 101 program went off without a hitch. I am so pleased and proud of the work of all of the Emerging Leaders in my group. Planning a national conference program was a totally new thing to me but I think it’s a skill set that I can really get a lot of mileage from.

Had dinner with Kevin and Sara Ryan last night. That was a blast. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and my lack of dinner company when Kevmo came through with the plan to meet at the Hilton. Sara and I have crossed paths a few times at conferences but never actually hung out. Holy mess, I hope to put in more face time with this powerhouse sometime. Our blends of ridiculous hilarity mesh very well…and there were $9 potato chips!

After dinner and assorted hijinks we parted ways about 10:30 last night…and I promptly got really lost and end up walking all over hell and gone. After uttering the words, “I don’t get lost at conferences too often,” I suppose it’s what I get. In either case I have some gnarly blisters to show for it.

There really haven’t been any groundshaking (for me) sessions just yet. Today I’m off to check out a program on the future of face to face reference and then some research into reference services. After that, it’s an ACRL membership advisory committee meeting and presentation (by me, eek).