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Food for Thought is an innovative one day learning program for campus staff at RIT:

A full day of learning sessions on a variety of topics that range from application-specific workshops,
to explorations of technology trends, to how-to instruction,
as well as some uniquely fun diversions are being planned.

Participants can pick from 24 workshops scheduled throughout the day. The day also include lunchtime brown bag sessions, lightning talks and an ‘Extra Helpings’ one-on-one help service. What an impressive program.

Read all the details about how the event came about and how it was implemented in Janie Hermann’s interview with RIT’s Jon Jiras on the Library Garden blog. Another program idea to think about stealing! Thanks to Janie and Jon for sharing all this information.

Those of you who teach workshops will understand this. I love teaching, I love seeing all the projects that get started in classes and all the ideas that get shared, but I miss not seeing what comes of the learning and the ideas. I try to keep track of what is started in class, but often those projects are ’sandboxes’ and the real outcomes are elsewhere. I really appreciate it when someone contacts me and says “look at we’re doing!” So if you’re out there and have something you’re proud of, please let me know, so I can be proud of you too!

Here are a few projects that I have been following:

• Conan the Librarian’s Weblog - Carol Ansel started this blog for her library at the Pine Point School in Stonington CT. She got most of it running during our workshop and even went right home and did more work on it! When a school administrator saw it, he was inspired to try blogging too. After a recent podcasting workshop, Carol followed right up and has added some great booktalks. Another thing I love about this blog, she chronicles the challenges she has trying things out. We all know it’s not always smooth sailing adding new features, but she gets there in the end and tells us what did and didn’t work in the process!
• 1Person - Vicky Chase is “One person trying to make a difference in the world. One person hoping to volunteer with the Peace Corps.” Ok, this one didn’t really start in one of my classes, but Vicky did work on it during a workshop. And I’ll never forget the goosebumps of excitement I got when I looked over her shoulder and realized what she was blogging about. She leaves for Ghana soon and will be teaching technology. When I see how she has used the Internet to connect with others in the Peace Corps and to keep her family and friends in the loop, well, I get those goosebumps all over again. I’ll never be able to be a Peace Corps volunteer, but I’m looking forward to following Vicky’s amazing adventure.
• Al’s List of Books to Read When You Don’t Want To Reas - Suggestions for Picky Reader Kids - Al is 9 years old. Al is a self professed picky reader. Al’s mom saw an opportunity! She’d been blogging herself and suggested he share his pickiest picks with other kids through his own blog. Al is exercising his reading, thinking and writing skills. But shhh… don’t tell Al that! He just thinks it’s pretty cool to have his own voice being read by others. Al’s mom is one of an amazing group of school librarians that I’ve had the privilege to work with over the last few years. I’m grateful for all they’ve taught me about educating our children.

Friday night, 10pm. School librarians who’d been working all week, then attended a Friday night, 4pm-9pm training session that was continuing all day Saturday. Yet here they are, at 10pm still playing with their computers and showing each other all the great stuff they’ve been working on. Eventually they did join us for a glass of wine in the next room, where the talking and swapping of stories and ideas continued. Wow, what a group! Thanks guys for a whirlwind of a weekend retreat. See you next time! The link to the workshop page: Inquiry meets 2.0

A huge thank you to all the wonderful MOBAC folks and staff at the Hartnell College Library in Salinas, CA. The Audio, Screencasting and Video workshop last Friday went off without a hitch. And what a wonderful lab and library, a beautiful facility and a pleasure to teach there. Thanks so much for installing all the software and buying the additional audio and video equipment, what a difference that made for the group. And thanks to everyone who attended the session, I really enjoyed meeting all of you and hearing about the projects you’re working on. And finally a big thanks to Steve Watkins who had the tough job of twisting my arm to get me to leave upstate New York in February and spend a day or two in California. As an added bonus, Steve showed me the new library building going up at CSU Monterey Bay, it’s going to be amazing!

Do you read Harvey Mackay’s weekly column “On Business“? It’s always full of great advice on running your business better. There’s nothing cut-throat, devious or flashy in his advice and that’s why I like it. His advice is based on his own success in business and is centered on meeting customer needs. Find out what the customer wants, give them more than they asked for and they’ll come back for more. (Well, that’s my capsule summary!) His advice translates so well to library service.

This week’s column (Jan 13, 2008) ended with this advice about technology:

The Internet is like the computer was before it. Both are tools. They can revolutionize how you administer and publicize your business, regardless of the size of your bottom line. But there is no substitute for the product itself. Stay abreast of the trends, but stick to the business of keeping your core products and services competitive.

Such a good reminder for techy geeky me! Even though I love technology (more…)

Today’s class was an intro to 2.0 topics. We talked a lot about web 2.0 and library 2.0. And then dove into trying out some 2.0 tools and considering how they can be used in libraries. ONe thing I try to weave into all the topics is how interconnected they all are and how we can blend different services together. I always worry that I’m overloading people with too much, too much, too much! So I was relieved when the evaluations showed people were excited about discovering how blogs, wikis, rss, delicious, flickr and so on can be used together in a mix and match sort of way. Even my crazy demo of using my cell phone to call Jott

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