Banquet with poet Janice Harrington; ILA Annual Conference ’09

Cappuccino Cake

As we sat at our banquet tables and admired the intricate book-sculpture centerpieces while eating cappuccino cake on Thursday evening, we librarians had the pleasure of being entertained by the fabulous poet and storyteller Janice Harrington.  Harrington is a spirited and interactive speaker!  She began by asking all of us to rise — our bellies full of cake — and say:

“If you’ve got a tambourine
Shake it to the glory of God!
Glory! Glory! Glory!
Shake it to the glory of God!
Tambourines!
Tambourines! Tambourines!
Tambourines to Glory!”

-excerpt, Tambourines to Glory by Langston Hughes

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“Collective Advocacy” & Open Access; ILA Annual Conference 2009

Jennifer McLennan, Director of Communications at SPARC, and Faye Chadwell, Associate University Librarian at Oregon State University, came to the Iowa Library Association 2009 Annual Conference to talk about libraries and Open Access in their talk, “Collective Advocacy: Engaging Librarians in the Open Access Movement.”

As McLennan explained, SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition) is “an international alliance of academic and research libraries working to correct imbalances in the scholarly publishing system.”  Basically, SPARC takes advantage of the amazing opportunities created by the Internet to advance the conduct of research and scholarship!

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“On-the-fly Tech Support”; ILA Annual Conference 2009

Bunny Ears

(some good advice from Jessamyn West: “put bunny ears on your headphones so no one will steal them”)

It was so much fun to hear Jessamyn West, one of my all-time favorite library bloggers, give her talk on On-the-fly Tech Support at the 2009 Iowa Library Association Annual Conference in Des Moines.  Being the awesome techie librarian that she is, she has already made all of her notes and slides available on the internet, so all I have to do is tell you about how fun she was.

So way  back in 1997, Salon.com wrote up a neat feature called “Are We Ready for the Library of the Future?“, explaining that librarians have become “the general public’s last-resort providers of tech support.”  Yet twelve years later, lots of librarians still don’t have a clue how to troubleshoot.  Never fear librarians, Jessamyn West to the rescue!  Here are some key pointers for the on-the-fly tech support librarian:

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“Close Encounters With Digital Citizens”; ILA Annual Conference 2009

So these are some things I overheard librarians saying about Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, at the 2009 Iowa Library Association Annual Conference:

“He just keeps throwing data at you and it’s awesome!”
“He talks so fast and I love him!”
“Lee Rainie is my new boyfriend!”

Lee Rainie: Iowa Librarians have a crush on you.  I hope you don’t think that’s weird.

In his talk “Close Encounters With Digital Citizens,” Rainie mostly threw a lot of data at us about how teenagers use the internet.  He gave a similar talk in January, and those slides are available here (via slideshare):

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“The Asteroid That Hit the Industrial Age”; ILA Annual Conference 2009

Lee Rainie, founding director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, was the phenomenally brilliant opening speaker at the 2009 Iowa Library Association Annual Conference.   With a conference theme like “Deciphering Our Future: Transforming Iowa Libraries,” Rainie’s talk about his research on American internet usage kicked everything off on just the right note.  He gave the same talk in Wisconsin later that week, and those slides are available here (via slideshare):

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Reification & The Swamp

The Swamp

“The necrophilous person loves all that does not grow, all that is mechanical.  The necrophilous person is driven by the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic, to approach life mechanically, as if all living persons were things.” (Fromm, as quoted in Freire, 72)

The inherent danger in reification is that when we attempt to explain or describe a concept, we could transform what is fluid or living into a static thing.  When we theorize about education, for example, which is a very fluid and complex concept, it is tempting to try to make the reality of education—i.e. education-in-practice—fit into our static theories and definitions about education, rather than the other way around.  This is what Freire called “oppression—overwhelming control. . . nourished by love of death, not life.”  And Fromm: “he loves control, and in the act of controlling he kills life” (ibid).

Anne Wysocki and Johndan Johnson-Eilola problematize book-love.  Quoting several writers, they argue that books objectify cultures and worlds by encouraging people to imagine linear, concrete selves.  Continue reading

MIT’s Open Course Ware Is Amazing But Tricky

It’s an absolutely free gift from MIT to the global community—or at least those who have access to the Internet:  MIT’s visionary Open Course Ware (OCW) website offers free content from over 1900 MIT courses for the edification and education of humankind, including course descriptions, syllabi, calendars, reading lists, assignments, answer keys, study materials, exams, lecture notes, video lectures and “related resources” that the instructor hopes will supplement the course material.  It’s a truly visionary resource that embraces the philosophy of open access.  However, the content itself hasn’t been adapted for use outside the classroom, so it can be difficult for the casual online student to understand how best to interact with the materials.

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Farewell, Intellectual Freedom Fest ’09!

Well, it’s official:  the Iowa City Public Library 2009 Carol Spaziani Intellectual Freedom Festival has come and gone.  What a great month of events!  I just want to say “thanks” to everyone who organized, presented, and attended the festival.

Be on the look out for a PATV / ICPL production of the IFF Remix event, remixed by presenter Tack-Fu himself.  Also, shout out to presenter Kembrew McLeod, whose documentary “Copyright Criminals” will be airing on PBS in January, and presenter Pirate Radio, whose original radio drama “Citizen Q” premiers in Iowa City THIS SUNDAY, Oct. 18 at 11:oo pm on 87.9 FM.

Thanks also to fest co-sponsor University of Iowa School of Library and Information Science (SLIS), who did a couple of very awesome write-ups about the events “Public Libraries, Budget Cuts and Intellectual Freedom” and “IFF Remix“!

Pirate Radio, Tack-Fu, Kembrew McLeod

 

So I feel like it’s been the Intellectual Freedom Festival Channel over here lately!  That’s ok, though, because I’m pretty keen on intellectual freedom.

Tomorrow is our second-to-last IFF event at the Iowa City Public Library (at noon in Meeting Room A), and this event is especially distinctive as it was conceived of, planned, and executed by Yours Truly.

So. . . . !  Tack-Fu is bringing his old 8-track to show us all how sampling is done creatively.  (He was also making Kanye-Crashing-the-VMAs jokes during our email correspondence, so I honestly have no idea what to expect.)  Pirate Radio will be there with bells on to tell us about how and why they broadcast original radio dramas and nightly bedtime stories without a license from the FCC.  Kembrew McLeod from the U of I Communications Dept. is coming to wrap it all up by discussing ways that high license fees and legal intimidation make it harder for ordinary citizens in a democracy to “write” and “speak back” in multi-media contexts.

I’ll be there eating brownies.  You could be there, too.  We’ll all be eating brownies together.

The Intellectual Freedom Festival Is Here!

Intellectual Freedom Festival

I’m so excited I can hardly stand it – the Intellectual Freedom Festival kicks off this Friday at the Iowa City Public Library!  The Fest is co-sponsored by the University of Iowa Library and Information Science Student Organization (LISSO), and the U of I Obermann Center for Advanced Studies.

What is Intellectual Freedom?

Intellectual Freedom is a basic human right, defined by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. The American Library Association affirms Intellectual Freedom as a basis for our democratic system and recognizes the important role libraries play in Intellectual Freedom issues. To be responsible citizens who have the ability to self-govern, we must be well-informed. Libraries provide information, ideas and resources in a variety of formats, enabling an informed citizenry.

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