Technology and the ever-changing web have enabled librarians and information professionals to transform their environments and services. But what does the future hold? Hear from a panel of chief information officers who have a long history with libraries in the public and academic sectors. Gain insights, stretch your imagination, and spark innovative ideas for adding even more value in your environment.

This panel features some of the most spectacular failures in the history of librarianship and the equally spectacular lessons learned as a result. Hear how we’ve failed in creating web portals, effecting change in our institutions, creating effective staff tools, training, getting staff buy-in, and jumping on board with tech trends just a wee bit too early. We are proud that we failed, as it means we were pushing the boundaries of the status quo. Learn from our mistakes, hear what we did wrong, and save yourself from the same spectacular FAILS!

Failure: We all do it. Failure comes in many shapes and sizes. What can make or break you and your projects is how you respond to failure. No one likes it, but avoiding (or trying to) isn’t the answer either. Taking risks and being willing to fail is just as important as your reactions. This session talks about personal and project failure, reactions, and the lessons you can learn.

This interactive session focuses on things that we’ve tried that have failed, and what we’ve learned from the experience. We don’t often discuss our failures in libraryland, and frequently end up repeating the mistakes of our neighbors. Godfrey and Buckland discuss Second Life failures in academic libraries, Dawson talks about the failures of VoIP, and Booth looks at her experiences of using video as a chat reference tool. Bring your stories and share so that our lessons-learned knowledgebase grows!

What is it and how can it be used in the information world? The Shanachies discuss what it is and illustrate some uses. Houghton-Jan describes an original SJPL project using augmented reality and other mobile locationbased tools to connect San Jose residents and visitors to rare and original local history materials. The library is creating walking tours of significant, high-foot-traffic areas of San Jose and connecting these sites with related rare photographs, directories, artifacts, original building plans, and oral histories. By going where the users are, the library has been able to greatly increase the access to and visibility of rare San Jose history materials and to bring history alive.

This panel talks about the most powerful communication tool: video. They discuss how videos can help libraries and information professionals to expand their consumer audience, e.g., fellow colleagues and library customers; how people turn to online video-sharing websites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and Ustream to stay current about their favorite topics, send videoresumes and analyze hot issues. During the last year, info pros (and others according to Pew reports) have increased their use of video-sharing websites to discuss the latest innovation trends, library-world news, library tours, advocacy campaigns, educational series about financial literacy, and more. Speakers highlight some powerful examples such as the “Angry Librarian,” developed to make a point about good public services; “The Adventures of Super Librarian,” about the many tasks and responsibilities of a public librarian; and Library 101, a video about librarianship in general. They talk about developing video channels and provide tips for innovating through videocasting.

The first presentation provides practical advice for how to run a website redesign in a short time frame and using user-centered methods. It covers how to create goals for the project, scope the project, develop a project plan, ensure that everyone is on board with user research, as well as how to base decisions on research findings rather than opinion. Marquez discusses creating a new look and feel that was distinct from the previous site, implementing Blacklight, a relatively new discovery layer tool making the OPAC more alive and functional. He shares learnings from the redesign process using visual examples of wireframes and notes.

Any marketer or web designer will tell you that creating user personas is a great way to target your services, but just how do you do that? What are the steps involved, and how can we narrow the wide variety of people we serve down to 10 or so “types”? Through examples of step-by-step brainstorming and analysis, Koerber walks you through distilling anecdotal and objective information about your users into an appropriate number of patron personas. Utilize your own experience and understanding of your patrons to make tools to help you develop new programs, focus a marketing campaign, or redesign your website.

UX is for everyone. Hear how a public and an academic library are changing the way they relate to their patrons through this user-centric design perspective. Trainer discusses how a mid-size academic library is combining UX principles and cross-division collaboration to make its web presence pop. By bringing best practices to LibGuides and soliciting regular usability feedback, the libraries’ UX team has redesigned the OPAC, SFX menu, and the library website itself in anticipation of the university’s move to Drupal. Blyberg’s public library UX department constantly strives to maintain a digital strategy that is right for “right now” while anticipating future needs and trends. It “embeds” itself in all aspects of library activity, making departmental boundaries irrelevant.

The process of how content and features make their way to and get removed from websites impacts their usability and usefulness. This session introduces concepts from the emerging field of content strategy and proposes a plan for assessing what's on your site. Gain insights and ideas for reorganizing your web efforts and communicating more clearly on the web.

Innovation and creativity are things we all want to apply in our lives, our jobs and our workplaces. But how do you translate high-level creative thinking and principles of innovation into a tactical action plan that makes a real difference? Join our speakers for a pragmatic session on how to apply the principles of design thinking to enable measurable improvements in customer service and information service delivery. Through the use of scenarios, they provide examples of how harnessing our passion for our work can translate into innovations in our jobs, all in the name of demonstrating clearly the value you and your information centre bring to your organization.

Not only are our organizations challenged in managing their content, but we are too. As information professionals we love to gather and often keep lots of information and content. This session covers some new tools and strategies for digital preservation on an individual scale—something useful for us, but also for our clients!

One of the major transitions in technology involves increased adoption of computing models that involve use of hardware and software outside the library. It’s a seminal technology change as important as the shift from mainframes to client/server architectures. We’re hearing more about application service providers, software-as-a-service, storage-as-a-service, and platform-as-a-service. How does OCLC’s global WorldCat platform fit into the mix? What is the difference between public and private clouds? What are the issues for libraries in the deployment of cloud computing in terms of cost, efficiency, privacy, control, and security? Marshall Breeding clarifies the concepts of cloud computing with examples of interest to libraries.

The exploding popularity of handheld devices challenges librarians to incorporate mobile perspectives and think differently about existing practices. Likewise, the mainstream adoption of ebooks presents new opportunities for libraries to refresh established routines and update collections with mobile in mind. This talk takes a closer look at ebook considerations in the mobile environment and delivers recommendations for developing and managing mobile ebook collections. Topics include selection, formats, devices, and mobile platforms; acquisition models and workflows; cataloging best practices for mobile ebooks, access, management, and more.

UC Irvine Libraries set about to develop a pilot project for patron-driven acquisition (PDA) of ebooks with the goal of saving money in the collections budget. The pilot was intended to allow ebooks to be purchased for current-year imprints as a means of replacing a portion of the traditional print approval plan acquisitions. As the various e-book provider models were investigated, and as we developed the framework within which the pilot needed to operate, we were met with seemingly  insurmountable obstacles at every turn: from the publishers’ reluctance to release print and electronic  books simultaneously — or at least within a specified embargo period — to the difficulty of integrating a PDA program with the print approval plan to avoid purchasing content in duplicate formats. We would like to share our experiences in the hopes that other libraries will join our efforts to convince e-book publishers and providers to make a patron-driven acquisition of ebooks program more viable for libraries which wish to replace their traditional print approval plans and better serve their user population.

This session starts with a short report on an experiment with and comparison of e-readers. The project compared the Amazon Kindle, Sony Reader Touch Edition, and e-reader Apps on the Apple iTouch and experimented with NetLibrary ebooks and Springer ebooks. A facilitated discussion follows and looks at the issues, challenges, and real-world solutions out there today and speculates on what might happen in the next few years.

This session looks at the impact cloud computing technologies and services are having — and will have — on library services, staff, and users. From Amazon’s EC2 service to web services and linked data provided by and for libraries, this presentation provides an overview of technologies and techniques that are enabling entirely new ways of creating and using library services.

University of Maryland has been using the Agile software development approach to rapidly develop and deploy a variety of innovative IT applications in the library. Chang describes projects that include the Wiimote interactive whiteboard, Flash-based applications and websites, mobile computing, and virtual worlds. Blyberg describes Darien’s newest open source and freely available patron notification system that lets users page librarians with a single tap of a touch screen. Pages can be configured to come in on staff PCs, iPhones, iPad touches, iPads, or anything that runs a Growl client, ensuring that someone will answer the call.

With the rise of an ebooks format and the likelihood that ebooks will be distributed in existing media channels, it has become increasingly important for libraries to participate in our user's common information streams. iTunes is one of these common information streams, but did you know that iTunes can be used to distribute all kinds of media files, including .pdfs? With this capability in mind, MSU Libraries has been utilizing Apple's iTunes software as a content delivery platform to distribute files and university research content. In this session, we'll take you through some working applications from MSU using iTunes, show you how to build iTunes XML that can create a library media landing page, and talk through some of the lessons learned. Come learn how this cross-platform and free software can help you deliver content to your patrons in new and engaging ways.

Launched July 16, 2009, as a pilot text reference project, today InfoQuest is going strong, as patrons of more than 50 libraries from all over the U.S. are able to text a question on their mobile phones to a real, live librarian. It is the first collaborative text messaging service, sponsored by Alliance Library System of East Peoria, Illinois, and Web Clarity Software running on the SMS reference software Altarama provides and Gmail. Hear the lessons they’ve learned with this service during the past 2 years.

In 2008/2009, Western Washington University Libraries created an online learning space using Drupal for students, faculty, and staff to gather, discuss ideas, and share and discuss their creative work. The result has been a unique and lively online space named Viking Village. It has been readily adopted by students, but not by faculty and staff. Peterson discusses the project, the results of a recent assessment, and the place of this space in their service offerings.

Where are libraries going, not just in 3-5 years, but in 500 years? Join our visionary panel; hear their insights then stretch your imagination to see if you can predict what info pros will be doing in 500 years, what new and exciting tools we’ll be using, programs and services we’ll be pursuing, relationships we’ll be building, and lots more. Check out the interview that sparked this program (http://www.vimeo.com/11440203) and create a video/or audio track of a song you would like to contribute to this program.