ACURIL2008: Stephen Abram’s Keynote notes
Cliff June 2nd, 2008
- Louisville women carrying stories forward after abandonment by making quilts, without libraries. Community is what carries things forward in the midst of challenges.
- Now the environment is “Free trumps quality, every time”
- Working together, but feeling stretched. How do we get our users educated?
- We need to be inspired about libraries–sometimes we forget what it is that we’re doing. We’re creating the information & knowledge economy.
- We can let Google and Yahoo do this job, or we can do it. Companies are altering results for profit.
- We need to be aware of our own power and impact. When we look back on our careers, what will we say? Will we have an impact on creating an equitable information universe, or will we “give in” and slap a Google search box up on our pages?
- Professionals commit.
- Now, more than %51 is not in English. “It’s not just catalog cards, it’s access to a culture that’s diverse.”
- When we must come together and be inspired.
- Our next great challenge is to put content into workflow. That’s why we make databases accessible from home. Now we need to put ourselves in that workflow.
- (If you’re ever sick, DON’T SEARCH MEDLINE. It’ll scare the bejeezus out of you!)
- You can start small, but dream big.
- Libraries help democracies persist.
- What sort of informations skills will our users need when every book is full-text searchable?
- Say Yes every chance you get! Be part of the change you want to see.
- We are a social profession–the point between the user and the information they need.
- It’s not about contact or content — it’s about both together.
- Semantic Web, the Cloud, No choice search engines, GIS oriented search and ads, infinite fulltext books, streaming media and spoken word search, personalization 3.0, microblogging, device proliferation.
- Students use Google & Wikipedia. We use Google & Wikipedia. How dare we say that when we use it, it’s better?!?
- Library culture of poverty, victimization, risk aversion and passive resistance.
- How do we make open information a global reality?
- The best thing about libraries is how subversive we are!
- We need to put things where the users are.
- Name tags: Why are so many librarians freaking anonymous?
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