Sunday, October 22, 2017

Now that our smartphones can not only search the web for us but also predict the fastest route to work, how do info pros set themselves apart from anyone with access to Google? This full-day workshop, presented by WebSearch University, looks at what is innovative, creative, and unexpected in advanced web search, research, and analysis. Searchers Academy allows you to interact with a series of web search experts who share their ideas and expertise in the field of research on the web and in social media. There’s always something new to be learned from these leading-edge info pros. Participants should have basic experience with web searching, but even searchers with an extensive searching background will come away with a new attitude and new resources and tools for more effective and strategic searching. Expect to have your assumptions challenged about effective search techniques, strategies, and approaches. Academy topics include:

• Getting More From Web Search: Learn about today’s search engine features and techniques that enable you to out-Google anyone … even your clients! 
• Digging Deeper: Find out how and where to look for rich content within the deep web and open access content. 
• Savvier Search Strategies: Forget the tricks from a year ago and learn new search approaches that work today.
• Upping the Value: What can you do with your search results to make your deliverables decision-ready?
• Power Searching With the Pros: Take your search skills to the next level and keep up with the changing web world.

Project management tools help execute ideas, initiatives, and projects. And everything is a project, even in libraries! Set yourself up for success by utilizing accessible techniques for initiating a project and bringing it to closure. As a result of this workshop, attendees share a basic vocabulary and understanding of project management processes. Learn how to identify roles in the organization essential for project success, and have an action plan for adding at least one project management practice to their libraries.

Author of the “International Library Technology Perceptions Survey,” workshop leader Breeding gives an update on the current state of the library technology industry and what we need to watch for in the future to factor into our technology decisions today. He includes an overview of the current state of the library technology industry and highlights recent developments, providing a look at the findings of the 2017 “Library Systems Report.” Get a jump on planning the technology your library will need in the future by getting a thorough grounding by an industry expert!

What new thing is your library doing with technology? Did you start a maker lab? Are you using Internet of Things technologies such as beacons to serve your users in unique ways? Or are you using technologies to make your staff more efficient and effective? Come share your story and hear the stories of others, so you can take new ideas back to your library with information about how someone else did it at their library.

This facilitated workshop by an avid industry watcher and successful public library advocate blends an overview of creative and innovative strategies used by public libraries worldwide; insights into getting intimate knowledge of your community; engaging all parts of your demographic area including teens, makers, etc.; and sharing knowledge with your colleagues about their winning strategies for success. Building relationship-based marketing and influence strategies for the success of your system is shared through exercises and examples.

Making is becoming a core part of the mission for more libraries. Not just public, academic, and school libraries, but also corporate libraries are creating more innovative spaces for their users and customers. If you are in the process of starting a maker’s club/ hub, innovation lab, applying for a making grant, developing a makerspace, building a STEM learning or entrepreneurship program, or exploring possibilities around making at your library, this workshop is a must-attend for you! Full of practical tips and tricks, this workshop provides you with a road map for building a makerspace for your community. It includes many examples of successful strategies and programs and shares the experiences and lessons learned from practitioners.

This workshop introduces and uses The Digital Engagement Framework to structure the discussion and engage the audience in a series of brief group discussions. The groups report back to all of the participants. Groups are organized by type of library. The framework has 10 categories: 

• Assets – What do you have to offer? What makes you unique?
• Audience – Who do you reach and who do you want to reach?
• Content – What has and has not been digitized? What criteria should be used to prioritize future digitization efforts?
• Activities – How do you connect the audience and the assets?
• Platform – Where can you find your audience? What platforms do you use?
• Outreach – How do you reach out to new audiences? Where is the audience online now?
• Engagement – How do you turn the occasional visitor into passionate advocates that are highly engaged?
• Ambition – Why use digital media? What is your vision?
• Values – What are the things that are important to you?
• Goal – What do you want to achieve? 

At the end of the workshop, the participants take away the outline of a technology strategic plan that they can use to develop a specific plan for their organization.

Libraries, like all public sector, academic, and not-for-profit organizations, need three types of measures: operational statistics, satisfaction indicators, and outcome measures. These performance measures are as much about operational effectiveness within the library as they are about demonstrating value to external shareholders. This hands-on, practical workshop allows you to develop meaningful outcomes to evaluate your library’s programs and initiatives and to align these with operational statistics to manage improvements, processes, staffing, customer engagement, and communication to board, city, or campus influencers.

Technology has changed the face of libraries and is continuing to change how we work and how we deliver services to customers. This workshop introduces emerging technology trends and shows how those trends are reshaping library services. Examples are provided of how to incorporate these evolving trends into libraries. Attendees learn what trends to look for, find out the difference between a technology trend and a fad, and get ideas on how their library can respond to technology as it emerges.

The high cost of textbooks adds to the financial burden on students and their parents. Hear how one library looked for ways to encourage faculty to adopt open textbooks for their courses and launched the Wise Open Textbook Initiative, offering faculty a stipend of up to $5,000 to develop or adopt an OER alternatives to the traditional textbook. This workshop offers insights gained from their experience working with faculty, the production process, and developing OERx, a textbook delivery system built with Modx. It shares successes and challenges launching the initiative, working with faculty, and producing the final OER textbooks and includes a demonstration, training, and downloading OERx, an open educational resource distribution system.

With the growing ocean of data, from Big Data to Small Data, to analytics, usage statistics, and search logs, we are awash in the data tide. Learn tactics, techniques, and tools for adding meaning to data for your library patrons, community leaders, students, faculty, researchers, and administrators. Visualization tools explored range from stand-alone apps to spreadsheet plug-ins to data websites. Explore tools and techniques for visualizing a variety of data using infographics, word clouds, simple pie charts, maps, Gantt charts, timelines, and many other charts and diagrams.

This half-day workshop, presented by early adopters and library practitioners, shares what it takes to start a community program based around augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). During the workshop, participants gain an appreciation of the history of this bleeding-edge technology, and learn how all the basic hardware/ software components work to create engaging experiences in your library and far beyond it. An HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, Google Cardboard, a DIY hologram viewer, and other technologies are present, so participants have an opportunity to play with all the latest and greatest AR/VR technologies as well as identify opportunities to use these technologies in their communities.

Need a stretch after a day of workshops or traveling on airplanes? Want to hear some of the lore of Cannery Row and see some of the sights? Join our native librarian as she leads a walking tour from the Marriott to Cannery Row before our Games & Gadgets evening networking event!

Join our gamers and gadget lovers for an evening of fun, playing, making, learning, and networking. See how you can transform your thinking, your programs, and your spaces with the latest games, gadgets, and STEAM ideas! Share with a poster about what your library is doing with creative making and makerspaces in your library. Led by Brian Pichman & Tod Colegrove, this event will start your conference experience with lots of learning and laughing! Refreshments included.