Friday at OLA was another fun day. (You know that right-brain stuff = play is important!) More of my favourite quotes of the day:
Kathleen Imhoff — “Cultivating Creativity”
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” — Will Rogers
“Remember: only you can change your frame.”
Kathleen had us all playing with pipecleaners — and by the end of the first exercise, the range of results was interesting: angel, swan, tiara, cat, one-legged dog. Her point was, in a meeting, many of us can be looking at the same thing — but see totally different outcomes / opportunities. We have to remember the frame.
Stephen Abram — “Are Libraries Innovative Enough?”
Stephen’s point was that libraries are innovative — but questions whether we are innovative ENOUGH. He challenged us with the emerging technologies that will transform our world — and whether or not we were ready to accomodate and embrace these technologies — and the kids who are already there!
“The next 10 years will be about even more huge discontinuous change.”
“What will it mean to libraries when our services can be delivered to cheap technologies everyone carries in their pockets?”
“Think about how innovative we have to be to deliver to a market with ubiquitous access to technology via wireless connectivity.”
“What if there were no libraries — what would you do if you were starting from scratch?”
“Don’t transact — transform!”
And my personal, lighthearted favourite: “If the TV’s a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian!”
For more of Stephen’s thoughts check out Stephen’s Lighthouse.
Tony Horava — U of Ottawa; Robin Fogel — OVID; Doug Lynch — EBSCO — “Electronic Licensing”
Libraries have many issues with licensing that they perceive rest in the hands of the information services to control. However, from the perspective of the services, ultimate control rests with the publishers. Result: not everyone gets what they want all the time. A lively discussion ensued — with the bottomline being: to librarians: keep communicating to your info service but also communicate to the ultimate publisher — you’re more likely to affect change if you go to the source — in the meantime, “don’t shoot the messenger”; to info service providers: keep advocating to publisher partners about the needs of your customers — while exploring new model opportunities (eg. standardized licences, an inverted triangle pricing model with electronic at the broad end).
“We are each other’s best partners.”
Rebecca Jones — “Let’s Get Down to Business: Accelerated Planning”
Accelerated planning means: “Keep the complex simple!”
The very first question should be: “what do you want to end up with?”
If anyone suggests that, by using internal resources, the planning process will be “free”, remember: the biggest expense for any library is human resources; therefore, it’s not “free”.
“The most critical success factor for plans: just do it!”
“There’s nothing like writing to accelerate the process.” So, get pen to paper FAST.
My personal favourite: “Get your strategies done in the morning. There’s nothing worse than a vision after lunch — it’s just not going to happen!”
Then, at 6:15 PM, we all enjoyed the hospitality of Micromedia ProQuest and the antics found therein. You weren’t there? Plan for it next year!
Juanita Richardson