CiL 2009: Some Notes

It has been a busy day, and between sneaking a very nice scotch into a hotel restaurant with some Army librarians, and smoking a cigarette indoors with a different group, we have been very bad. Librarians on the loose get a bit wild…

There are a couple of notes that will help if you would like to follow any of the conference. Firstly, the presentations are being streamed Live, though I have not been able to find the link – I would check the main website during conference hours. Another thing: there are a lot of bloggers here, and I don’t want to duplicate anything. So instead I made a custom google search engine that you can use to pull up details on the sessions of your choice; Here it is. Also, many of the presentation power points and other documents will be available from the program page, and some already are.

I heard presentations today on improving relationships with clients with web tools, as well as a few good sessions on how to design websites, what to avoid, and what tools to use. Probably the most interesting to Slawyers will be the Keynote by Lee Rainie, the Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

He presented the results of a survey that described the types of attitudes various types of people have in the US about technology: how they use it, why, and how it makes them feel. The results read like the ‘user profiles’ that web designers are urged to create these days, and it really seems like a nice way to get a handle on the diversity. Rainie added a few words for each type of user on what a library could to to impress and assist, or at least not to tick them off. Ranging from ‘give them wireless and stay out of their hair’ to ‘provide them with a respite from technology overload’, his comments made a lot of sense.

His presentation is here, and a good summary of his comments for libraries can be found at the end of this blog post by David Lee King.