Virtual Conference Talks Trends, Ideas

August 13, 2012

The Mario-themed, cube-shaped lamp cha-chings when punched. “That light was awesome,” said a Texas participant in the online chat sidebar. A bike rider’s jacket features an embedded turn signal indicator on the back. At the ALA Virtual Conference, held July 18–19, attendees learned that these are just a couple of ideas hatched in makerspaces, and they discussed the concepts as they appeared online.

The two-day event featured 16 sessions, all focused on transformation, experimenting, and innovating.

Libraries are well positioned to create makerspaces that offer “a shared space with tools where people with common interests can learn, teach, socialize, and collaborate on making things,” said MAKE magazine’s Travis Good, the first session speaker. Libraries from across the country—in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Pittsburgh and Chicago, for example, are opening makerspaces for patrons to meet, learn, and create projects ranging from crafts for hobbyists to prototypes for businesses.

Good emphasized how inexpensive some of the tools are that libraries, as lending experts, can offer—from $10–$30 Arduino microcontrollers to $500 3D printers that create 3D models from a computer file. He also shared a number of open source collaboration sites for projects (instructables, MAKE: Projects), 3D models (Thingiverse), and more.

Later in the conference, officials from the Allen County (Ind.) Public Library talked about their makerspace, a collaboration with TekVenture that is housed in a 50-foot trailer in the library parking lot. The session included an inspiring story by a maker who took her idea for colorful bike panniers to prototype using the makerspace’s expert advice and tools.

In “Moving Upstream: From Contributor to Co-Creator,” James LaRue of Douglas County (Colo.) Libraries, said libraries not only could but should move away from volatile ebook pricing. “The fundamental economic proposition of the library is at risk,” said LaRue. By stepping away from distributors and traditional publishers, libraries can “focus on the excitement” of becoming the publisher and helping local authors while sharing revenue through a Creative Commons model. “Getting libraries to the center of the information/publishing world is an excellent strategy” wrote one Colorado participant.

Steven Bell, associate university librarian for research and instructional services at Temple University and ACRL president-elect, talked about how to develop a “Way We Serve” statement to enable a library staff to better serve patrons. “What experience do we want people to have when they come to our library?” he asked. Through videos, online polls, and other tools, Bell helped launch a spirited online discussion.

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Camruinn Morgan-Rumsey and Lexi Lepof write: “On December 3, Knox County (Tenn.) schools received a list from the district of books to be removed from school libraries under Tennessee’s Age-Appropriate Materials Act. Knox County’s board of education voted in July, passing a policy to remove ‘explicit’ books from everyday student access in response to the new law. Some of the books on the list of nearly 50 titles might surprise parents. Among those to be removed are Shel Silverstein’s A Light in the Attic and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.”

WVLT-TV (Knoxville, Tenn.), Dec. 4
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Joe Foley writes: “Copyright rules vary from country to country and have changed over time. In the US, works created between 1929 and 1963 that gave notice and renewed copyright have 95 years from their first publication date. That means that on January 1, 2025, a host of works from 1929 will enter the public domain. This means that copyright will expire on Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Horace Horsecollar, Tintin, Hal Foster’s first Tarzan comic strips and, yes, Popeye.” Other notable works entering public domain in the United States include the Marx Brothers’ first film, The Cocoanuts, contralto Marian Anderson’s first record, and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Creative Bloq, Dec. 7; Everybody’s Libraries, Dec. 3, Dec. 7; Public Domain Review, Dec. 10
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Brittany Adams writes: “The digital landscape of libraries is expanding rapidly, with an increasing shift towards electronic resources and online services. As members of the library community, we’re witnessing a transformative era where physical collections are complemented—and sometimes replaced—by digital ones. This transition offers new opportunities for enhancing accessibility and engagement, but it also presents challenges, especially for young patrons and their families. It is essential to equip children and their caregivers with the tools and knowledge they need to navigate this evolving space confidently.”

ALSC Blog, Dec. 9
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Karen O’Grady writes: “I am the embedded librarian for the Hahn School of Nursing at the University of San Diego. I am surrounded by nursing faculty, staff, and students rather than by librarians. This has proven to be an incredible gamechanger for the way I see things. Every student in my school knows me by name. I am often stopped in the hallway to answer questions. Every correct answer I give increases my authority and builds trust. Through these casual mini-lessons, this foreign animal called ‘librarian’ slowly becomes an approachable, knowledgeable person.”

College & Research Libraries News, Dec.
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ALA has selected 46 participants for its 2025 class of Emerging Leaders (EL). The EL program allows library staff and information workers to participate in project planning work groups, network with peers, gain an inside look into ALA structure, and have an opportunity to serve the profession in a leadership capacity early in their careers. The group will take part in a day-long session during the 2025 LibLearnX conference in Phoenix this January and work for six months, culminating in a poster session at ALA’s 2025 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Philadelphia in June, where they will highlight results of their project planning work.

ALA Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment, Dec. 4
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On December 9, ALA announced a $25 million bequest by James W. Lewis, of Washington, D.C. The gift, the largest individual bequest in ALA’s history, will fund scholarships for aspiring librarians with demonstrated financial needs. Throughout Lewis’s career at Merrill Lynch, where he leads the Lewis Group as senior vice president and senior relationship manager, he has demonstrated his commitment to libraries and their communities by generously volunteering his time, including as a member of the Board of Visitors at the library of his alma mater, Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He also served as a Library Trustee Board member at District of Columbia Public Library for 10 years.”

AL: The Scoop, Dec. 9
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Tess Prendergast writes: “I will never forget the surprised look on one mom’s face during storytime when I dropped a tip—technically called an aside—about how rhyming helps babies differentiate sounds and prepares them for reading. “You mean that all this singing will help her in school?” she asked. “I thought we were just doing this for fun!” Early literacy activities are certainly fun—but also valuable. Many parents and caregivers aren’t aware that simple, everyday activities can benefit their child’s early language and literacy development and have a lasting positive impact on their learning.”

American Libraries column, Nov./Dec.