Home 2008forumkeynote

Keynote Sessions

Friday, October 17, 2008, 1–2:30 p.m.

Tim Spalding, founder and developer, LibraryThing.com

Tim started LibraryThing as a pet project to catalog his own library and for academic and bibliophile friends. He had no idea it would explode like it did. Before LibraryThing, Tim was a graduate student in Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan, and worked for Houghton Mifflin in Boston and as a freelance web developer and web publisher. In 2008, Tim was named a Library Journal "Mover and Shaker."

Saturday, October 18, 2008, 9–10:30 a.m.

Hi-Fi-Sci-Fi-Library: Technology, Convergence, Content,Community, Ubiquity and Library Futures
Michael Porter, Community Product Manager, WebJunction

So you think it’s an interesting time to be a librarian now? Just wait! Through an examination of past trends, current tech, emerging tech, academic futurism and a dash of pop culture, we’ll take a realistic peek at where library technology is headed. We’ll then take this information and start planning what we can do now to ensure that libraries not only continue to offer our vital service, but that our role and positive contributions to society increase - perhaps quite dramatically.

Sunday, October 19, 2008 10:30 a.m.–noon

Obligation of Leadership
R. David Lankes, director of the Information Institute of Syracuse University

This presentation seeks the core principles of librarianship that can be used in creating new technologies. It argues that the eventual price of adopting new trends and functions from others can ultimately dilute the effectiveness of the library mission and the core skills of the librarian. Lankes makes the argument that by chasing Google, Amazon, Facebook and the like, libraries are relegating themselves to a permanent technological second place. Shouldn't libraries be in the business of creating the next big thing, not waiting for it?