Jeanne M. Steinbrink, SELCO-MLA Scholarship Recipient
Austin Public Library

Preconference
Day 1 started early Wednesday at 8:00 a.m. preconference when I attended Library Security: Everyone's Responsibility.  Speakers Ben Trapskin, a senior librarian at Hennepin County, and Jeremy Johnson, a computer forensic evidence technician, kept us awake during the three-hour morning session talking about the transitioning of libraries from being information resources to becoming centers of culture and social gathering places.

Ben Trapskin started his presentation by referring to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.  Ben emphasized that safety needs were second only to biological and social needs.  With the advent of mobile devices such as cell phones and hand-held Internet devices, libraries are less needed as sources of information.  Statistics show that 25% of youth are unsupervised at least part of the day, and the Internet and on-line games draw them to the library.  Because of the shift to becoming gathering places for socializing and non-quiet activities, libraries have had to change their primary emphasis from providing collections to making library staff and patrons feel secure in the library.  Patrons who do not feel the library is a safe environment will not walk through its doors to use its resources.

Jeremy Johnson discussed person crimes (gang activity, criminal sexual conduct such as child porn, e-mail threats) and property crimes (identity theft, selling stolen property on Craig's List) and how these crimes can take place at the library.  Computer forensics involves gathering evidence from desktops, laptops, hand-held digital devices, and digital storage (discs, CDs, thumb drives) and is useful for recovering and analyzing data.

Ben talked of the importance of having procedure manuals in place and written policy.  They both stressed the importance of documenting incidences to establish patterns of behaviors and getting the police involved early.  Their presentation was timely as I am sure we have all seen the changes in the numbers and types of incidences in our libraries.

The noon luncheon featured Tim Spalding with his LibraryThing.com presentation on social cataloging.  Tim entertainingly updated those of us new to world of social cataloging, and tenderly stepped on a few library sacred cow toes in the process.  While being treated to a great lunch, we learned that LibraryThing offers users a way to personally catalog books they've read.  Users can rate the book, tag it by category or subject heading, provide non-traditional catalog information, write a personal review and show cover pictures.  LibraryThing helps you find others with similar interests.  Tagging lets you search by non-Library of Congress subject headings, such as "chick lit" and you can combine tags to narrow your search.  Overall, a fun way to spend my noon hour--but I missed my three mile walk.

Lauren Burnett's early afternoon conference session on Managing Negativity in the Workplace kept us alert as our minds slowed while our stomachs were digesting lunch.  Lauren said we usually have six seconds from a trigger to a reaction.  She helped us realize when we understand our triggers, we can control our reactions.  She taught us how to relax during conflict by standing firmly with shoulders down, arms at our sides and calmly breathing in and out through the nose.  She said, "The person conceived to be the calmest is the person conceived to be the most confident."  I've been to one of her presentations at an earlier conference and this was a good refresher.

The final Wednesday session I attended was 23 Things: Better Than a Deep Fried Twinkie.  It was interesting to hear from the panel of four people who were among the 600 who had finished all 23 Things.  Tim Johnson, Erika Rux, Linda Weinmann and Lynn Wyman spoke on the favorite things they learned.  Picasa, which is similar to Flickr, had terrific photo editing tools and was also great for creating and printing posters you could use in your library.  Another liked www.meeebo.com for linking Aim, Yahoo, Google Talk and MSN IM (instant messaging) accounts.  You Tube (watch "The Machine is Using Us") and Google calendar were other useful library tools.  Another panelist noted how 23 Things increased staff confidence and their general competency with Web 2.0 tools.  Another mentioned how using some of the tools had streamlined his work and how 23 Things created a new social network community.  If you haven't finished the 23 Things, it is still available--keep going.  Watch for More Things on a Stick in January 2009.