Blogging From New Mexico

Hello to Northwest Iowa from sunny, warm Albuquerque! Thanks to NWILS Board, I'm blogging from the Mt.Plains Library Conference in ABQ, as the natives have nicknamed the city.

While there were many pre-cons to choose from on Wednesday (3/14/07) the conference started for me today with the opening session's keynote speaker Joseph Janes. Among his many credentials, Mr. Janes is the chair of Library & Information Science at the University of Washington. He writes "The Internet Librarian" column for American Libraries, has authored 8 books on libraries and technlogy, and was one of the co-founders of The Internet Public Library.

His presentation was great--and very funny--we need to bring him to an ILA conference sometime soon! "What Libraries Need to do Now--and Why" encouraged the audience to interact on the web in the same ways that our customers are already doing. We need to creat blogs and wikis, not to mention great websites. We need to make our own videos on YouTube and promote our services on MySpace.

All of which bolsters the need for NWILS to raise awareness and promote these concepts, encouraging libraries to blend traditional services with new approaches that technology affords. Guess what--much of this is the focus of C.E. JAMBOREE this year! More on the Mt. Plains sessions tomorrow and in EYE-OPENER...