Metametametadata

NELINET Annual Meeting

Welcome to lovely Worcester, MA and yet more library conference blogging!

We're at the Annual Meeting of NELINET, the New England regional chapter of OCLC, then national library technical services consortium.

I was invited by my boss to attend the NELINET Annual Meeting this year because there are two programs of interest, "The Googlification of Everything, and What it Means for Libraries," about which topic I will be writing my own paper based upon my current experience trying to incorporate the metadata I've written for MIT OpenCourseWare into the MIT Google Search Appliance, and "Course Management Systems, Learning Object Repositories, and the Changing Role of Libraries," given by my friend and colleague Michael Roy from Wesleyan College, for whom I consulted a year ago developing a Learning Object Metadata Application Profile for his Learning Objects Learning Activities (LOLA) metadata repository.

At the actual Annual Meeting this morning, the NELINET board outlined a plan to update their service model and investigate the current and future state of the member libraries through surveys and focus groups. The board member explaining the investigation asked the librarians present to recommend their young, visionary librarians for the focus groups. NELINET wants to hear from the "new breed" of librarian. This isn't the first call for the voice of the "new breed" that I've heard. It seems everyone is interested in what they have to say. Yet, it doesn't seem as if there is a ready made channel like these focus groups for the "new breed" to influence the direction libraries are taking. Yet at NELINET, a major force in New England libraries, I saw no other young persons in the room (and only Mike Roy and I are sitting next to the electrical outlet, working away on our laptops as the keynote speaker talks about social augmentation and network technology). I am extremely lucky to be a professional at my age and to work on the wonderful, cutting edge projects I do (see above). I am the new breed of librarian, and I have a very strong vision for the future of libraries, which vision grows everyday from direct experience with that future. What I am grappling with, and why I post to this weblog is: how do I share this vision in a way that maximizes its influence? And how do I secure the professional time to organize and prepare the vision I want to share?

I just saw the Associate Director of Collection Services from my library. I wonder if she'll recommend me for participation in these focus groups.