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September 26, 2005
Finding focus on Flickr
I'm giving an online presentation on WebJunction Wednesday morning on how libraries can use Flickr (described here), which will include some bits from the article I wrote, as well as some practical application stuff from my experience with the Reading Public Library Flickr photostream. In trying to really solidify my presentation into the 15 minute time allotment, I'm happy to report that I am not lacking in content. If anything, I've got too much, and I need to cull out enough to keep it tight, but not so much that it isn't interesting.
I love being able to talk about Flickr as a tool (I just recently taught a class on using Flickr at my library), but it's hard for me to move away from the toy aspects that make me want to just sit and play with it. Flipping through the photos on the library's account, and skimming my current draft notes on our policies-in-progress, I'm finding it really hard not to want to upload photos, play with the photosets, tag to my heart's content, and check out all of the nifty tools that are coming out of the Flickr API development pool. I often wonder if the playtime syndrome is just a geek/power user/millenial habit, or if other librarians do this, too? I see my inner geek is pretty much fused with my librarian core, so sometimes it's hard to decipher if my behaviors are typically librarian or not.
I also need to get the swing of using Microsoft LiveMeeting from the presenter side. I've attended many online seminars using LiveMeeting, and I've often wanted to play with the advanced features , so I'm excited to finally have a chance to do that. Giving an online presentation does lack the audience feedback that you get when you present to a live crowd, which will be interesting. I will also need to apply a good deal of restraint from my normal computer multitasking tendencies ;).
Even with all of the interesting peril of something I've never done before taken into consideration, I'm very excited about Wednesday. I'm on a panel with two other awesomely interesting people, Aaron Schmidt of the Thomas Ford Memorial Library and Regan Robinson of the Stevens County Rural Library District, and I think we all have interesting experiences to share on using different online community tools in libraries. Since I hear registration is full, I'll post a link to the archive of the online event when it goes up.
September 26, 2005 2:42 PM