Today was the first full day of the Internet Librarian conference. I really like that the sessions are for the most part, only 45 minutes long. I am able to pay attention that long so I attended four sessions today. The opening keynote was presented by Lee Rainie and included discussion of 2.0 and the Internet. I must say that 2.0 everything is the buzz at this conference.
I attended Cranky? Boomers and Older Adults are Greying the Internet. Check out the cRANKy search engine - the first age relevant search engine. I really like it, at least the little bit I have been able to peruse it. If you work with seniors, develop courses and pathways just for them. Other suggested sites were: www.eldr.com and boomertown.
The Ageless Project is an interesting site that categorizes blogs and web pages by the age of the creator. Take note that there are two people listed born in the 1910's that have blogs online. Who says that our older patrons are not ready for computers!
I also attended Multimedia Search by Ran Hock. I had heard of most of the search techniques and sources for video, audio and images. However, two that he mentioned that were new to me: Exalead and Blinkx. Exalead offers multimedia refining tools that are very easy to use. Check it out as another search alternative. Blinkx has over 18 million hours of video that can be searched and downloaded.
The Cool Tools for Library Webmasters was interesting but at times over my head since I am not a webmaster. One site to check out was the site map builder from Google. And finally I attended the Integrating Libraries and Communities Online that detailed the bookspace site at Hennepin County Library. Hennepin has done an excellent job with this tool. If you haven't seen this site - check it out. It is patterned after Amazon as far as book reviews, book lists and book comments are submitted by users of the library. This really incorporates your users with your web page - this collaboration is vital in building relationships with users.
On an important side note - I also saw three Humpback whales, several sea otters and countless sea lions. If we could just move the conference outside.........
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