ALA Happy Mutants Rejoice! Library Boing Boing is here with its inaugural post! This is something that I’m very excited about, but haven’t had a chance to be as involved in as I originally would have liked (sorry Jenny and Jason). Basically, the amazing and wonderful Jenny Levine from ALA put together an opportunity to post to the great website boingboing.net using the name Librarylab. The content will be based around libraries and exposing all of the amazing things that libraries do for people on a non-library based forum (which you know I support).
Proposed Mission:
To bring librarians and Boing Boing readers (aka, Happy Mutants) together to generate support for and raise interest in libraries via projects at local libraries.
Proposed Goals:
• Help find and propose content about libraries that could be posted to Boing Boing.
• Provide active ways for Happy Mutants to support and get involved with their local libraries (eg, toolkits, best practices, ideas for local projects).
• Create dynamic programming at library conferences that Library Boing Boingers can then take outside of the library community to promote libraries (eg, SxSW, local community events, etc.).
• Work together to help Happy Mutants advance our shared interests (eg, copyright reform, net neutrality, game culture, digital divide issues, open government, etc.).
• Coordinate an international community of librarians working with their own Happy Mutant groups.
It’s being organized though the ALA Connect medium and you can join the backchannel discussion there. Jason Griffey and Jenny did an amazing job getting the folks together who did all of the background work and laid the foundation. But now, it’s time to get content and that’s where you come in! We’d love to hear what kinds of things your excited about in libraries that you think the world should know about. Have a great maker story from the library? A new library technology or innovation that you think the Happy Mutants would love to hear about? A thought on how folks can connect to the library in a new ways that people should know about? Tell us about something you think should be up on Boing Boing and see it up on the blog!
Here are the slides and video (thanks to Marie Slim) from the California library association 2011 conference in Pasadena. Thank you to everyone who made this whole thing happen! The Winner was Glen Warren who took the championship away from last year’s winner, Lori Bowen Ayre. The competition was fierce, the battle was epic and the winner was clear. This year’s champion received the Gold Microphone and a t-shirt of their choice from the 
The Battledecks event at the CLA/CSLA conference in Sacramento was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who came and supported (and hopefully enjoyed) the event, our amazing crew of judges, slidemakers, our gorgeous Vanna White, and of course the competitors. I also wanted to give quick background on Battledecks in libraryland and give some credit where it’s due. First of all, we all need to give a big THANK YOU to Janie Hermann who brought battledecks to library conferences in the first place at Internet Librarian in Monterey. She has been one of the great people that I have had the opportunity to know in librarianship. If you get a chance to meet her, everyone let her know how awesome she is. Also, I want to thank *
PC Sweeney 