Vote For My Staff’s Amazing Conversation Starters at ALA San Francisco.

Posted on by pcsweeney

11001569_10153175109823707_6698739412170076201_oI’m going to take a minute and brag and recklessly hype these conversation starters from my staff and not feel bad about it. In my library my staff are doing amazing things and I would love to have them share with the rest of the library community.  For example, they consistently have huge turnouts to our library programs because of their marketing.  They are also working really hard to get more women involved in the maker movement with the Make-HER program, creating a platform for the library to be an independent publisher of eBooks, and making our staff training activities fun.

What is a conversation starter?
Conversation Starters are lectures, panels or discussions and will take place at ALA in San Francisco on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. The wide range of emerging topics, trends and innovations in the 36 Conversation Starters are what make them so powerful.  But they are made even bigger because they are the presentations that you choose through your votes.

Click on the links below to go to the voting site for these presentations.

Holy Moly, 100 Adults Came?!? WTF?
Are you tired of spending hours preparing for a program when only 10 people show up? So were we. Sunnyvale librarians discovered the secret of attracting large crowds by using marketing tools and choosing timely topics. With personal interests as sources of inspiration, we created innovative programs on such topics as starting a vegetable garden,  adults-only crafting, showcasing electric vehicles, using the 3D printer, and more. Learn steps for success, participate in a brainstorming session, and walk away with a practical toolkit to help you take your adult programs to the next level.

Spice Up Your Staff Training – Ninja Style
Got new resources? Staff? Need a reboot? Create a team challenge that brings everyone up to speed.  Through seven online challenges, Sunnyvale Public Library managers and staff worked together to become Tech Ninjas.  Managers upped the ante by pledging performance art upon completion of each task. Unlock the Discover & Go level and sing “Take a Load Off, Annie” with a manager on guitar. Conquer Encore and watch “Green Eggs and Ham” come to life.  Learn eBook basics and see a manager go blonde.   Fun, free, and customizable — learn how to Ninja-fy your library!

From Maker to Make-HER: Leveling the STEM Playing Field for Girls​
How do techie girls make their way in what’s been termed a “bro-grammer” culture?  Despite advances in other fields, women still are vastly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math professions (STEM).  Explore how public libraries can support girls and engage mothers as mentors through project-based STEM learning.  Get inspired by Make-HER instructors, discover what’s hot in the Maker Movement, and explore the practicalities of Library as Make-HER Space.  Finally, unleash your inner maker and learn-by-doing as #LadyMakers lead participants through a mini Make-HER project.

eBook Maker: Libraries as Independent Publishers
The Sunnyvale Public Library currently offers 3D printing services as well as a series of adult crafting programs, and just this year will publish an eBook anthology featuring local writers. The idea for the Bay Area Library ePublishers (BALE) project developed as a response to these “maker” programs, seeking to provide support and an artistic space for local writers. This panel discussion will feature librarians from Sunnyvale Public Library that took part in the project as they share their experiences of creating their own eBook, while providing a blueprint for libraries and librarians interested in pursuing publishing programs and platforms.

And a few for me…
Ok… A little bragging and recklessly hyping about the ones that I’m involved in too. EveryLibrary submitted a conversation starter to share what we’ve learned on the campaign trail and to help libraries learn about what they can start doing today to win elections years from now. You won’t want to miss this opportunity to ensure your library remains well funded for years to come.  I’m also presenting an interactive conversation starter on Professional Networking and Schmoozing based on my recent article in Library Journal. If you want to learn how to engage your peers and colleagues or build rapport with members of your community, you’re going to need to learn to schmooze!

SuperPAC Advocacy Hacks for your Library
Ever wonder why the nation’s largest SuperPACs are so successful at political advocacy? These organizations are well funded, well supported, and are able to convince thousands of Americans to take action to further their agenda.  But what if libraries could use the tools, tips, and tricks used by these organizations to support libraries? In this session, the folks from EveryLibrary (the nation’s first and only PAC for libraries) will share what they’ve learned from national PACs and through their political action activities in support of libraries.

Schmoozing for Beginners
Professional networking and schmoozing are two of the most important skills a librarian can have. They are not taught in MLIS programs, and being proficient at both was one of the hardest lessons I had to learn. In order to get the projects done in my community that I was passionate about, move my library forward, and garner political support, I realized that I needed to take advantage of the many professional and political social opportunities going on around me. This presentation shares many of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned that have been successful for me.

Speaking at Your Library Event

Posted on by pcsweeney

speakingAs a library subject-specialist, I can speak on a variety of topics for your library school, association and library system. Throughout my career I have been a featured speaker and keynoter for staff development days, in-services, conference programs, and pre-conference workshops. As a library manager I have the ability to relate to the workplace challenges and professional development goals of library staff, trustees, and friends. If you are looking for fresh and engaging presentation topics and styles, I have been providing these skills to libraries for the last 6 years.

I have been a frequent speaker, presenter, and workshop leader at library conferences around the country as well as a participant in the Great Library Roadshow. My conference presentations are focused on supporting your conference theme with stories and data that are inspirational, motivating, and actionable for your attendees. I address individual outcomes as well as organizational engagement with relevant content to address your unique library community.

My areas of Expertise and Experience;
• Innovative technology
• Program development
• Library partnerships and collaborations
• Collection development
• Creative fundraising
• Library management
• Teen librarianship
• School librarianship
• Professional development and networking

I also speak on behalf of EveryLibrary on the following;
• Library elections and campaigns
• Politics and libraries
• Best practices in library advocacy
• GOTV and info only campaigns
• Campaign bootcamps, trainings, and workshops

Please contact me directly for information about honorarium and travel expenses as well as my availability. Please note that if you choose me as your library conference keynote speaker or workshop leader, an additional conference program presentation or panel elsewhere during the session day is included, if desired.

Previous Speaking Engagements
Future of Libraries Conference 2010– Building Social Media Capital
Internet Librarian 2010 – The Library eBranch: More Than Just a Website
Internet Librarian 2012, California Library Association 2012 – Speed Technology Dating
Internet Librarian 2012, Computers in Libraries 2013 – Teen Library Users: Engaging the Next Generation
Library 2.0 – Making it Happen: Take Action
Computers in Libraries 2013 – Ask IT (Honest Answers from your IT Department)
ALA MW 2013 – Leading your Career: Stand Out and Be Outstanding
ALA Annual 2012 – Professional Networking
New Jersey Library Association – Me, We (a workshop on collaboration and innovation in libraries)
Public Library Association 2012 – Engaging Customers in an Online Environment
Public Library Association – What makes A Collection? Redefining Libraries through their collections.

We Can’t Help But Librarianing Challenge for #ALAM13

Posted on by pcsweeney

I was sitting in a car once with a bunch of great librarian when Toby Greenwalt said, in response to a conversation about librarians that “We can’t help but librarianing.” Well, I just thought about that because right now, I’m sitting in the airport on the way to ALAMW and just helped a lady get on the interwebs on her Lenovo tablet. I’ve been around many other librarians who do a lot of the same thing. For example I’ve been on an airplane when Andrea Davis did the mile high reference desk. And just now, when I got on Facebook, I read that Emily Clasper (that’s Emily FUCKING Clasper to you) left the following status:

“Shared a ride to JFK with a charming 81 year old man… a retired lawyer, library lover, using his iPhone like a boss. I showed him our app, helped him download sone ebooks, and helped him access Library of Congress digitized collections. The 24 year old driver was amazed. He’s stopping at his library this afternoon to get a card and learn this stuff.”

I realized that Toby is absolutely right! We just can’t help ourselves but librarian everywhere we go. I’m sure that there are a whole lot more stories about librarianing from many of the other librarians out there. So I’m setting forth this challenge;

  • 1) Librarian on your way to the conference, while you’re at the conference, and on the ride home. It only counts if you librarian someone who isn’t themselves a librarian.


  • 2) Tell the world about it with the hash tag #librarianing. Bonus points for pictures.


    • Basically, I want to see how many librarians can’t help themselves but librarian while at ALAMW and I want the public to know that we do so much great work off the reference desk and away from the branch. I would love for people to see that librarianing occurs while we’re at conferences, or on a plane, or a train, or wherever we are. So let people know!

    Library advocacy 5

    My Blog Post of Awesome Things for #alamw13

    Posted on by pcsweeney

    Its not long before we’re all at ALA Midwinter and Making it Happen and Partying Hard. As usual, I have a long list of meetings to attend all day, every day. I won’t bore you with all the details of my entire schedule, but I will give you some highlights of things that you should know about , that are open to everyone, and that you might want to add to yours. You should know that many of these links are to Facebook Events because that’s the only place they exist but you can find many of them on ALA Conference Scheduler (which is awesome for putting together your conference schedule)

    Think Tank Thursday Night
    For all you folks who Made it Happen and came to ALAMW13 on Thursday night, this event is for you. This is the ALA Think Tank meetup and social event to start out the conference right. Come out to Linda’s Tavern at 7pm and have a drink and meet other folks from the ALA Think Tank live and in person and some of the Seattle Natives at this neighborhood dive bar.

    LITA Happy Hour
    LITA is always one of the best networking opportunities at ALA. It’s happening at the Elephant and Castle from 5:30-7:30. The librarians involved in LITA are doing some of the most exciting and innovative work in library technology. You probably read their blogs or follow them on twitter or you might have read their books! Come out and meet all these fines folks in person.

    Emerging Leaders Social
    This is a great opportunity to join Emerging Leaders past and present at the Emerging Leaders Meetup at the Elephant and Castle from 8-10pm right after the LITA. This is an excellent opportunity to network with other ELers who are emerging, have emerged, or will emerge eventually. If you haven’t been an emerging leader and you’re interested in learning more about this program, or if you want to just come and have some drinks with some excellent librarians, you are also welcome to join us.

    Tumblr Meetup
    What is Tumblr? Do you Tumbl? No, I don’t get on it much neither and I don’t actually know a whole lot about it. I do know that a lot of awesome people are on Tumblr and I want to meet them all. If you want to meet all the Tumblarians IRL then you should come to this event.

    LBB Meeting
    If you are a fan of BoingBoing.net you should come to a meeting that showcases the ALA and Librarianship’s involvement in this great blog. You can meet fellow Happy-Mutants, get involved in building up this group of librarians, and hear about great things in libraries around the world who are doing wonderful things and popular culture-related issues (such as net neutrality, steampunk, etc.), as well as makerspaces and digital learning labs. We guarantee you’ll hear about at least one great project another library is implementing that will inspire you. This meeting happens early on Saturday at 8:30am so get ready!

    Ignite
    This year at Midwinter, the ALA Think Tank is excited to announce the first ever Ignite ALA! It will be held in the Networking Uncommons from 12-1 on Saturday. If you’re not familiar with Ignite, Ignite is a geek event that is being held in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes. Many of these presentations are recorded live and broadcast or archived to be shared around the world. This will be ALA’s first ever attempt to Ignite our passions for our profession!!

    NMRT Social
    If you are a new member to the ALA or this is one of your first conferences, I know it can be overwhelming. The New Member Round Table is here to help you out. This social event at the Dragon Fish Café from 5:30-7:30 will help you find out more about the organization and meet some great people.


    Tweet-up
    This year’s tweetup will happen directly in-between the NMRT Social at 5:30 and the EveryLibrary/librarianwardrobe.com After-hours party at 10pm at the Baltic Room. Come and hang out with other Twitter folks and have a drink and maybe dance a little.

    ALAMW Afterhours
    This is one of the most entertaining nights of the conference when everyone comes together and has a good time. You have a great opportunity to meet a lot of fun people who are just out to have a good time. This event is brought to you by EveryLibrary and Library Wardobe at 10pm at Linda’s Tavern.

    Young Turks UNITE!
    Young Turks Unite! is an anti-reception for the critical thinkers, the up-and-comers, and the true movers and shakers (LJ ratings do not apply) of the library world at the Diller Room at 9pm on Sunday. If you have a fire in your heart and want to shake up the universe of what we call librarianship, you are invited to join a group of like-minded, passionate professionals for an evening of conversation, provocation, and perhaps even revolution.


    Maker Monday
    Maker Monday is an exciting day filled with all kinds of events and activities to help you get informed and involved in the latest from the makerspace movement in librarianship. It also provides a chance for successful programs to share their stories and for librarians to meet fellow makers.

    Every Library Board Meeting
    As a Board Member of EveryLibrary, I highly encourage you all to attend our first Board Meeting. If you’re not familiar with EveryLibrary, “it is the first and only national organization dedicated exclusively to political action at a local level to create, renew, and protect public funding for libraries of all types. We provide tactical and operational support to local voter awareness campaigns, seed and sustaining monies to local ballot committees and PACs, as well as conduct direct voter advocacy in support of library taxing, bonding, and referendum.” Basically, its the very first library PAC!


    ALA Council
    I do have to plug ALA Council too. Even if you’re not officially on Council, you should remember that ALA is a member driven organization. If you want to see who’s driving, you should come to council and watch how it works. You can see memorial resolutions, dues increases, and a variety of other issues being discussed. I promise that only half of the councilors will try to talk you into running for council.

    ALA Council Forum
    I know that Aaron Dobbs would say that everyone should go to this so I’ll say it too. The Council Forum is the behind the scenes and nitty-gritty of ALA Council. This is where a lot of the real debate and the real compromise happens. If you really want to see what makes ALA Council run, you should check this out. It would be absolutely amazing to not just have ALA councilors here so that they hear some voices of reason! Come in a speak your mind.

    That’s my list of stuff that I’m inviting you to join me at. What are you doing?

    library advocacy 2

    Ignite Sessions at #ALAMW13

    Posted on by pcsweeney

    Ignite ALAThis year at Midwinter, the ALA Think Tank is excited to announce the first ever Ignite ALA! If you’re not familiar with Ignite, Ignite is a geek event that is being held in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes. Many of these presentations are recorded live and broadcast or archived to be shared around the world. This will be ALA’s first ever attempt to Ignite our passions for our profession!!

    We are looking for around 8-10 presenters on any number of topics. These topics can be library related, or just something that you are passionate about. Maybe you have a presentation that you already gave, one that you are working on, or something that wasn’t accepted for a full ALA Session? This is your shot to debut the most radical or passionate idea you have and Ignite your passion in the rest of our profession!

    If you think you have what it takes, all you need to do is leave a comment below with your name and topic. Then, put together your deck of 20 slides that advance every 15 seconds and start practicing. The Ignite session will be held in the Networking Uncommons on Saturday at Noon at ALA Midwinter.

    For more information about Ignite in general, take a look at their website for more details and to see who else has signed up, take a look at our Facebook event page or the Networking Uncommons page for ALAMW13

    Presenters and Topics (so far)
    JP Porcaro – Something Awesome TBA
    Angie Manfredi – YA Fiction
    Beth Hereford Patin – Libraries: Information’s First Responder
    Kate Kosturski – ALA CraftCon
    Patrick Sweeney – The Story Sailboat
    Tom Bruno – How To Change All The Things: A #MakeItHappen 2012 Retrospective
    K.G Schnieder- Radical Optimsim
    Amy Buckland- Doing Things that Scare You

    If you’re looking for a good explanation of the why and how of giving an Ignite talk, then take a look at this presentation by O’Reilly author Scott Berkun. He does a great job of summarizing what can be achieved in five minutes with twenty slides. Here’s a short video to share:

    Library advocacy 3

    What to do at the California Library Association Conference!

    Posted on by pcsweeney

    The California Library Association conference is coming up in just a few days and this year it looks like there’s going to be some great stuff happening there. If you’re not from California or you don’t know about the conference, it’s going to happen on November 3-4 in San Jose at the convention center. I’ve been planning my time at the conference and I wanted to share with you some of the awesome things that I found that were happening there. I would almost always say that you should be following the twitter hashtag for more conference details, but it looks like they don’t have one and the CLA Twitter Account isn’t using one either. Rick Thomchick did have one tweet about CLA and used the Hashtag #cla2012 but I just found out that the actual conference hashtag is #calibconf please feel free to join in the conference back chatter there with us!

    Friday Night Preconference Social
    A lot of people are coming into town the night before the conference and probably trying to figure out what to do with their Friday night. Why not come out and socialize and network with some local library folks? So, I’m putting together this meetup for Friday night at the Tanq bar which is conveniently located in the official conference Marriot Hotel. All local library staff who aren’t attending the conference can come have a drink and network with those of you who are coming out! It’ll be a great time and a good opportunity to make connections and plan your conference experience with some good people. To see who’s coming or for more details you can check out the FB Event Page.

    Battledecks
    Battledecks is a fun competition between presenters at a conference. The first time I saw it was at Internet Librarian where it went to ALA and then I brought it to CLA about two years ago. I’m excited to see the tradition carried on and I’m also excited because I don’t have to organize it! Basically, what happens is that presenters go on stage to make a presentation out of a deck of powerpoint slides that they’ve never seen before. The slides are often fun or funny and it usually makes for an entertaining presentation regardless of the skill of the presenter. You can check out the Facebook Event Page for more info or you can just know that the battle begins Saturday at 8 in the Marriot Salons 1 and 2.

    Biblio Follies: Books Booze and Burlesque
    Paul Sims put together a great night of librarians just for fun and networking at the Blank Club on Saturday Night at 9pm. There is also a Facebook Event Page for for information. So, if you’re in town for CLA or just want to party it up with some awesome librarians and catch performances by Bunny Pistol & Barbary Coast Cabaret with DJ Tanoa “Samoa Boy”, then you should come out and have some fun with all of us. It’s a great way to get together and celebrate our profession.

    BTW… This is also a fundraiser for EveryLibrary the brand new Library PAC so come out and support libraries at the ballot box while having a good time!

    SLISconnect/ALASC Happy Hour
    While the one big school in California is San Jose SLIS, there are many librarians who went to other schools or librarians who are currently enrolled in other programs. So, really… If you’re a student, were a student, or one time met a library student you can come and meet up with students and alumni at the SLISConnect/ALASC happy hour and make some new friends! Once again, you can check the Facebook page for more info otherwise the event will be at the Tanq Bar at San Jose Marriott 301 S. Market St. from 4:30-6pm.

    My Presentations
    Of course, I’m always one to self promote! So I have two things going on at CLA this year. The first is a poster session for the Story Sailboat that you should come check out. If you’re not familiar with our project, Joey and I are running a Library and Literacy advocacy project in the Bay Area by sailboat that was funded by crowdsourcing on IndieGoGo. You can come check out all the details in the Exhibit Hall. The second thing I’m doing is a presentation with Andrew Carlos and Brooke Carey Ahrens called Expand Your Mind that will show off 30 different emerging technologies that you can implement in your library cheaply and easily! It’s a kind of Speed Dating for Technology so come and find a tech to fall in love with.

    Social Media Roundup of Internet Librarian

    Posted on by pcsweeney

    So you didn’t go to Internet Librarian? That’s Ok. The best thing about internet Librarian is that everyone is so… Internety. All of the awesome stuff that happened throughout the conference was digitally shared via all kinds of avenues. Instead of making you scour the interwebs for all of this stuff, I’ve created the following roundup of online postings, tweets, blogs, etc… That you should check out from the conference.

    Blogs
    The first thing you should check out is Librarian in Black’s live-blogging series of conference sessions. If you don’t know of Sarah, first climb out from under the rock then read her posts here. This is probably the most complete series of blog posts about the conference on the web. Every single one of the sessions that she attended were summarized in pretty great detail. It’s almost as good as being there.

    Stephen Abram posted the slides and some extra information about the Teen preconference Session on his blog Stephen’s Lighthouse. I had a great time presenting with a fantastic panel of librarians and IT folks at this preconference. Everyone had some amazing ideas and great information!

    The most controversial session was the Wednesday Morning Keynote with Roy Tennant and Steve Coffman. I won’t go into all the controversy, but it was fairly entertaining and the good stuff from the session was summed up on the infotoday blog.

    Justin Hoenke listed a bunch of the great tweets coming out of Internet librarian on his blog. This is a great compilation of the awesome things that were talked about throughout the conference. You won’t have to rely on the twitter search and LONG string RTs and replies etc… This is just the cream of the crop.

    Twitter
    Of course, if you want to see EVERYTHING that happened at the conference that was important, its pretty easy to perform a search on the ever present twitter but you should remember that there was some confusion about what hashtag to use, so be sure to search both #il2012 and the official hashtag #internetlibrarian. I feel like less people were tweeting this conference than last year, but there was still a lot of really interesting discussions that went on there.

    In fact, one of the key takeaways on the twitter backchannel of the conference was that people need to stop using QR Codes in libraries. I thought this was funny because when people post about QR Codes, I always snarkely post this back. However, I have nothing on the snarkyness of the Librarian in Black, and in fact, her tweet was the most retweeted and responded to tweets at IL.

    Just as a cool sidenote to twitter, info today posted this graphic on their Facebook page that graphically shows people’s tweets! Very cool.

    Storify
    I am excited to see Storify get some great use at this conference. This was one of the best uses of Storify that I can think of since Lisa Carlucci’s coverage of the Great Library Roadshow. In this Stori, Cecily pieces together a great online discussion of the transformative power of libraries.

    Flickr
    Jason Griffey created an amazing device called the Library Box and Polly-Alida Farrington built one for just $30. She brought it to IL and had everyone take a picture with it. You can see just how small and manageable the device is. In fact, we talked about it at the Speed Technology Dating program and some of it’s possible uses inside librarians or tabling at community events.

    Slideshare
    While there aren’t many posted just yet, there are probably going to be a large amount of slide decks being posted to Slideshare. I could only find a few, but hopefully people will tag their decks with either #il2012 or #internetlibrarian and we can find them all.

    If you posted something about Internet Librarian that you would like to share, please feel free to link it below in the comments!

    Speed Technology Dating Slides at Internet Librarian

    Posted on by pcsweeney

    These are the slides from our presentation at Internet Librarian 2012. Toby Greenwalt, Jeremy Snell, and Patrick Sweeney compiled a list of 30 new kinds of technology that can be easily and cheaply implemented in your library.