Virtual Dave…Real Blog

District Dispatch Podcast #26

R. David Lankes, Director, Information Institute of Syracuse; Associate Professor, Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies; Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) Fellow
Andy Bridges, Communications Director, ALA Washington Office
Subject

In his role as OITP Fellow, Dave Lankes (pictured) has been engaging library schools across the country in conversations about the importance of participatory librarianship. In this episode of the District Dispatch Podcast, he tells listeners a little bit about it.

For video of Dave’s presentation at Drexel, please visit his blog. And be sure to head over to ptbed.org to learn all about participatory librarianship and how you can take part.

Program Length
14 minutes, 19 seconds

Check it out:

http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=355

Here is a video cast of a presentation from Drexel’s iSchool Speaker Series. It covers some of the same ground of Scapes (if you’ve seen Scapes, you might just want to skip over that part), but with an emphasis on the implications of participatory concepts to LIS education.

For those who want a higher quality version, you can go to http://ptbed.org/downloads/BigIdeas.mp4

“Participatory Libraries” Drexel University School of Information and Technology College Colloquium Series, Philadelphia, PA.

Abstract: The library landscape is constantly in flux. New technologies, new practices, and new theories are the sign of an active field. However, these dynamic forces also lead to confusion and conflict. It also leads to a spate of new services and functions that are sometimes awkward to integrate into existing research, operations and curricula. In today’s world of Web 2.0, Library 2.0, social networks, blogs and wiki’s what concepts are durable and what is new that must be imparted to the next generation of professionals? Thinking through this issue – its technological and professional implications and legislative and policy overlaps – is an example of the type of work conducted at the American Library Association’s (ALA’s) Washington Office. ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), a part of the Washington Office, and Syracuse University’s Information Institute of Syracuse have initiated a project to examine this issue under the rubric of participatory librarianship (http://ptbed.org). Simply put, participatory librarianship recasts library and library practice from the fundamental concept that knowledge is created through conversation. Since libraries are in the knowledge business they are, therefore, in the conversation business – in both the digital and physical worlds. Participatory librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation. Be it in practice, policies, programs and/or tools, participatory librarians seek to enrich, capture, store and disseminate the conversations of their communities. As part of this effort, project researchers are seeking input from library and information science (LIS) faculty and students on how participatory concepts can be integrated into curricula and to identify ongoing related research. The input of the LIS research and education community will be incorporated into a Participatory Library Starter Kit. This starter kit will present case studies from a wide variety of settings including: public, federal, and academic libraries; library vendors; and, of course, the LIS research and education community.
Slides: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Presentations/2008/Drexel.pdf
Audio: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/pod/Drexel.mp3
Video: http://ptbed.org/downloads/BigIdeas.mp4

“Virtual Reference to Participatory Librarianship: Expanding the Conversation” Lankes, R. David (forthcoming). ASIS&T Bulletin

“Participatory Networks: The Library as Conversation.” Lankes, R. David, Silverstein, J. L., Nicholson, S. 52(2). Information Technology and Libraries.

“Collecting Conversations in a Massive Scale World” Lankes, R. David (forthcoming). Library Resources & Technical Services

http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Publications/Journals/LRTS-RDL.pdf

“Credibility on the Internet: Shifting From Authority to Reliability” Lankes, R. David (2008). Journal of Documentation 64(5).

http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Publications/Journals/credibilityontheinternet.pdf

The National Library of China has done a superb job of translating and re-publishing Statistics, Measures and Quality Standards for Assessing Digital Reference Library Services: Guidelines and Procedures. McClure, C., Lankes, R. David, Gross, M., and Choltco-Devlin, B.

I’ve uploaded a video of the presentation I gave at the OCLC Symposium on Reference and Social Networking. Part of the demonstration is a mock up of a new participatory reference application called Scapes:

“Scapes” OCLC Symposium on Reference and Social Networking, Philadelphia, PA.

Abstract: Who said reference has to be one person, one librarian, one question? Can reference be a social activity? How can we truly put the user at the center of reference? How can we re-imagine reference as a learning activity where the reference librarian facilitates learning? David Lankes will focus on reference as a truly participatory process and how such a process can take advantage in the latest in web technologies.
Slides: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/Presentations/2008/Scapes.pdf
Audio: http://quartz.syr.edu/rdlankes/pod/OCLC-Scapes.mp3
Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4867328898935259711