“Library as Third Place” presentation

Note: Republished on Monday, August 9. Originally written in July 2010.

As we look forward to Tech Day 2010 (one of my favorite library events of the year), I thought you might be interested in looking at the slides from “Library as Third Place”, a presentation this year’s Tech Day keynote speaker John Blyberg gave to the U.S. – Russia Civil Society to Civil Society (C2C) Summit in Washington, D.C. last month. Kathryn Greenhill (an Australian librarian) has a write-up on her blog about the presentation.

A big reason why I’m so excited about this year’s Tech Day is I’m beginning to see that many people are at a point with technology where the “ooh, shiny” and “ooh that’s brand new, let’s try that” responses are becoming extremely old and frustrating. I have these thoughts several times a day now, and it’s impossible to keep up with every possible technology change and trend — and it’s my job! What about the rest of the library profession? And our patrons? How do we bring technology into our libraries without being distracted by every new trend, overwhelming ourselves and our patrons?

I think the Darien Library is onto something, looking past the technology and directly focusing on the patrons, and I look forward to hearing more about “The Compassionate Library Experience”:

What we do has not changed, but how we do it has. In an information-based economy, the role of an information professional can be ambiguous, unnerving, and uncharted. To our users, this new world can be completely overwhelming. But we can design library experiences that provide the context our communities need to continue to thrive and give our citizens the opportunity to discover the intellectual riches that are theirs by right.

Meanwhile, here are the slides from “Library as Third Place” presentation:

Photo credit: “Blowing on the surface,” by Flickr user gretchichi, licensed under Creative Commons.