Nylink’s Annual Meeting, “Evolution & Transformation: Get Ready for the Future!,” is coming up May 5-6 with speakers addressing such topics as leadership, the future of cataloging, and making the most of Web 2.0. Learn more about our Annual Meeting at http://nylink.org/events/amtg08.cfm.

One of the speakers, Jessamyn West, will talk about “Web 2.0 and the Open Library.” In a March 19, 2008 posting to her librarian.net blog entitled “Why should libraries be socially networking?”, Jessamyn suggested how librarians could learn about and get involved with Web 2.0 technologies.

She talked about Vermont’s 23 Things, an online continuing education program for library staff in her home state that’s based on the Learning 2.0 online course developed by Helene Blowers, formerly with the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County (PLCMC) in Charlotte, N.C., and currently Director of Digital Strategy for the Columbus Metropolitan Library in Columbus, Ohio.

Helene’s Learning 2.0 program provides library staff with 23 exercises that allow them to learn about and experiment with blogs, wikis, RSS, image sites, podcasting, and other Web 2.0 technologies. Over 250 libraries and other organizations have duplicated the Learning 2.0 program for their staffs including Queens Library in New York City.

To see what else I discovered in browsing Jessamyn’s blog, take a look at my “What’s Up on the Web?” column in the April issue of Nylink’s Status Line newsletter, to be available soon at Nylink’s Publications page at http://nylink.org/publications/. Or, take yourself on a tour of Jessamyn’s librarian.net blog.

We hope to see you at Nylink’s Annual Meeting where you can hear Jessamyn West in person along with our many other fine speakers: Richard A. Detweiler, President, Great Lakes Colleges Association, on transformational leadership; Zsuzsa Koltay, Special Projects Librarian, Cornell University, on Web 2.0 and WorldCat Local; Mary Catherine Little, Technical Services Director, Queens Borough Public Library, and Robert Wolven, Associate University Librarian, Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, on the outcome of The Library of Congress Working Group on the Future of Bibliographic Control. Nylink Executive Director W. David Penniman will also provide a report.

Personalizing Your Virtual Reference
Nylink Community Brown Bag Lunch
Co-sponsored with CLRC
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 11:30am -1pm
Mid-York Library System

Reference is no longer the traditional face to face, it now includes text messaging, email, chat, instant messaging. Embarking into the virtual world of reference is an exciting sometimes daunting experience.

How in these untraditional/virtual environments do we maintain a personal touch?

How do we keep reference viable?

Now that we have these new tools how do we increase reference usage?

Join us to share your answers to some or all of these questions or to hear what your colleagues have to say.

This event is free and open to anyone interested in talking, listening and learning.

We’ll provide the beverages and tasty treats you provide your own brown bag lunch and ideas.

April is a time of renewal, freshness and Earth Day. Celebrate spring and the earth at our next Brown Bag Lunch!

Going Green in the Library
Nylink Community Brown Bag Lunch
Co-sponsored with RRLC
Monday April 28, noon-1:30
Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, NY

Many libraries are going green: using environmentally sustainable products and practices, assessing their environmental footprint and even building new “Green” libraries that lessen the impact of the library on the environment.

Are you currently doing any of the following or interested in learning more about:

Built a LEED certified library?
Practicing energy efficiency through the use of natural light and better lighting design?
Recycling paper and other waste?
Utilizing green energy such as wind or solar power?
Practicing water conservation through low-flow plumping and irrigating with reclaimed water?
Purchasing new energy star rated equipment?

Come to Roberts Wesleyan College to see their new green library, hear about ways others have begun to implement environmentally sound practices and share your own experiences with “Going Green” .

Bring your lunch and ideas and we will provide goodies and drinks.

After our lunch take a tour of Robert Wesleyan’s new library!
http://www.roberts.edu/Library/

Registration is strongly encouraged. You can register by emailing dowlingd@nylink.org and including your name, institution and email contact information.

Greetings from the Computers in Libraries conference in Arlington, Va., where 2200 library and information technology professionals are enjoying three days of conference programs with Web 2.0/Library 2.0 a dominant theme. New York State is well-represented with 120 attendees who took advantage of the registration discounts available through Nylink.

Day 1 was jam-packed with information-rich programs which for me started out with a session featuring Web search guru Mary Ellen Bates who highlighted 30 of the latest interesting and useful search sites (which I’ll be sharing here or in other Nylink publications – stay tuned!). In another program about “engaging the audience,” librarians from Penn State and Temple University showed us how they’ve employed Web 2.0 tools to make users’ experiences more pleasing and productive. In fact, this session reflected common themes in today’s sessions: integrating resources for easy and seamless information discovery, and encouraging user contribution for the benefit of all.

Penn State created a streamlined and simplified portal to resources for undergraduate students entitled “Research JumpStart” (http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruction/jumpstart.htm) that employs widgets created with Widgetbox (http://www.widgetbox.com/). Temple University employed LibGuides software from Springshare (http://www.springshare.com/libguides/index.html) to make their online subject guides more useful and engaging to students. No more all-text lists of resources. Check out Temple’s guides at http://guides.temple.edu/index.php.

Coming up in the next two days: next-generation library catalogs, open source applications, Twitter, wikis, del.icio.us, and much more. And I’ll be sharing the highlights!

The (infamous) OCLC AppleCake!
[reprinted from OLUC 25 by George Promenschenkel]

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of WorldCat, the OCLC Online Union Catalog, Patricia G. Beam, of the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary Clifford E. Barbour Library, prepared a display of OCLC memorabilia and baked the “famous” OCLC apple cake.

Famous? Well, it does have a history at OCLC. Although details are sketchy, the apple cake recipe became famous when, in 1974, someone entered the recipe into the database in the form of a MARC record. Eventually, nearly 200 locations were listed as holding the item.

Infamous? Although the recipe was tasty enough, its inclusion in the OCLC Online Union Catalog was determined to be contrary to the purposes of the cooperative venture, and the record was removed.

The story doesn’t end there, however. The record was apparently re-entered and removed again, at least once and by some accounts several times. Today, the recipe is no longer one of the more than 35 million records in WorldCat. However, it is one of the recipes found in the OCLC Employees’ Cookbook (1990), which is recorded in WorldCat (OCLC Number: 23095843).—George Promenschenkel is public relations writer, OCLC.