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Recap of Minitex ILL Conference

trendsThis year was the 25th anniversary of this annual conference, and a festive atmosphere was definitely in the air. Just when I thought I may need to fetch more caffeine, Lee Rainie took the stage for the opening keynote, which worked better than caffeine! He was brisk and energetic, yet thoughtful about the future of libraries. He admitted libraries (and much of society) is going through a disheartening, disruptive time, and that no one has the playbook yet . He also said we need leaders, that there are declining levels of trust in much of society. Not so much for librarians, who are regarded as friends in most networks, which makes me proud to be a librarian. Some key points I noted:

According to Rainie, there are six big puzzles for us to solve:

  1. What’s the future of personal enrichment, entertainment and knowledge?
  2. What are the future pathways to knowledge?
  3. What’s the future of public technology and community anchor institutions?
  4. What’s the future of learning spaces?
  5. What is the future of attention?
  6. Where do you fit in ALA’s Confronting the Future report? (30 pgs.) According to this report…”In order for libraries to be successful, they must make strategic choices in four distinct dimensions, each consisting of a continuum of choices that lies between two extremes. Collectively, the choices a library makes along each of the four dimensions create a vision that it believes will enable it to best serve its patrons” (see pg. 21 to see the four dimensions)

The program moved on to Katie Birch from OCLC as she dipped her toe into the past and the future of ILL. Interesting factoid: Year to date, When Breath Becomes Air is the most requested OCLC interlibrary loan title!

Participants were able to choose from three breakout session; I chose the Ignite sessions and was not disappointed! I learned lots.

Valerie Horton wrapped up the day with her thought provoking talk, Skating on the Bleeding Edge. She described innovation as the process of discovery. She also encouraged us to accept failure, that it is indeed the norm of experimentation. According to current business literature, employers are looking for people who can say, “I failed and I learned!” She concluded with a few additional facts: The next trend is “messy”, and we have to accept that we don’t know the right answers. Accept messy structures, partnering can be messy and frustrating. And, if you are burnt out and exhausted, you cannot reflect, think well, or innovate!

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/lfpv7xn, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Still Time Left to Register for Minitex ILL Conference

PrintApril 22, 2014

Register Today for the Minitex ILL Conference

Date & Location

Tuesday, May 6, 2014
8:30 AM – 3:15 PM

Continuing Education & Conference Center
University of Minnesota – St. Paul Campus
1890 Buford Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55108

Registration Details

Fee: $40.00 – Register Now!

Registration closes on Tuesday, April 29.

Keynote Presentation – Phil Simon, “Big Data: Too Big to Ignore”

Phil Simon is a keynote speaker, recognized technology expert, and the award-winning author of six management books, most recently The Visual Organization. He consults organizations on matters related to strategy, data, and technology. His contributions have been featured on NBC, CNBC, Inc. Magazine, BusinessWeek, The Huffington Post, The Globe and Mail, Fast Company, The New York Times, ReadWriteWeb, and many other sites.

Ryan Litsey & Joni Blake, “The Occam’s Reader Ebook/ILL Project”

Occam’s Reader is a software program that allows interlibrary loan of electronic books. Occam’s Reader is a collaboration between Texas Tech University, the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and the Greater Western Library Alliance. Currently Occam’s Reader works with the ILLiad software to allow the document delivery staff to lend electronic books seamlessly between libraries. The software currently works with .PDF documents, but there are plans to support other formats of electronic books and to develop a standalone, web-based version of the system. This session will focus on current and planned functionality as well as the discussions with ebook publishers.

Ryan Litsey is the Document Delivery/Interlibrary Loan Assistant Librarian in the Texas Tech University Library. He earned a Bachelors of Arts in Political Science as well as a Master of Arts in Political Science from California State University Northridge. He also holds a Master of Science in Library and Information Sciences from Florida State University.

Joni Blake is the Executive Director of the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA). She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Russian Literature from Cornell College, a Master of Arts in Library Science from the University of Missouri – Columbia, and her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in Educational Leadership and Higher Education Administration.

Valerie Horton, “Deep Collaboration”

“Libraries have a choice, we can collaborate or die.” This sentiment was expressed by William Jordan, and captures the new thinking sweeping through libraries. The days of casual cooperation are long gone as a new era of deep collaboration is unfolding. Deep collaboration requires more courage, more resources, and more commitment to mutual agreed upon goals. Drawing from her work as co-general editor of Collaborative Librarianship, Valerie will look at how deep collaboration works in the Minitex region, and examines how projects like DPLA, HathiTrust, and Kuali Ole have been transforming our profession.

Valerie Horton started as Director of Minitex, a three-state library consortium, in December 2012. Prior to that, she was the first Executive Director of the Colorado Library Consortium (CLiC) from November 2004. Valerie was also Library Director for Mesa State College, Head of Systems for New Mexico State University Libraries, and a Systems Librarian at Brown University. In 1993, she received an ALA International Fellowship to help automate the public, school, and government libraries for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Valerie has a book coming out from ALA Edition in 2014 on library consortia. In 2009, Valerie published Moving Materials: Physical Delivery in Libraries, and she is co-general editor for the online journal, Collaborative Librarianship.

Katie Birch, “Life after WorldCat Resource Sharing: the future of ILL”

During this session, Katie will provide an in-depth look at the migration of more than 5,000 libraries to WorldShare ILL and how this new service is transforming fulfillment options for interlibrary loan staff. Katie will also talk about OCLC’s new WorldCat Discovery platform and the future of VDX.

Katie Birch is Portfolio Director for Delivery Services at OCLC. In this capacity, Katie oversees WorldCat Resource Sharing, including the WorldCat policies directory and IFM, as well as ILLiad, VDX, and WorldCat Navigator. Katie is a librarian with 10 years experience in resource sharing and document delivery. Before joining OCLC in 2005, Katie was project manager and business development manager at Talis.

Learn More

Get the full conference agenda, speaker bios, and registration forms at the conference website.