Stewart Brand makes some excellent points in his article about environmentalists and the points of view that predetermine people’s thoughts. By standing in one place and not moving from that spot when viewing the world, the scenery is always the same. If we can collectively move from that comfortable area to a different spot, a couple of things automatically happen. First, we aren’t comfortable so we are more aware of what things look like. We take the time to really notice relationships. Then, just by virtue of this changed perspective, we are seeing different things.

Suspending assumptions. Getting a new view. Being prepared to really look once you find your new location.

Have you seen the LiLI Unlimited PSA’s? You can watch them online, and even vote for you favorite!

The Southeast Library System (SELS) blog is about to share a series of posts about a computer lab in one of their libraries. The teaser post says,

The goal was to protect the PCs from abuse-related downtime while still
allowing patrons as much freedom as possible to use the full capability
of said PCs.

Margaret Fujishin at the Homedale Public Library created a wonderful help sheet for her fellow librarians to locate materials for speakers of other languages that visit libraries. If your library doesn’t have a large selection of materials to help speakers of other languages learn english, there are many such items available through Interlibrary Loan. To locate the items, you can use Idaho’s LiLI Unlimited catalog.

Step 1 - Go to www.lili.org to access the LiLI Portal

Step 2 - Click on LiLI Unlimited (the link has a stack of books)

An excellent list to consider, check out A Librarian’s 2.0 Manifeso over at the Library 2.0 blog.

• I will avoid requiring users to see things in librarians’ terms but
  rather will shape services to reflect users’ preferences and
  expectations.
• I will be willing to go where users are, both online and in physical spaces, to practice my profession.
• I will create open Web sites that allow users to join with
  

To celebrate Halloween and warm up a bit, ICFL staff enjoyed a Hoedown and chili feed/contest on Tuesday. See the ghouls ICFL staff in their natural habitat here.

Chili Feed!

Originally uploaded by icflphotos.

The ILA Annual conference is ended and now that I’ve had a couple days to get reacquainted with home, I thought I’d review some of my own highlights from ILA:

SPLAT - The SPLAT table rocked. It seemed there was always a crowd there wanting to learn more about IM, blogs, gaming, and other tools for social networking.

Intellectual Freedom Auction - Some folks from the Nampa Public Library shared about the events that took place in their library regarding the challenge of some books in their collection. It served as a good reminder for all of us about the real reasons behind the annual auction.

Kay Flowers from Idaho State University is talking about Digital Repositories.

Digital Libraries: are distinguished from info retrieval systems because they include more types of media provide additional functionality and services, and include other stages of the info life cycle (from creation through use)

DLs are also thought of as a new form of information institution or as an extension of the services libraries currently provide.

Digital Repository: A trusted digital repository is one whose mission is to provide reliable, long-term access to managed digital resources to its designated community, now and in the future.

Last night ILA held their awards banquet. A fun time was had by all.  It was announced that Representative Scott Bedke and Representative Maxine Bell would share the honor of Legislator of the Year for their support of LiLI Unlimited and their assistance in identifying $300,000 in state funds for the program.

The Librarian of the Year is Luise House from the Mountain Home Public Library.  Luise has been leading the Mountain Home library for some time. In the past couple of years, the library was successful in winning a bond election for funds to build a new library. That library has been built and and the beautiful new building is open for business. Luise is currently leading her library in an automation project during which they will be joining the Lynx Consortium.