Bridging Worlds 2008 Conference

[This is Part 1]



If you're attending the Bridging Worlds 2008 Conference, 16-17 Oct (which is this Thursday and Friday), I hope to see you there.

I'll be speaking on Day-One, 3.10pm to 3.50pm, at "Track 1" as Speaker #5 :"Librarians 2.0: Sowing Padi in (the) SEA.


I'll share what I've found from my scan of Library 2.0 examples in East Asia. The "East Asia" region is loosely defined, to include China, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore.

Outline of my talk:

• Some examples that I've found, of Web 2.0 applications by libraries to promote their services (I also intend to talk about what I'd expected to find, but did not).
• Then I'll talk about what "Library 2.0" might really mean in the East Asia context. Some particular challenges are a lack of a common language (English is not necessarily the defacto working language in this region), varying levels of Internet infrastructure between countries, and even regions within the same country.
• I'll end my talk by suggesting that the key might be the idea of "Librarians 2.0" rather than "Library". I'll also suggest ways how a "Librarian 2.0" mindset can be implemented, independent of technology.

BTW, instead of a 40-minute talk as stated on the website, the panel chair request that we speak for 25mins, so that there's more time for Q&A.

Here's a breakdown of the attendees, from the conference blog (13 Oct):


The conference organisers (NLB and NLBA) have also created a Twitter page.

Maybe they could set up an page that aggregates all the posts/ feeds from attendees who would be blogging/ posting stuff about the conference. Here's one good example using Netvibes (by Kevin Lim -- but he's not attending the conference though!)

Running through the list of speakers, two names rang a bell (not that I know them personally, but maybe that will soon change!) -- Jenny Levine (The Shifted Librarian) and John Blyberg (blyberg.net).

Also Bernadette Daly Swanson, who recently posted a message at the Librarians-In-Singapore mailing list. She'll be talking about Libraries in SecondLife. She's posted several videos here as well.

OK, if you're attending the conference and intend to blog/ Twitter (list your "New Media publishing tool of choice" here) about it, feel free to leave your URL, as a comment in this post.

If there's WIFI access at the conference, I'll be Twittering "live" at twitter.com/ramblinglib, and posting longer updates in this blog after the actual conference.

[Next: Part 2]