Library Advocacy Stories: Michael Lambert (Part 2 of 2)

This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted with Michael Lambert, City Librarian, San Francisco Public Library. It was originally published on the California Library Association website as part of the work I’m doing as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for the Association.

Q:  What key issues do you believe need to be addressed in training sessions for California library staff—at all levels—interested in becoming strong advocates for libraries and the communities they serve?

Michael Lambert

A:  The basics

• What is library advocacy? Why is it important?
• What is the difference between advocacy and lobbying?
• Political activities—Do’s and Don’ts
• The Power of Storytelling and gathering stories to tell your library’s story about impact, outcomes
  • Less about utilization data—more about how libraries make a transformational impact on people’s lives
    • An example: Jamie LaRue, former library director [Douglas County Libraries, Colorado], gave a great advocacy training for NCLA [North Carolina Library Advocacy] a decade ago that got to this point (https://nclibraryadvocacy.org/about-us/jamie-larue/)

Importance of building a strong partnership with your local library support group; San Francisco has a model public/private partnership within our municipal government that has been highlighted by our Office of the Controller.

• Requires investment of staffing capacity and time, but it’s worth it
• Regular meetings, attend Board meetings, invite participation in Library Commission meetings, special events
• Formal MOU

Q:  What formats do you believe work best for advocacy training for California library staff at all levels?

A:  The California Library Association has some excellent sessions at our annual conference and offers opportunities for staff to be inspired and engaged. Beyond CLA Annual, I think the current environment has demonstrated the utility and accessibility of the virtual environment, making it easier for a broader cross section of our library workers to participate and learn and grow. EveryLibrary’s ongoing newsletters and training offerings are excellent.

California Public Library Advocates have done a great job hosting regional advocacy training opportunities for members of library boards and commissions, Friends, Foundations as well as other library supporters and advocates.

Q:  What are we not currently doing that we should be doing to support library staff interested in becoming strong advocates for libraries and the communities they serve?

A:  As a library administrator, fulfilling our mission with excellent service delivery is the top priority. There are many strategic priorities that go into library operations, and San Francisco Public Library has an ongoing commitment to organizational excellence. Employee engagement and organizational development are key focus areas within our Racial Equity Action Plan, but I think there is an opportunity to tap into the latent community organizing ability of our staff to learn how to become even stronger advocates for libraries and the communities we serve. Ultimately, if we are able to provide more opportunities for growth and professional development on this front, we’ll be more successful in advancing racial equity and social justice.

Q:  You’re very active in a variety of social media platforms. What—if any—role do you see social media playing in your advocacy efforts?

A:  At the most basic level, telling the library’s story and sharing factual information about library programs and services.

On a personal level, I leverage social media to foster stronger connections with elected officials and community leaders. I recommend library directors engage with their local political leaders in every way possible, including social media; follow them and like their posts and/or comment to have a conversation. This is a great way to stay in tune with local priorities and the pulse of the community. You can invite them to your library events and subsequently post photos to give them a shout-out for their support.

Q: Your Facebook account offers a wonderful balance of posts that relate to work and posts and relate to your personal life. Any tips to advocates on how to maintain that sort of balance without veering into posts/topics that can come back to haunt them?

A:  Good question! One guiding principle I try to remember is: “would I want to see this post on the front page of the SF Chronicle?” My social media presence includes personal accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. I enjoy promoting and sharing the incredible work my SFPL staff are doing, and it’s easy to share such posts. My social media presence also comes in handy for recruitment and making folks aware of job opportunities within the City and County of San Francisco. It’s not uncommon for me to post my fellow department heads’ recruitments on LinkedIn to demonstrate my support for them and our City and County family. Overall I’d say my feed is similar to many other people with posts about my kid, what I’m eating, what I’m doing, etc.

Q:  Drawing upon your extensive experience as an advocate for libraries, what would you suggest individuals can do to effectively serve as advocates for libraries throughout California?

A:  Pay your dues—support your professional association—California Library Association; American Library Association

Attend CLA, get involved.

Support EveryLibrary—the only political action committee devoted to libraries

• Read their books, e.g., Before the Ballot
• Follow them on social media [Facebook and Twitter]
• Taken advantage of their training
• Support them financially if you can

Volunteer your time to local library initiatives

Support your local Friends of organization

It’s pretty basic—we need to support library advocacy with our treasure or time or both.

N.B. — Paul’s work as a consultant/project manager with the California Library Association is part of a grant-funded project to develop and coordinate a statewide political advocacy training program for library workers and supporters throughout California.

Library Advocacy Stories: Michael Lambert (Part 1 of 2)

This is the first part of a two-part interview conducted with Michael Lambert, City Librarian, San Francisco Public Library. It was originally published on the California Library Association website as part of the work I’m doing as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for the Association.

Q:  Let’s start with your own experience as a library advocate. What first drew you into efforts to advocate on behalf of libraries?

Michael Lambert

A:  My experience as a library advocate has been influenced by my tenure with my hometown Richland Library in Columbia, South Carolina. They have a top-notch public library system and I have observed their library leadership working effectively with their Friends group over the years. From the very beginning of my career, I was able to see firsthand how their former library director was able to secure strong support for their library with robust grassroots advocacy from the community, including having a strong community showing at budget hearings, telling powerful stories, offering heart-warming testimonials, effective PR campaigns, etc. I’ve carried forward these observations and learnings throughout my career.

More recently during my tenure with SFPL, I was invited by then CLA President Misty Jones to serve on the Advocacy & Legislative Committee. This was a great experience and helped me understand how our state association organizes and advances a set of legislative priorities each year.

Q:  Can you tell a story showing how Richland Library leadership worked effectively with their Friends group?

A:  It’s been over 15 years since I briefly returned to Richland Library for a stint as Development Officer. In that role, I served as their liaison to the Friends. I can vividly recall the Friends packing their County Council’s budget hearing for the Library in 2006, netting a substantial increase in their budget for the following year. The Friends of the Richland Library delivered a master class that year in having library advocates prepared to offer powerful stories to demonstrate the impact of public library services on their community. Furthermore, their Friends group is essentially the “farm team” for their Library Board, which does a great job cultivating strong relationships with their County Council as well.

Q:  What was one essential lesson learned, from your time on the Advocacy & Legislative Committee, that you would share with others interested in advocacy?

A:  The essential lesson I learned from my time on the Advocacy & Legislative Committee is that it’s critical for library workers and library leaders to be engaged and active in getting involved to advance the legislative agenda. I observed strong leadership from Misty Jones and her successor as the Chair of the Advocacy & Legislative Committee, Sara Jones, to help develop legislative priorities that the California Library Association could support with the Dillons [Michael Dillon and Christina Dillon-DiCaro] and the State Librarian’s support in Sacramento. This work is critical for providing library advocates up and down the state with a set of tangible priorities that can be leveraged for discussions with lawmakers.

Q:  What have your own advocacy mentors done to encourage and inspire you?

A:  My inspiration and encouragement come from community. As a library director, I feel an enormous sense of responsibility to be a good steward of the community’s resources. I am continually heartened by the stories and testimonials I hear from members of the public about the transformational impact of our services. Just this morning I received the following email from a parent:

Diane Ferlatte

I wanted to express my appreciation for the wonderful Diane Ferlatte recently. My daughter is 16 and I am homeschooling her. We’ve studied slave narratives and their role in abolition, the flourishing of writers that came after emancipation with an emphasis on the Harlem Renaissance, and African American folktales. Every Friday is poetry Friday, during which we have studied written poems as well as spoken word. I write all this to say that the opportunity to hear Diane Ferlatte as part of More Than a Month by SFPL fit right in.

Ms. Ferlatte was wonderful. We analyzed the stories she chose to share and discussed the history of African American storytelling in the US. As African Americans, it was a pleasure to be able to listen to the virtual event and to see so many people enjoying with us. As a parent, it’s always helpful when I can incorporate different pieces into our homeschooling.

So, thank you for this. And please let Ms. Ferlatte (and her musical partner) know how much we enjoyed her performance!

This is just one example of how library services delight and enrich the lives of our patrons. Similarly, I hear from staff about how they are innovating and delivering much needed services to the most vulnerable members of our community. We are extremely fortunate in San Francisco to have robust support from the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, our Library Commission, the Friends and Foundation of the San Francisco Public Library, our labor partners, our beloved library patrons, and our amazing library staff.

Some people who I admire—my predecessor, Luis Herrera, and his predecessor, Susan Hildreth—what they were able to accomplish in San Francisco with the Friends & Foundation of SFPL has been transformational for the residents of San Francisco.

Q:  What tips would you offer to other advocates interested in building positive relationships similar to what you have described the Mayor, Board of Supervisors members, Library Commissioners, and others?

A:  Building positive relationships with stakeholders at every level of the library ecosystem is critical to successful advocacy for libraries. Individuals who volunteer in your literacy programs often become library supporters and donors. Teen volunteers often develop an interest in library work and seek entry level positions to start a career in libraries. Members of Friends groups often have connections to municipal government that can spark important conversations regarding library funding and support for capital projects. Library leaders can help their cause by building strong relationships with the legislative aides and staff in the offices of elected officials. Extending one’s support to individuals up and down the library ecosystem chain can generate enormous goodwill that one day could net tremendous returns on that initial investment of a positive engagement.

Q:  Can you tell a story about a memorable/transformative experience you’ve had as an advocate for libraries and members of the communities they serve?

A:  I worked for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library in North Carolina from 2006-2011, and was employed there during the great economic recession. The Charlotte Mecklenburg Library suffered a 35% budget cut that led to the layoffs of half the workforce and permanent closure of four branches. I led an effort to recruit and mobilize volunteers and harness the incredible outpouring of community support to restore operating hours and services. Over the course of 2-3 years, I witnessed how strong grassroots support from residents, volunteers, donors and advocates could create the political will to restore funding and library services after the devastating cuts. It was gratifying to lead recruitment efforts to bring back staff and fill roughly 70 positions before I moved back to California.

N.B. — Paul’s work as a consultant/project manager with the California Library Association is part of a grant-funded project to develop and coordinate a statewide political advocacy training program for library workers and supporters throughout California.

Library Advocacy Stories: Deborah Doyle (Part 2 of 2)

This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted with Deborah Doyle, a long-time library advocate. It was originally published on the California Library Association website as part of the work I’m doing as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for the Association.

Any tips on how to initially contact legislators or their administrative aides? 

Deborah Doyle

Email is a fine introduction. It’s best to go in a group the first time. Go with an experienced advocate. But have a story ready. Talk about something that they might be interested in. Make it short. Don’t beg. But, from the larger group, there should always be an “ask”—whether it’s about a piece of legislation, or agreeing to sign something, or coming to the library. Remember to get their business cards and thank them afterward. Write immediately. They see a lot of people. But not a lot of people follow up. If something good happens because of your ask, write again and tell them so. Collect the phone numbers and email addresses on the cards. 

Write a small check to legislators, if you can. 

Don’t get in touch just once a year at “Legislative Day,” but keep in touch regularly. Today’s appointed supervisor could one day be the Governor. (Mine was!). Or the Speaker of the House! (Ours was!)

Any thoughts on the importance of establishing long-term relationships with legislative aides?

Your team should have a strategy. Get to know legislative aides at all levels. Often, they are the ones that do the most work with legislative matters and or other issues. The elected officials are busy in meetings, etc. Find out who is responsible for libraries. If there isn’t one, ask about education. Often you will meet with an aide, rather than the legislator. That’s fine! They really do a lot of the work and can bring your issue to the elected official. They also may run for office one day. Regarding federal elected officials. Get to know their local regional manager. That person is quite a font of knowledge. Get them on your mailing list. Invite to interesting library events. 

At a bigger level: Check in with California Public Library Advocates (CPLA), a non-profit whose members are Friends, Foundations, commissioners, trustees, and other library advocates. CPLA gives training on a variety of subjects—much of which relate to advocacy: how to write a letter to an elected official, etc. 

Civilian supporters are very important, and can carry messages that paid library staff may not be able to. 

ALA presidents have been a great source of inspiration to me. Have you had much in the way of interactions with them, and, if so, what lessons might other advocates learn from them?

I see them at conferences and certainly have met them. Their ideas are often. inspirational. We are very excited that Patty Wong is the next President, so California will be very present in conversations. In fact, I’m honored that she’s asked me to serve on ALA’s Legislative Committee. I also find ALA staff to be very helpful. The ALA-Washington staff is very experienced, delighted to share, and, frankly, would be delighted if California were even more active in advocacy. Check out the website for some terrific examples and useful information. Staff members of United for Libraries are also a wonderful resource. 

Drawing upon your extensive experience as an advocate for libraries, what would you suggest individuals can do to effectively serve as advocates for libraries throughout California?

At the local level: know your library budget. Where does the money come from? What’s the strategic plan of the library? Of the library support groups? Identify neighborhood leaders. Build a library advocacy leadership team that includes administration, trustees, and supporters. Tell community groups what the library is doing; keep the community informed. Look for businesses that might partner with or donate to the library or a support group. 

At the state level, advocates should follow what the CLA Advocacy & Legislation Committee is doing, especially at the beginning of the year, as bills are being introduced and the California budget is being considered. CLA’s long-time lobbyists, Mike Dillon and Christina Dillon-DiCaro, will ask library supporters to call or email legislative offices about important matters. 

An “elevator speech” is always handy to have. You run into a legislator. Because you’ve been keeping in touch, she remembers you and asks you what’s new with the library. You have 45 seconds to tell her something memorable with a call to action. 

Anything I didn’t ask already that we should be discussing?

There should be a question that explores why library staff doesn’t know how important advocacy is. What is the lost connection? Advocacy and fundraising. On the other hand, that’s not what they learn in school—or what they are hired to do. 

Also, and this is important: There is a difference between ongoing advocacy and project-driven advocacy. But, if you’re doing the first properly, the second is not an impossible stretch. 

The other thing I’ve alluded to before: Advocacy and fundraising go hand in hand. Before Prop 13, library funding wasn’t nearly as big a deal as it is now. Librarians aren’t even taught how to read their library budget! We have to tell funders (legislators, philanthropists, donors, voters, and more) what libraries do, how they do it, why it’s important, how much it costs, and what libraries could do with a 10 percent increase.

N.B. — Paul’s work as a consultant/project manager with the California Library Association is part of a grant-funded project to develop and coordinate a statewide political advocacy training program for library workers and supporters throughout California.

Library Advocacy Stories: Deborah Doyle (Part 1 of 2)

This is the first part of a two-part interview conducted with Deborah Doyle, a long-time library advocate. It was originally published on the California Library Association website as part of the work I’m doing as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for the Association.

Deborah Doyle

Your own continuing growth/journey as an advocate has covered an amazing range of experiences: volunteer/docent for the main library in Francisco; involvement with the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library at multiple levels; involvement at the state and national level with Friends Groups; consulting; and, currently, serving as chair of the Sonoma County Library Commission; a member of the California Library Association (CLA) Legislative Committee; a board member for United for Libraries—The Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (a division of the American Library Association). Is there any consistent element you can spot that has been present each time you made one of those transitions—as an example to current and prospective advocates regarding what they should cultivate/watch for?

Join community groups—not just in the library world. Best library practices are not always best practices. See how other groups do things. In the library world, say “yes” to committees and conferences, if you can. Look for mentors. Susan Hildreth [a library leader who has worked at the local, state, and national level] asked me to join several committees and encouraged me to get a library degree. Many other library leaders in California were very generous with their time and expertise all along the way. If you are passionate about a specific issue, find out who the experts are and get in touch. Who are the decision-makers? If you have a story to tell, there are lots of places to tell it. 

What first drew you into efforts to advocate on behalf of libraries?

A guy named Paul Signorelli [while serving as Director, Volunteer Services for the San Francisco Public Library system] ran an ad in a San Francisco newspaper. He introduced me to the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library as they were helping to raise money for a new Main Library and create funding for a shabby and woefully underfunded library system. 

How much advocacy experience did you have up to that point?

None! But I had marketing experience. Several other board members did, too. We changed the name of the Friends’ “Advocacy Committee” to the “Advocacy and Fundraising Committee.” They dragged me to CLA conferences and to the Legislative Day in Sacramento, and suddenly I realized the connection between local and state advocacy and legislation. A few years later, ALA [the annual American Library Association conference] was held in San Francisco, and the additional connection between local, state, and national became clear. Add “fundraising” at all levels, and there I was: an advocate. 

I also had library experience. My first job after graduation was as a writer in a government library, and, along the way, I had become a corporate research/resources manager. 

One other important thing. My dad worked for the feds. We moved. A lot. So before I got to San Francisco, I thought the important money was at the federal level—because my dad was a senior budget guy at the Pentagon. 

Let’s move in that direction starting with a story that captures that moment when you viscerally made the connection between local and state advocacy and legislation.

When we started working on the [San Francisco Public Library] branch campaign and looked at some of our representatives in Washington, I learned that Nancy Pelosi had been a library commissioner. I also learned that it wasn’t difficult to make a telephone call to her local office or even her Washington office. The first time I went to Washington on National Library Legislative Day (or when the ALA conference was held in DC), her staff didn’t necessarily know what libraries were doing in detail, but were very interested to hear what a difference they were making for Mrs. Pelosi’s constituents. Senator Feinstein’s staff was, too. So will the staff of incoming Senator Alex Padilla. 

My experience just kind of came together. The understanding was there at the various levels, but the connection—the “aha!”—took a bit longer. The Dillons, CLA’s lobbyists [Michael Dillon and Christina Dillon-DiCaro] were very helpful at the state level. I learned a great deal when SFPL and its Friends worked very hard—and successfully—to win funding from the California Library Construction and Renovation Bond of 2000. Library patrons sent postcards. Friends sent a bus of library lovers of all ages to Sacramento to lobby. Community leaders made phone calls. But I learned even more working on the unsuccessful Proposition 81: California Reading and Literacy Improvement and Public Library Construction and Renovation Bond Act of 2006 as the SF campaign coordinator. Though voters in SF supported the measure, it failed throughout the state; sadly, there hasn’t been a library measure on the California state ballot since then. From that experience, I learned the importance of funding and having a clear message.  

You’re striking an incredibly rich vein here, i.e., the idea that advocates/activists come from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and that there is not a one-size-fits-all model for advocates/activists. What guidance would you offer to someone who wants to become involved in advocating for libraries, but doesn’t know where or how to start?

Talk to a librarian who is an active advocate. They are usually very supportive—and delighted to put new advocates to work, whether it’s on an in-house committee or project or an external group that actually meets with elected officials or their staff. But in the meantime, individuals can find out who their representatives are at all levels: local, regional, state, federal. Research their background. Find out what moves them. Advocates discovered that a very conservative Republican in the California Assembly was passionate about braille and talking books. Why? His best friend growing up had been legally blind.  

What committees do they serve on? What kind of information can the library provide that might be helpful in their work on the committees? Are they veterans? Does the library have a program for veterans?

Write/call and let them know about library resources and library work within the community. Check to see if the library sends them a regular update on library activities. Organize a photo-shoot in a library. Always a good thing! Don’t forget to publish the pictures in a newsletter and send multiple copies, or reprints of the article, to the legislator’s office. 

Call the Friends [Friends of the Library group in your area]. Find out who goes to meet legislators from the library, from the Friends—and volunteer to tell your story. While constituent letters and calls are always appreciated, legislators can’t see everyone. Usually, someone will take the lead in organizing a meeting with several people in attendance. Make the elected official an honorary Friend.   

One other critical piece: Finding a mentor is great. Being a mentor is better. Please pass along your experience, strength and hope to those who are just discovering advocacy.

“In order to be a mentor, and an effective one, one must care. You must care. You don’t have to know how many square miles are in Idaho, you don’t need to know what is the chemical makeup of chemistry, or of blood or water. Know what you know and care about the person, care about what you know and care about the person you’re sharing with.” — Maya Angelou

N.B. — Paul’s work as a consultant/project manager with the California Library Association is part of a grant-funded project to develop and coordinate a statewide political advocacy training program for library workers and supporters throughout California.

Adapting to Change, Loss, and Possibilities: The Learning Revolution Online

On a day when friends and colleagues are feeling isolated by current shelter- in-place guidelines designed to fight the spread of the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic), I’m feeling lucky. I have been immersed in plenty of live, stimulating, rewarding, interactions with dozens of teacher-trainer-learner-doers attending a global conference. We have been listening to and asking questions of a first-rate set of presenters. We have been chatting with each other about what we are seeing and hearing. We have been sharing resources we can all begin to use—or continue using—with the learners we serve. And we have been doing all this, without needing to wear protective masks and by abiding with shelter-in-place guidelines, by maintaining distances of hundreds, if not thousands, of miles between us—because the fabulously innovative “Emergency Remote Teaching & Learning; Survive, Thrive, & Plan for What Comes Next” daylong miniconference organized and facilitated by Steve Hargadon and his Learning Revolution colleagues has been entirely online.

One of the most interesting responses I’ve seen to cancelled face-to-face learning opportunities among trainer-teacher-learners is the rapid, often positive transition from onsite face-to-face to online face-to-face interactions through the use of Zoom and other teleconferencing tools, as I have noted in previous blog posts. (The transition obviously works best for people who were already comfortable working online, and obviously is problematic where people lack online access and/or lack laptops or mobile devices.) At least two of my favorite learning organizations have made the decision to move their popular, well-attended onsite conferences into onsite environments this year: the Association for Talent Development (ATD) Virtual Conference and the American Library Association (ALA) Virtual Conference). A glance at news updates suggests that ATD and ALA are far from alone in following this innovation-in-response-to-necessity approach to supporting members of their communities in times of need.

As we consider the gargantuan task of implementing such massive change within short timeframes, it’s worth returning to the Learning Revolution miniconference to see what made it work. It helps, of course, that Hargadon, his longtime partners, and his colleagues are hardly new to this endeavor; they routinely organize and facilitate global worldwide virtual events, including the Global Education Conference (since 2010) and Library 2.0 online conferences.through collaborations with the spectacular Learning Revolution project. And it helps that the presenters were uniformly engaging and well-prepared.

@makeshift.macaroni

#ukulele #uke #originalsong #teachersoftiktok #tiktokteacher #smallgestures

♬ original sound – makeshift.macaroni

In a day full of ideas and inspiration, it’s impossible to try to summarize the content in a meaningful way, so I’m left with recollections of moments and themes that somehow capture the overall beauty, creativity, and fun of the entire endeavor. Like opening session presenter Candy Mowen’s reminder, during her “Engaging Online Learners” webinar, that enhancing online learning flows from the creation of great learning environments. Or Zaretta Hammond’s commitment, during “Culturally Responsive Teaching Through Remote Learning,” to the idea that culturally responsive teaching “focuses on improving the learning of diverse students who have been marginalized educationally.” Or Steven J. Bell’s opening comments, during “Let’s Commit to Making Webinars Better,” about the importance of being relaxed, being ready, and taking your time getting started when working with our online learners. Or John Spencer’s sharing of numerous resources during his “Empowering Students in a Distance Learning Environment.” Or the opportunity to see George Couros, Katie Novak, and A.J. Juliani do wonderful variations on the themes they explored in an earlier webinar a few weeks ago and add updated material, including a very short, very funny video in which a music teacher performs a song she wrote to demonstrate her process of making the transition from onsite to online learning.

I didn’t try to attend every session; extensive experience attending conferences has helped me to realize that creating some time for reflection between sessions is an important and integral part of learning through the act of being a conference attendee. And I didn’t make the mistake of thinking that I would remember more than a few of the numerous points made or more than a few of the numerous links and other resources shared by presenters and participants; I took more than a dozen pages of hand-written notes and actually took the step of copying the extensive chat from a few of the sessions and then pasting it into a Word document—a document that ended up running more than 80 pages—that I can later review, in a more leisurely fashion, to jog my memory and help me continue my learning far beyond the day of the live event.

There’s plenty to learn from the miniconference in terms of how to successfully create and facilitate an online conference. It was, first and foremost, very well organized. Registration was easy; it simply involved applying for membership in the Learning Revolution for those who were not already members (a straightforward process that results in an amazingly quick response). Information was easily accessible online through the Learning Revolution website. A page on the Learning Revolution website itself served as the program book, with session descriptions and links to each online session. The presenters themselves were uniformly engaging and learner-/participant-focused in their approach to leading their sessions. Bandwidth issues did, at times, temporarily make the presentations a bit choppy, but Hargadon was there to smooth the gaps and help presenters and audience members quickly reconnect and move beyond those momentary blips. Interactions among participants was lively, and the numerous question-and-answer sessions between presenters and audience members were well-supported by the presenters themselves as well as by Hargadon in his role as producer/co-host/trouble-shooter. And best of all, the conference didn’t end when the live sessions formally concluded. Archived recordings are scheduled to be posted on the Learning Revolution website within a day or two after the conclusion of the live event, so the training-teaching-learning-doing can and will continue as long as any of us continue to call attention to those recordings and continue the conversations in any onsite or online setting we care to use for that purpose.

I’ve seen—and disagreed with—numerous comments I have seen online about how the cancellation of onsite conferences is creating a gap that simply can’t be replaced. I’ve seen—and disagreed with—numerous comments about the irreparable losses those cancellations are causing in terms of missed opportunities for interactions. I am not at all suggesting that onsite and online conferences and other gatherings are completely interchangeable. I know and recognize that going online creates barriers—particularly for those who don’t have adequate (or any) access to online activities; I also know and recognize that onsite conferences create barriers—costs of food and travel, the amount of time it can take to travel great distances to attend an onsite conference. But I am suggesting, based on my own short- and long-term experiences, that online conferences are far from the death knell for community gatherings as we know them; they have been and are increasingly becoming fascinating, engaging opportunities for communities to survive and thrive.

Observing and participating in today’s daylong virtual conference offers plenty of hope and guidance for anyone interested in sustaining strong communities of learning that thrive on online as well as onsite engagement. The conference is providing yet another example of the benefits and challenges of taking a conference online. And it suggests that if we positive approach our challenges collaboratively, we can sometimes produce positive results far beyond anything we might have ever imagined.

–N.B.: This is the sixth in a series of reflections inspired by colleagues’ reactions to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place experiences and our continuing interactions online.

State of America’s Libraries: Open (Online) For National Library Week 2020

If I weren’t so busy using library services online and staying in touch with library colleagues across the United States, I might actually be feeling the loss of all that they usually offer onsite—a set of resources, services, and possibilities nicely summarized in the newly released State of America’s Libraries 2020 report from the American Library Association’s American Libraries magazine.

Anyone taking the time to read this wonderful yearly summary of why libraries remain cherished community resources (even when the buildings themselves are closed  because of shelter- in-place guidelines designed to fight the spread of the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic) can’t help but be impressed by and grateful, as we celebrate National Library Week (April 19-25, 2020), for all that libraries and library staff contribute to our communities—onsite as well as online.  

Libraries, those who wrote or otherwise contributed to the report remind us, actively support “learning and parent engagement” in the learning process; they offer wellness and health resources and activities beyond what many of us assume is in place, including “materials on healthy lifestyles, cookbooks that address medical dietary needs, multimedia for physical exercise instruction, and self-help mental health materials. Some libraries take healthy lifestyle services even further by offering walking, hiking, bicycling, or running programs that take place outside the library building. Nearly 23% of public libraries host fitness or yoga classes.” Most offer “digital literacy training programs, through which community members can learn résumé development and job searching and gain new skills to aid in career advancement. Nearly half of the more than 16,000 public libraries in the US provide free services for small businesses and entrepreneurs…”

And there is plenty onsite that goes beyond our traditional views of what libraries provide: “The best proof that public libraries are about more than just books is their evolution into libraries of things, offering nontraditional collections that are community-specific and imaginative. The wide array of items available to check out includes mattresses, dolls, bicycles, binoculars, and accordions. At the Beaverton (Oreg.) City Library, patrons can check out kitchenware, outdoor equipment, and games.”

For me, the “library” is a cohesive blend of onsite and online resources, services, possibilities—and people. (Never forget those wonderful people who make the library what it is—including staff as well as the people who use libraries and interact within and through libraries.) Before shelter-in-place guidelines were imposed here in San Francisco last month in response to the spread of the coronavirus, I was in San Francisco’s Main Library at least once a week; occasionally visited branches throughout the city; and did a substantial amount of my work through library resources (e.g., access to journal articles) online. Those buildings—and the all-important people who make them what they are—created homes away from home for me and the thousands of other people who visited them every day; temporary office and research sites whenever I used my laptop or tablet, through library Wi-Fi access; and cherished community centers where I would unexpectedly run into people I knew or participate in community-based conversations that were of interest to me and those I serve. Above all, they were places where I consistently came across unexpected treasures—a newly-released book by an author I admire, a DVD featuring a movie I wanted to see, or even an art exhibition that temporarily transported me into another world and left me entertained or immersed in thought about a subject or a place to which the exhibition provided access. And the conversations: seeing colleagues who would ask me what I had been doing recently or tell me what they had been exploring so we all grew through those wonderful exchanges of anecdotes and information made those onsite library visits an extremely important part of my training-teaching-learning landscape.

So, the move to a library that existed only online was a bit of a jolt. But one that has been accompanied by pleasant surprises. Never one to spend much time “going to the movies” online, I suddenly found myself enjoying access to kanopy (which gives me access to up to 15 free movies a month) and Hoopla (a streaming service providing access to audio books, comics, e-books, movies, music, and television programs) through my library account. Prompted by a promotion on the library’s home page, I followed a link to virtual storytimes and enjoyed watching San Francisco Mayor London Breed read Dave Egger’s book What Can a Citizen Do?, San Francisco City Librarian Michael Lambert read Alison Farrell’s The Hike, and Librarian Anna Cvitkovic’s continuing additions to the series. And because I am immersed in training-teaching-learning, I’m beginning to explore the free access my library provides to LinkedIn Learning’s Lynda.com, a great resource I have previously paid to use through a private account. Thinking about those wonderful exchanges of information through face-to-face conversations during my onsite visits, I’ve worked to transform them into “face-to-face online” conversations through the use of Zoom and any other videoconferencing tool we can easily use to remain connected to each other.

Circling back to State of America’s Libraries 2020, I once again admire what publication editor Steve Zalusky and our other colleagues at American Libraries have produced, and couldn’t agree more Zalusky’s introductory remarks: “As the State of America’s Libraries report goes to press, the coronavirus pandemic has upended our nation and our profession, so much so that aspects of this report —which provides a snapshot of our industry in 2019—now read like dispatches from a distant era. What hasn’t changed is our belief that service and stewardship to our communities are core to the library profession. We continue to see this every day even as library buildings close to the public but often sustain or grow their virtual services and make their resources freely available to all. Today and everyday, our nation’s libraries are on the front lines, playing an invaluable role in keeping communities connected.”

–N.B.: This is the fifth in a series of reflections inspired by colleagues’ reactions to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place experiences and our continuing interactions online.

Adapting to Change, Loss, and Possibilities: Sheltering, Associating, and Thriving

One of the most stunningly impressive and inspiring displays of positive action coming out of the current sheltering in place efforts to fight the spread of the 2019-2020 coronavirus pandemic is the display of flexibility and adaptability I’ve seen in a variety of sectors—not the least of which is the training-teaching-learning environment that is so much a part of my life.

I’ve seen firsthand, written about, and talked extensively and been involved in discussions about the way in which the mostly-onsite ShapingEDU 2020 Unconference moved, overnight, into being a completely online gathering of dreamer-doer-drivers committed to help shape the future of learning in the digital age. I’ve been observing (through news articles, blog posts, participation in webinars, and personal conversations) how rapidly and radically administrators, teachers, and students are moving from onsite to online environments—sometimes successfully, sometimes painfully much less so—in attempts to avoid a complete shutdown of our formal education systems globally. And I continue to be impressed, fascinated, and supported by associations—those wonderful groups that even in the least challenging of times, bring us together—through a shared interest—to commiserate, learn, play, survive, and thrive together.

My colleagues in local ATD (Association for Talent Development) chapters as well as in the parent organization, for example, have turned the very bitter lemon of having to cancel onsite gatherings into an incredible pitcher of lemonade in the form of highly interactive, engaging, and productive online gatherings—what I have consistently referred to as “face-to-face sessions online.” It’s a fairly straightforward—and hardly new—approach that is becoming more and more easy to implement through the use of an increasingly varied array of teleconferencing tools designed to pull us as near as possible to a sense of telepresence—the perception that we are sharing a physical space, side-by-side, regardless of the actual physical distance between us.

It’s as if we had formally decided to counteract the frustrations of social distancing by engaging in an updated version of virtual proximity—and we are, increasingly, seeing this virtual proximity become widespread through necessity. The ATD South Florida Chapter, for example, reacted magnificently to shelter-in-place by proposing and implementing, in less than a month, a series of online weekly gatherings that have all the spirit and camaraderie of the long-standing onsite chapter meetings that are a staple of ATD chapters throughout the United States. When chapter leaders decided to experiment with this face-to-face online approach through the use of Zoom, they immediately put out a request for proposals from chapter members interested in being part of this initiative. I saw the first request, via email, on Friday, March 27, 2020. A week later, I was in the virtual audience for the first session, led by longtime colleague and chapter member Jennifer Dow, on the topic of “Engaging Your Audience While Facilitating Virtually.” Two weeks after receiving that email message, I was in the audience for the second session, led by chapter member George Romagosa, on the topic of “Quick and Easy MicroLearning.” And this morning—three weeks after seeing the initial request for proposals, I was leading a session centered on a few case studies of organizations that were making the switch from onsite to online operations almost—if not virtually—overnight.

As we look at how my colleagues in that first-rate, highly innovative, and very playful chapter managed to create this new series so quickly, we would do well to begin with a glance at the cordial, transparent, collegial manner in which they invited participation while also creating awareness of what was in the works. Under a banner containing a simple message—“Let’s support one another at this time”—they quickly drew us in: “ATDSFL remains focused on supporting your professional needs. During this time, we are seeking talent development professionals who would like to share best practices, tips and strategies in virtual training delivery. Small and large organizations alike may be struggling with how to transition quickly to online or virtual training and we would like to equip our members with the skills to tackle this challenge! Please contact the Director of TD Talks Selen Turner at selenturner@comcast.net if you are interested in being a virtual speaker.”

It’s all there, and completely reflective of the tenor of all interactions with ATD South Florida Chapter members: the statement of need, the proposed action to be taken, a clear statement of what is being sought, and guidance on how to respond.”

As a rare chapter member whose interactions are all virtual except for those rare times when I’m actually in Florida (rather than San Francisco or other parts of the country) for a project, I was intrigued. And as a prospective session facilitator, I was as impressed as I always am by the quick response I received to my initial proposal. This is what makes an association thrive. This is what makes an association be seen as the place to be. And this is an association that, through its collaborative approach to implementing its mission, vision, and value statements, is there for us—and we for it—in the best and the worst of times.

The parent organization, at its best, is every bit as creative and responsive as its chapters are; no surprise there. Faced, for example, with the difficult decision so many associations are currently having to make—to go ahead with planning for large conferences that are routinely held on an annual basis or cancel them in acknowledgment that gathering large numbers of people together during a time of pandemic—ATD recently announced that its annual gathering (as usual, scheduled for May) is being cancelled, and that the Association would look forward to gathering onsite next year for its five-day conference and exposition—presumably when health and safety issues had been overcome. But it didn’t stop there. Several days later, a follow-up note went out to the thousands of us around the world who belong to ATD: an invitation to attend an ATD 2020 Virtual Conference to be held a couple of weeks later than the onsite conference would have been held. It’s still very early in the process of disseminating information about what specific sessions will be held, but signs are already promising that our Association colleagues are doing everything possible to recreate, virtually, what is being lost through that onsite cancellation: dozens of formal learning opportunities; networking opportunities in group and one-on-one situations; and an opportunity to “be a part of ATD’s history as we come together for a new learning experience.”

I have often reflected on and written about the value of associations—and association! I’ve documented the high regard in which I hold colleagues in the American Library Association, ATD (initially in those years when it was still ASTD, the American Society for Training & Development), ShapingEDU, the New Media Consortium before financial difficulties led its board members to make the decision to dissolve the organization, T is for Training, and others. And I was inspired to do so again today after coming across a prompt from ATD on its Facebook page: “What does being a member of ATD mean to you?”

The answer flowed effortlessly, without requiring much thought: It means the world to me. ATD is a magnificent community of learning. A large laboratory/sandbox for exploring and engaging in lifelong learning. A source of support in the best of times and the most challenging of times. A meeting place. A testing ground for new ideas and a place to improve what we have already developed. A professional family. A state of mind. A place we can call home. And because it is so good at what it does, it helps define the word “association” in numerous, varied, nuanced ways.

So, there we are: association in all its glory, even in times requiring us to shelter in place…while still offering us opportunities to nurture proximity in all the important ways.

–N.B.: This is the fourth in a series of reflections inspired by colleagues’ reactions to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place experiences and our continuing interactions online.

Adapting to Change, Loss, and Possibilities: Our Communities of Learning Are Responding

The massive transformation of our onsite world—at least temporarily—into a coronavirus pandemic shelter-in-place online world dominated by social distancing (but far from complete social isolation) has been breathtakingly quick, as I noted recently in two posts about how the ShapingEDU 2020 Unconference went online overnight.

There has been plenty to make our heads spin: a global “incompetence pandemic” displayed through lack of leadership; the massive spread of misinformation contributing to “an infodemic: ‘an over-abundance of information’—some accurate and some not—that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it”; an ever-increasing spread of the pandemic in terms of confirmed cases and deaths attributed to the coronavirus, which may be only the tip of a terribly large iceberg, given the low percentage of people tested globally; increasing levels of fear, and much-needed sources of information about how to cope with fear and anxiety in challenging times; and the rapid move from onsite learning into online environments by countless people who are ill-prepared—yet valiantly struggling to—successfully support that move in academic and workplace learning settings.

All that head-spinning, however, doesn’t mean that all of us are completely in a shut-down, wait-it-out mood. For those of us lucky enough to have great friends and colleagues, good internet access, and decent infrastructures in place for online communication, our work continues. Our interactions remain strong. And our desire to be of positive use to those we serve is finding plenty of outlets.

Family, friends, and colleagues are responding creatively and positively to the need to avoid isolation in a time of social distancing. We are spending a bit more time than usual taking advantage of the opportunities provided by social media interactions—some playful, some completely work-related, and all of them in some way keeping our communities as strong and thriving as they can possibly be in the current situation. I am, for example, sure I wasn’t alone in being part of an effort to take a celebration—in this case, my father’s birthday party—online via Zoom a few days ago, and creating some online “face-to-face” (telepresence) time via FaceTime a few days earlier to offer happy birthday wishes to a cousin on the other side of the country. Friends and I have been having rudimentary virtual brunches by phone and informal community drop-in gatherings via Zoom to stay in touch, share resources and updates about what we are seeing in training-teaching-learning, and offer support to those who, at any particular moment, might be struggling more than the rest of us are—because we know they will be there to do the same thing for us when we find ourselves falling into a dark place that threatens to overwhelm us.

Through all of this, my colleagues and clients and I are continuing to do business as we always have by phone, email, and a variety of online social media and videoconferencing tools. We are continuing to work on our online projects—courses, webinars, and publications, for example—and plan new ones to develop and facilitate to meet the ongoing training-teaching-learning needs we are committed to meeting.

Among the many developments for which I remain grateful is the magnificent way so many organizations and individuals are stepping up to the plate to provide much-needed information and support. The American Library Association (ALA) Public Library Association division, for example, has done a spectacular job in quickly documenting how public libraries are responding to community needs while shelter-in-place guidelines remain in place—an invaluable resource for those of us working with colleagues in libraries as well as for anyone interested in learning what is available in communities across the country at this point through these wonderful learning organizations. Local libraries including San Francisco Public are doing a great job of publicizing online resources such as kanopy, a service through which we can watch up to 15 movies a month free of charge—which has been a wonderful opportunity to catch up on old favorites while viewing some I hadn’t previously seen. And the San Francisco-based Internet Archive, in a somewhat controversial move, has tremendously expanded access to its online holdings through creation of a National Emergency Library providing access to millions of resources for trainers, teachers, and other learners who would otherwise be cut off from those volumes while library buildings remain closed.

My go-to professional families, including ALA, have been as responsive as they have ever been. ATD (the Association for Talent Development), for example, has curated “resources for virtual training design and facilitation,” on its website, for its members; there are numerous links to articles, videos, blog posts, and webcasts for those of us who support the parent organization through our membership dues throughout the year. And the resources extend to the regional and local levels through the wonderful way that colleagues in chapters including the ATD South Florida Chapter are strengthening their already strong communities of learning by quickly scheduling events along the lines of South Florida’s weekly Virtual TD (Talent Development) Talks via Zoom. What they are doing, by the way, is far from unique; I can’t even imagine trying to keep up with all the wonderful online learning opportunities I’m currently finding online every time I open my email and social media accounts to check for updates.

As if that weren’t enough, I am seeing—and taking advantage of—highly-interactive webinars offered by colleagues whose work I consistently admire, including George Couros. The spectacularly successful “Opportunities for Learning and Leading in a Virtual Space” webinar that he, Katie Novak, and AJ Juliani designed and facilitated last month, and have made accessible online free of charge, was a tremendous example of leaders responding to the needs of their co-conspirators in learning—and further nurturing the informal communities of learning they have fostered through innovative massive online open courses and other creative online learning opportunities. The event attracted more than 600 participants who engaged with Couros, Novak, and Juliana via a speed-of-light chat flowing down the side of the screen while their slides were visible and they were facilitating the session. It was a tremendous example of engaging, effective, memorable online learning in action. And if you’re still looking for thoughtful resources, check out the George Couros blog, which offers new, consistently high-quality posts with unbelievable frequency

Sardek Love, a cherished ATD friend/colleague/mentor who knows equally well how to work and play, has consistently been reminding all of us that it is during times of challenge or crisis that we can find some of our best opportunities, and that we need look no further than our own mirrors to see some of our best resources reflected back at us. I love, admire, and only partially succeed in attempting to emulate his commitment to pushing everyone as hard as he pushes himself. To remind us what we are possible of achieving. To remind us of how to nurture all that is most positive within us.  And to remind us that, through our actions—alone as well as collaboratively—we will respond to the best of our abilities. And come out of this with as much to celebrate as we might be left with to grieve.

–N.B.: This is the second in a series of reflections inspired by colleagues’ reactions to the coronavirus and shelter-in-place experiences and our continuing interactions online. Next: Our Communities Are Smiling.

ALA Midwinter 2018 (Denver): Conversations, Ghosts, and Pentimenti in the Hallways

The halls of the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, where the American Library Association (ALA) 2018 Midwinter Meeting is fully underway, have never felt more lively or filled with stimulating, deeply thoughtful conversations to me. Nor have they ever felt so filled by ghosts.

I have, frankly, lost track of the number of times I have been here for ALA and ATD (Association for Talent Development) conferences. And, as I walked the conference center hallways yesterday morning—only yesterday; already feels like weeks ago—for my first onsite activity during the 2018 Midwinter Meeting, I felt worlds melting into each other. Intellectually, I knew I was here to spend time with my trainer-teacher-learner-doer colleagues working in the library industry. But somehow my body was instinctively reconnecting me viscerally with friends and colleagues I met during previous visits, as if their ghosts—conference-center pentimenti or some other form of presence—remained long after they had returned home. I found myself thinking about attending sessions scheduled for other (previous) conferences as if they were still about to happen.

Repeatedly then and now—nearly a day and a half  later—I found and find myself looking for and expecting to see friends (some still alive, some now long-gone) encountered during previous ATD and ALA conferences. And it was—and is—comforting and reassuring because it reminds me that the wonderful, ongoing ALA conference slogan—“the conversation starts here…”—only captures part of the overall experience of participating in any well-organized conference.

Conversations both start and continue here, in the sort of extended moment I have explored numerous times in blog posts and conversations. And here, in our wonderfully blended onsite-online world, is far more than the physical conference center spaces. Here is the rooms, the hallways, the simple yet masterfully organized spaces including the Networking Uncommons—where you can stop in anytime the conference is underway, grab a table, recharge your laptop and mobile devices, and with planning aforethought as well as magic of the unplanned moment, see exactly the right person at the right time to talk and dream and plan in ways that produce results you (all) would not have otherwise produced. And, equally importantly, here is the online spaces we create through Twitter backchannels, Facebook, Google Hangouts, and numerous other tools we use to reach out to our #ALALeftBehind colleagues who, in a very real sense, need no longer feel left behind—if they care to join us virtually.

When I’ve been “left behind,” I’ve experimented successfully with ways to virtually join my onsite colleagues—to the point that I’ve received tweets asking me if I’m actually onsite. So when I am lucky enough to be onsite, I work with others to actively reach out to offsite colleagues. And, again, it works. While attending a wonderful 90-minute “Adult Book Buzz” talk sponsored by HarperCollins Publishers this morning, I tweeted out a few quotes and a few links so those who following the #ALALeftBehind hashtag so they would have glimpses of what was occurring onsite—and I saw the reach of those tweets extended through retweets.

The event itself was masterfully facilitated by our HarperCollins hosts (Library Marketing Director Virginia Stanley, Marketing Associate Christopher Connolly, and Marketing Assistant Lainey Mays): as they were describing a wonderfully rich list of upcoming novels and nonfiction works from their authors, they occasionally brought those offsite authors onsite by showing brief, engaging, videos from authors who had taped greetings to us and brief descriptions of their works that are about to be published. (And it worked! Christopher Moore’s brief, very funny introduction to his upcoming novel Noir sent me over to the HarperCollins booth in the conference exhibits area late in the day to pick up an advance reader’s edition of the books so I don’t have to wait until April—when it’s scheduled to hit the bookstores and our libraries—to read it.) It gets better: our “left behind” colleagues will, a few days after I post this blog piece, be able to virtually attend the session by viewing a recording of it on a new site HarperCollins is about to launch. (I’ll update this article by adding a link to the recording as soon as it is available.)

We really are in what feels to be the early stages of an entire change in the way we meet, communicate, and engage with each other. What I have joking referred to as those “ghosts” in the hallway are actually quite real; when I want to viscerally and virtually re-engage with them, I can go back to pieces I’ve written about our conversations, reread those pieces, incorporate them into later pieces (like this one), and extend the elastic moment of conversation further by adding to it with additional tweets, Facebook postings, Google Hangouts, something as simple as a newly-initiated phone call from the conference center, or a follow-up face-to-face conversation next time we’re actually in this (or another) conference center together. (I actually did attempt to draw in a colleague who is missing the annual Midwinter Meeting for the first time since we began attending them together—the spontaneous attempt to create a Google Hangout with her so I could “walk” the aisles of the exhibits area when it first opened last night was not successful—and we actually chatted by phone for a few minutes to I could teasingly describe all the things she was—not quite—seeing. But when you and I think about those failed and successful attempts, we realize that the concept of being “left behind” is only as large and insurmountable as we and our imaginations allow it to be.

So, I write this piece in honor of all the colleagues I have seen, am seeing, and will ever see when we are “together” at the ALA Midwinter Meeting or Annual (summer) Conference), the ATD International Conference & Exposition, and other professional-family gatherings. I hope it inspires you to reach out via Twitter, Facebook, phone, or any other available means when you are here and others aren’t. And I hope it inspires you to reach out in those same and other ways when you are offsite—and ready to be onsite as quickly as your virtual modes of transportation can get you here. Let’s give those “ghosts” the attention and support they need; the rewards to every member of our communities and to the communities themselves are virtually limitless.

ALA Midwinter 2018 (Denver): Rethinking, Re-viewing, and Walking Through a Magical Forest

A colleague (Puck Malamud) here in Denver for the American Library Association (ALA) 2018 Midwinter Meeting, which formally begins later today (Friday, February 9, 2018), accurately observed during our brunch yesterday that librarians and other trainer-teacher-learner-doers—what Jonathan Nalder calls “edunauts”—are completely “meta.” We love to look at the thing behind the thing: if we’re immersed in learning, we love exploring how learners learn; if we’re writers, we love exploring the writing process itself; and if we’re thinking about the myriad possible futures for libraries and other critically important learning organizations, we’re going to be talking about, re-viewing, and rethinking the very processes we use to help nurture the future(s) of our dreams.

Sitting with University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science Director R. David Lankes for dinner shortly after I arrived late Wednesday afternoon, I found the meta and rethinking flowing freely very early during a conversation about how we are rethinking the roles of libraries and library staff within the communities we serve. Responding to a question I asked him about his latest projects, he described how he and his faculty colleagues are exploring the very terminology they use to describe the sort of organization they are continuing to nurture at the university. Where we have seen “library “ schools evolve into “information” schools, Dave and his colleagues are taking it an additional step and “placing a stake in the ground” to promote the development of a “school of knowledge”—a place where the focus is not on the library or the information, but on the impact that the university’s graduates will have on the communities they serve throughout their careers through thoughtful application of the knowledge they have gained—and continue to gain as lifelong learners.

It’s a theme Dave has been developing and exploring with colleagues all over the world for the past few years—a natural extension of ideas he proposed in The Atlas of New Librarianship and other books he has written; has developed through presentations and conversations with his peers—what Jonathan would call his fellow edunauts; and will further clarify through a monograph he and University of South Carolina faculty are currently preparing for publication. And the conversation remains open to all of us through writing he has done and presentations he continues to share, including the archived recording of and slide deck (with speaker notes) for “The Opportunities and Obligations of the Knowledge School.” Although the clear and obvious target audience for that wonderfully entertaining and thought-provoking “Opportunities” presentation was a group of school librarians, it would be a shame if it didn’t reach the larger audience of edunauts engaged in training-teaching-learning-doing endeavors. All of us contributing to our wonderfully dynamic onsite-online (blended learning) environment through K-12, higher education, vocational schools, museums, libraries, and workplace learning programs need to be looking for and taking concrete actions that produce positive results. That’s what Dave and his colleagues and many others are attempting to do:

The flow of meta and rethinking continued, for me, the following night in what felt like part of one continuing and ever-expanding conversation as I had dinner with Denver-based colleagues/friends/sources of inspiration Pat Wagner and Leif Smith. The conversation, toward the end of the evening, turned to a discussion about the process of rethinking how to conduct interviews for a book in progress. I mentioned to Leif that I was capturing interviewees’ comments though the use of Google Docs for the interviews themselves. (The interviewees have access to a unique document for each interview. I post questions. They respond in real time, which means I see their thoughts taking shape on the page word by word, and I can actually be formulating and entering new questions that help clarify their response while they are still in the middle of crafting their answers. The completed document, after light editing for style and typographic errors, becomes the accurate transcript from which I draw material for inclusion in the book.) This process produces richly evocative passages in each interviewee’s own voice—often conversational, but also refined in-the-moment through that typed-chat format—and obviously contains more content than I’ll ever be able to use in the book (Change the World Using Social Media). So I have been taking some of the more focused interviews and running them, in their entirety, as separate articles on my blog along with excerpts from the manuscript-in-progress as a way of obtaining early peer review that will help shape the final content.

Leif, fascinated by what was for him a new approach to interviewing, provided one of those amazing observations that just spring full-blown from him as if poetic phrasing and inspiring thought grows on the trees in his head: “A book is like the footprints of a creature that has walked through a magical forest, and if you follow those footprints, something like the spirit of the forest enters into you. That’s what happens if the book is really good.

I later joked with friends who often gather for evening coffee and dessert at the end of the day at conferences, that I never did get around to ordering dessert after that dinner with Pat and Leif. But, I added, that lovely passage really wasn’t, after all, dessert; it was a second main course, expertly prepared by one of the great thought-chefs in my life, and a reminder that our experiences at conferences along the lines of ALA’s Midwinter Meeting extend far beyond the walls of the rooms where the formal presentations and discussions are occurring.