Innovative Ideas Forum 2007.
Henderson, Sandra
Abby Blachly from LibraryThing makes a presentation at the
Innovative Ideas Forum, 19 April 2007
Susan Chun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art speaks at the
Innovative Ideas Forum, 19 April 2007
The audience at the Innovative Ideas Forum, 19 April 2007
On 19 April a capacity audience gathered in the National
Library's theatre to hear a range of speakers give presentations on
innovations in libraries and other cultural institutions.
Susan Chun from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York started
the day off with a stimulating presentation on the
'steve.museum' project (http://www.steve.museum/) in which a
number of museums in the United States are collaborating on a social
tagging project. Users are encouraged to contribute descriptions of the
objects and art works, with the aim of improved access and community
engagement. Susan was followed by Courtney Gibson, Head of Arts,
Entertainment and Comedy at ABC TV. For an audience accustomed to a
steady diet of PowerPoint presentations, Courtney's witty,
informative, and totally audiovisual-free insights into the future of
television broadcasting was a highlight of the day.
Kent Fitch and Alison Dellit from the National Library of Australia
explored some of the more innovative thinking and prototyping taking
place at the Library with respect to the catalogue. Jane Cruickshank
from the Australian Film Commission provided an introduction to two of
the AFC's newer projects--australianscreen and the Regional Digital
Screen Network.
After lunch, Professor Amanda Spink gave some insights into
research at QUT into user behaviour and the Internet. One of the
highlights of the day for many in the audience was the presentation by
Abby Blachly, the librarian at LibraryThing. Around 200 000 people
worldwide use LibraryThing to catalogue their home libraries--and a
quick survey revealed several of them were in the audience. It seems,
too, that many more were inspired by Abby's presentation, because
someone set up an Aussie Librarians group on LibraryThing the next day,
citing the forum as their inspiration.
A presentation by Graham Young, editor of On Line Opinion, finished
off the day with a look at the phenomenon of user-driven media.
Some of the papers and presentations are available online as links
from the forum program at
http://www.nla.gov.au/initiatives/meetings/iif07prog.html.
The evaluation comments from the day included:
* 'Excellent selection of speakers and topics--got more out of
this one day than many three-day conferences.'
* 'Many thanks to all at the National Library for this
fabulous, thought-provoking event.'
* 'The forum was superb and a delight. It was definitely worth
travelling from New Plymouth [NZ] to Canberra to attend. I will keep an
eye out for next year's. I want to be there.'
Sandra Henderson
Executive Support
