This would be the time to step up and point out all of the other resources and good learning points that have come out of this movement.  We saw the success of social networking with the Arab Spring movement and the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria.  Now we’ve seen the success that the masses can have in America.  Wikipedia put it to a vote of its users and contributors before deciding to blackout its English language page last week.  Twitter did not participate in the blackout, but #SOPA was the largest trend of the day – and that was user generated too.  Google, the powerful search engine, provide a link to tell your Congressman you don’t support SOPA and PIPA – and millions clicked!

We need to truly embrace the power of the people – whether it is sharing with the next generation the real power of the words they use or showing older generations how they can access the same tools and information.    Can you imagine a more powerful tool than an understanding of just what information can do?  Now it is up to each and every one of us to use our powers for good – share your knowledge because together we have even more power.  We’ve lost two fine examples of this in the past year: Steve Jobs and Joe Paterno.  Jobs believed that the little man could create and it led to the Apple revolution.  Now we see iAuthor for the Mac.  Giving students, teachers and other educators the power to create their own digital textbooks, just as GarageBand gave musicians the same opportunities – this is one master stroke from the folks at Apple.  And Joe Paterno, who believed that college football should be about college.  Yes, I know that most of us remember the scandal, but let’s also remember everything that he did not just for Penn State, but also for college football in general.  Speak to his thousands of players and they all say that they knew they were going to get a college degree – a refreshing idea in this day and age.  He exemplified the search for knowledge, always trying to improve and stay current – not only that, the library at Penn State Main Campus bears the Paterno name.

I believe that what we have here mimics in some ways the past.  When Dr. King was advocating peaceful change, both sides of the issue were vociferous and they both had a point.  Now it’s up to us – the populace – to get educated and get involved just as millions did more than 50 years ago.

Teachers, this is a great tie-in to your lessons!  Not just the information literacy part of the curriculum, (Some of the responses on Twitter and available on the web are just humiliating – and I think it’s worse since I feel like, as an educator and a trained librarian, I should be doing a better job helping these folks track down information.) but also the history part. Why not teach this lesson and tie it into the peaceful protests of Ghandi and King?

Not only that, this is a great opportunity for all educators, librarians, and any one who shares a love of knowledge to show what a united community can do…

However, also as a librarian, aren’t we supposed to provide access to materials and information for all individuals?  If the current bills pass – although Obama has said that he would not sign them into law – then what we are doing is supporting the restriction of free-flowing information.  I’m sure that many of us, whether we realize it, have at some point viewed a video or other material that was not being used appropriately.  The line has blurred for many people as to appropriate use, and as a librarian I do want people to have free and low cost access to information, but at what cost?

And now the masses have spoken…

While many companies and industries support SOPA including NBCUniversal and pharmaceutical giants AstraZeneca and Merck, other major companies such as Wikimedia (Wikipedia) are blacking out parts of the Internet in protest.  I understand protest (and it is certainly a fitting week for it to occur), but at the same time I’m not sure what purpose this will serve.  Twitter has decided that it will not black out its services, but who’s next?

It seems to me that the Wikipedia blackout could have implications for libraries.  All day tomorrow, one of the major sites that many people use to get information is going to be offline – why can’t we jump into that and show how we can provide access to information as well.  Could SOPA and PIPA end up having benefits for libraries or will we sit to the side and wait to see what happens?

It’s really up to us in the end…

The biggest focus of this presentation was on what he called the “belief window” and how it shapes everything that we do.  The most important part of all of this is that we remember that failure is a part of growth.  We are all affected by what we believe, but this can also be changed if we examine what is causing the action – the belief.  It is okay to work with others to attack the belief as long as we are not attacking the person.  If you have access to the virtual conference presentations, I strongly encourage you to check this session out.

I then went to a session on how competitive intelligence professionals can help their sales and marketing personnel.  It was very interesting and detailed, so the best I can do is summarize it.  The suggestions were join different organizations so that you have access to their lists and databases, work together with your sales and marketing teams to develop a two way street, reward those that bring you good intelligence, and make sure that others know the value of the service you are providing.

The final session that I went to prior to the big close was on Mining Public Records.  This was a very good session and the detailed slides are available via the conference website and slideshare  I encourage you to check them out.

The conference ended on a high note with James Kane closing it out – loyalty is about making a connection with the other person or individual.  Then some of our librarians danced us out and had us looking forwards to Chicago 2012!

One of the main things that struck me was the fact that ice cream does not really give us it’s creamy nature and distinct and disparate flavors until moments after we actually lick or bite the ice cream.  Unfortunately much of the science went over my head when he started getting specific.  I don’t know much about chain reactions or polymers so I apologize if I haven’t done the session justice.

Each talked about the projects that they helped to administer: CARL (CGSC), AlabamaMosaic and the Indiana Memory Project.  Each spoke on how the project was set up and run based on the following criteria: motivation, partners, decision-making, systems and metadata, training, engagement and sustainability.  The notes from  this presentation are being made available on the conference website.

When  I walked into the room, I turned around to look to see who was there and I see the very familiar face of ESPN analyst and former Phillies centerfielder #6 Doug Glanville.  He of the speedy legs and great smile (yep, that’s what I remember most).  I totally had to get up the courage to ask if he would take this picture with me.  It took three tries, but this one isn’t too bad.

Doug Glanville (@dougglanville) spoke first and wow, is he an amazing speaker. He had us all in stitches remembering what he went through as a player and also some of the work he’s done since.  One of my favorite stories, one posted last week on ESPN’s website, is about what it’s like to be a first round draft pick and the disastrous night he spent with his first spring training.  In addition, he shared the stories of what it is like to work on the Baseball Tonight/Outside the Lines sets.  The folks in the audience had a wide variety of questions for the former player and he happily answered them.  Unfortunately, he was a late addition to the program and had to leave all too soon.  It would have been nice to talk to him or get a copy of his book The Game from where I stand signed.

All was not lost, he was followed by the always a character, member of the 1980 World Champion Phillies – Dickie Noles, the only player to be traded — for himself!  He was the player to be named later in the trade.  Dickie continues to work for the Phillies and had a great story involving Mariano Rivera (NY Yankees) and Dane Sardinha (Phillies).  The stories that Dickie Noles told during the session had us all laughing even harder, especially when he imitated his brother’s southern drawl.  What a great speaker!

The third speaker was actress Nadia Dajani of the “The Big C” and “Caught off base”.  She may have tweeted that these two gentlemen were a tough act to follow, but she did so more than adequately.  She is a baseball nut from the word go – relating to us the story of how she was sure that she was going to marry Ron Guidry of the New York Yankees when she was thirteen.  She had the folks in stitches too.  In an homage to Philadelphia, she shared a Tug McGraw story from one of the Legends games that she had played in. That’s right – she plays hardball, real baseball.

As a special treat, the caucus rewarded Tony for all his work.  Then, yes, there’s more, former Phillies organist Paul Richardson’s wife who was in the audience shared some of her husband’s collection from all his years with the Phillies.  He is the only Phillie to have played in Shibe Park, Veterans Stadium, and Citizens  Bank Park.

After the session, I went up to talk to both Nadia Dajani and Dickie Noles. Yes, I was going up as a fan, but as a member of the Philadelphia Women’s Baseball League I also wanted to talk to Nadia about women playing baseball in the area. While explaining that we have this Labor Day tournament that the Phillies help us out with – here comes Dickie Noles and says that he’s heard something about it! Really blew me away!

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However, once my group got started we really took off. We had a wide variety of information professionals from library school students to Department of Defense librarians to those from city governments.  With this wide variety of information professionals we had very differing opinions on social media.  I was live tweeting the event, so the rest of this entry can be found on Twitter via @kp_libe under the hashtags #sladgi and #sla_dmil.

I stayed for about fifteen minutes – long enough to get her comprehensive definition of collaboration as well as a brief explanation of why she was not here.  However, when the person there “to push the button” explained this about half of the room walked out.  Another third walked out when the audio on the laptop did not work so that those of us in the back could not hear.

I hate to say it, but this was one session that did not live up to expectations.

The attendees were also educated on what the responsibility of the FBI Evidence Response Team is and what stays at the state or local level.  Except for the Team Leader, all the other members are assigned other duties within the FBI and they are only part-time members of the team.  He did say that he was happy that while he had served many National Security letters – he’s never had to serve one to a library!  He also reminded us of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America – and there are no real exigent circumstances for murder, although death does negate a person’s right to privacy in a majority of circumstances.

The amount of training that the FBI agents originally receive is not much, but once selected to the Evidence Response Team there is much additional training.  Technicians do NOT do as Horatio Caine and Gil Hodges do on CSI – the are very methodical and careful, always wearing gloves, etc.

He also had some good take-aways for librarians:

1. try to make no assumptions – ask yourself what do I actually see?
2. Context is vital!

A very amusing and entertaining speech – if it runs again in the future I strongly recommend that any information professional attend.