Last year, my colleague and I started a new tradition of hosting a Madden tournament during the weekend before the Super Bowl. This past Saturday, we held the 2nd annual Skokie Madden Bowl and it turned out great! We had about 20 participants (though a couple had to leave early) competing for the top prize, which was a gift card to GameStop. There was some pretty serious competition, but everyone was also laughing and having a good time just hanging out. There was definitely a good vibe in the room. Read more about the event on our library blog and check out this video from the tournament:
I’m fortunate to be on the planning committee for a special program called “Coming Together in Skokie.” This program takes the basic “One City One Book” concept that has been used by many libraries and towns across the country and puts a slight spin on it by focusing on Skokie’s incredible diversity. This year, the program highlights the Asian Indian community in Skokie. The book Motherlandby Vineeta Vijayaraghavan was chosen by the planning committee and there are many book discussions planned. There will also be many different programs that will offer the community some type of introduction to Indian culture.
I’m presenting this talk on Twitter for a local networking group of librarians involved with computer instruction. Here are my slides. Please let me know if you have any questions!
One of the best things about attending conferences is meeting others and being inspired by their work. This happened for me today in a big way when I visited the temporary storefront library in Boston’s Chinatown, which has not had a permanent branch library since 1956! A group of us from APALA received a great tour from Sam Davol and Amy Cheung, who are two of the amazing people behind the entire project. From what I saw and heard, it was so clear that the project was driven by a spirit of service, courage (not afraid to take risks!), fun, and, most of all, a deep concern for the library’s community. There’s a lot the rest of us “permanent” libraries can learn from this project!
I’ve had the opportunity to talk a lot about the Digital Media Lab to both patrons and professional colleagues in recent weeks. Whenever I start explaining why we created the space and the context in which we did so, I always find myself starting with incredible growth of YouTube and digital video. Even though the DML enables people to work with music, photos, podcasts, graphic design, and more, I’ve always seen digital video as the heart of the DML.
That’s why I was happy to see that Mashable, hands-down the best source for news and commentary on social media imho, recently picked YouTube as the top social media innovation of the decade. In the article explaining this choice, editor-in-chief Adam Ostrow writes:
In a decade that saw social media move from the fringes to the mainstream, YouTube is the innovation that touched the most lives, became a driving force for change around the world, and ultimately ends the decade with an opportunity to be as disruptive in the next 10 years as it was in the past four. That’s why YouTube is our choice for social media innovation of the decade.
It’ll definitely be interesting to see how YouTube changes over the next few years! Take a look at the Mashable article. It’s worth reading.
