Hint Hint: Awesome Keynote Speaker

No, not me.  Though I am fahbulous. 

Mike Rowe from the show Dirty Jobs.  Apparently, he’s getting a lot of speaking jobs lately talking about “on the “changing face of the proletariat vis-à-vis the modern-day work ethic and the digital divide”, according to the New York Times and he has a website called Mike Rowe Works, which helps people find technical and trade jobs and education.

General Link: http://www.mikeroweworks.com/noflash.html
Jobs Link: http://www.mikeroweworks.com/job-site/

It’s a well rounded site and like most truly funny people, Mike Rowe is an intelligent and thoughtful spokesperson for the cause of worker education and job seeking.  Well, from what I can tell from the article I’ve been reading.

Librarians help people find work, Mike Rowe helps people find work.  Librarians help provide training and tools for people to improve themselves with, so does Mike Rowe.  Mike Rowe is hot and really funny.  Librarians are…er…we’re sometimes hot and usually pretty funny.

Just my suggestion.  Please consider it if your state or national library organization needs a speaker.  There’s potential for great synergy I think.

Tech UnCamp is going on now!

Co-hosting a tech uncamp in Michigan – I’m participating via webcam from my office in Kansas!

An uncamp/unconference isn’t like your normal conference – a) it’s free and b) main topics of discussion are planned by the attendees the morning of the event.

View Tweets and Information in real time via Cover It Live:

Tech UnCamp 2009

Extreme Makeover: Librarian Edition

I constructed this post and poll a while back, but thought to myself, no one…no one…will dig this post.  Librarians are just way too PC and they’ll think it was so dumb.  Then American Libraries comes out today and YALSA announces a fashion show.  Awesome!

So, I was talking my pal A, and (brace yourself) we have determined that there is a bit of a fashion crisis in the library world.  You know you’ve seen it and you know you’re scared.  It’s both genders and almost all of us have done the big fashion faux pas at some point.  Me included.  My oversized pea green sweater.  I love it, I will not part with it, I’m wearing it right now in fact. 

But let’s say at a library conference, for fun, a librarian put together a fashion show slash best of resources show?  “Here’s Sam in khakis and a button down shirt, with a vest to add a bit of color…and now Sam will tell you about his favorite geneaology website and some of the features on it…”

Something silly to break up the ho-hums of conference and a way to get creative in a whole new way…

More about Thursday…

I admit I spent a good chunk of the post lunch time working on my presentation on mentorship.  It turned out well and I think that the folks that came enjoyed it.

Then I walked the two blocks down the street from the hotel to the Kalamazoo Public Library with some friends.  They had a great all conference reception with a live string ensemble…a really neat way to end the day!

Conference gives me all sorts of warm fuzzies about libraries and librarians.  We are not without our faults, but we are pretty cool!