The picture at the top of this post is from the game night at the Gaming, Learning, and Libraries Symposium. These librarians are playing Wii Tennis and being coached by Giz Womack. The gaming night, which happened the first night of the conference, helped define the atmosphere that made this conference different.

This was a symposium about games. Games mean play and there was an atmosphere of play to everything. There were three keynotes on Sunday and every speaker talked about the transformative power of games. We spent all afternoon soaking up knowledge from people thinking big things about games and then we were set loose on the games themselves.

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The ALA Annual Conference in DC, which just ended, was another energizing, informative event.  In a forthcoming post I will summarize the more substantial sessions and issues that came to my attention.  However, in the spirit of the adage, "Life's uncertain; eat dessert first," I would like to share with you the most fun I had at ALA in DC.

Vendor receptions are a time-honored event at these conferences, and the protocol is well-established: Read more »

Remember Maslow's hierarchy? At the bottom of the pyramid were the most basic needs… at the top, self-actualization. In between were concepts such as self-esteem, respect, family, and security.

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This post is the culmination of the ALA TS blog one-year birthday festschrift, a month-long series of posts that could be perceived as a sort of eblogocentric celebration of this forum.

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Happy birthday to the ALA TechSource Blog, which turned one-year old today. My great colleague Lori Bell, of the Alliance Library System, commented to me that she thought my dog Max had emerged this year as my bona fide muse. I often think about library and information technology issues as Max and I take our daily, early morning walks through the neighborhood.

So, to honor my muse, I asked Max which walk was his favorite during the past twelve months. He fondly recalled a May morning when an entire family of raccoons sauntered across the darkened street before our wakening eyes.

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