Firstly, I’m really pleased I’ve been approved to do a presentation at the BC Library Association conference in May. Two other presenters will join me to talk about innovative organizational culture in libraries, using the nine principles that I described in my January 9th post.
I’m also following other initiatives that show early promise for breaking new ground and connecting libraries with innovation.
The Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory consists of a small group of tech-savvy librarians trying out ideas by creating them in usable form. As they say on their site, much of the software they build will be simply proof-of-concept, as opposed to production-quality code, but some will be developed more fully. Check out the site for more detail about three of their projects, ShelfLife, StackView and LibraryCloud and a number of their investigations.
The Library as Incubator Project is focusing on arts by featuring (according to the site):
- “Visual artists, performing artists, and writers who use libraries in their communities for inspiration, information, and as gallery space;
- Collections, libraries and library staff that incubate the arts, and the ways that artists can use them effectively;
- Free-to-share resources for librarians looking to incubate the arts at their libraries;
- Ideas for artists looking to connect with their communities through library programming.”
