1- Short Session Description:

Across libraries universally, good customer service is usually the main focus. The skills necessary for good public service, including patience, creativity, improvisation, and de-escalation, are found both in libraries and in the worlds of role-playing games. Learning to run a game helps you to understand the resources available for you to create a fun, safe, informative environment. In this session, we will run “mini-encounters” based on day-to-day library situations to illustrate how these skills can translate from RPGs to the library world and back again.

2- Session Style/Format:

Interactive play session

3- Takeaways:  

We will go through a situation, either in groups or with the whole room, allowing everyone to roleplay using various archetypes how to use customer service qualities to influence a situation. Everyone will come away with ideas for interacting with customers that’s beneficial for everyone, as well as (hopefully) the desire to learn to run RPGs.

4- Organization: 

A team of three presenters from New Hanover County Public Library

5- Contact Information:

Hannah Bowser, hbowser@nhcgov.com

Description: Pop culture literacy is an integral part of my librarianship. Not only does staying up to date on TV shows, music, memes, etc help me work better with my student staff, but it helps in the instruction classroom as well. There’s no way to watch every show or listen to every new song, so learning ways to keep up to date with pop culture without making every evening a Netflix binge night is important. Also, it’s hard to predict what the next cool thing is going to be! Millennials are out here making jokes about The Cask of Amontillado! There are many discussions in our profession about leveraging social media/pop culture for the library presence, but learning how to leverage social media/pop culture for the librarian’s presence can be just as useful.

Format & Style: Play session (pop culture game at tables to help break the ice, get people comfortable - Catchphrase style), small group discussion

Takeaways:

• Strategies for keeping current without giving up your life.
• How to not get overwhelmed by what you don’t know
• Resources to help stay current
• Fun and friendship

Organization: No formed group - I would LOVE to talk to other librarians about the way pop culture helps inform their librarianship, and to hear how they keep abreast of it all. I think something like this can only be helped by adding other perspectives. I would definitely want to do a CFP.

Contact: Beth Carpenter -bcarpenter@transy.edu (Feel free to just send me an email if you want to talk about pop culture! I will answer it!)

Scability is not necessarily the answer for showing impact. The larger the data, the harder it is to make sense of the data deluge.The decision to not scale is relevant to all types of library work. We value relationships with our collaborators and will not sacrifice our relationships. In this presentation we will make a case for intentional use of small, curated data. Come learn with two librarians who are bold in their beliefs and fight for the value of efforts that are not intended to scale. You will leave the session empowered with strategies for justifying your efforts.

You Meet in a Tavern: Cross Department Team-Building Though D&D

The assessment and outreach units were working well together but nothing like it is now that we have been playing D&D together for two years. Join me in talking about running your own inter-library D&D game or share stories of your own library game. Role playing can help build team trust and lead to better working relationships. Let’s talk through the logistics of running a game and how we managed to coordinate everything. Let’s roll!!

Session Style/Format: Round-table

Takeaways: How to run a game for librarians at your library

Contact Information:

Michael Perry

Northwestern University

michael.perry@northwestern.edu

1- Short Session Description. (~100 words)

We’ve all heard the stories -- an innovative, award-winning library is THE place to be for the community, but staff has no space of their own to complete tasks, collaborate with their colleagues, or just get away from the public for a time. Architecture and design have the power to inspire creativity, productivity and collaboration, particularly in libraries, but community user and library staff needs/wants are different. How do we advocate for and create library spaces that work for library patrons AND staff?

2- Session Style/Format

An interactive panel of public and academic librarians and library space designer/architects

3- Takeaways

Panelists and participants will discuss staff space needs in modern libraries, balancing public and staff spaces and brainstorm ways to advocate for staff spaces in the design process new and renovated library spaces

4- Organization

I will put out a CFP for panelists from public and academic libraries and for designers or architects that have experience with library design.

5- Contact Information

Ashley Carr (acarr@austincc.edu)

1- Short Session Description.

Welcome to a world very much like our own, full of a lot of data and almost none of it easily usable. We are looking for a group of stout of heart and flexible of mind individuals to join in our campaign to learn how to clean and transform this data so that we can use it to answer questions and inform decisions. This campaign will offer data rookies the chance to earn their first experience, as well as provide veteran data warriors opportunities to pick up new skills. If you have ever wanted to know more about how to work with data and make it work for you this campaign is what you have been looking for.

2- Session Style/Format (e.g. lightning talks, make/hack/play session, etc.)

Very much a make.hack/play session with different stations were groups will work with different types of data sets and different data tools to complete a data campaign from cleaning to using

3- Takeaways: Describe any takeaways, skills, outcomes, and/or interactive elements!

Participants will use a range of data tools

Participants will clean data

Participants will transform and merge data

Participants will use data to answer a question

4- Organization. Fully formed (i.e. you have people in mind or chosen to co-organize) or will you initiate a CFP for co-organizers/presenters?

It is not fully formed and I will put out a call for people will to help lead the different steps in the data campaign

5- Contact Information - Name of primary contact + email!!!

Samuel Hansen Mathematics and Statistics Librarian University of Michigan

hansensm@umich.edu

Facilitation is hard, but we're all asked to do it. Whether it's working with students, running a learning circle, providing mentorship, or leading a book group, there are skills, practices, and techniques that can improve participants experiences without us needing to dominate or act as the expert in the room.

With support from IMLS, The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Peer 2 Peer University are creating new training resources on facilitating group learning experiences in libraries, and we want your feedback and help to develop them. 

In this workshop, we'll try out some group activities, consider implementation in various environments, and reflect on our own facilitation practices. We unfortunately don't know much about D&D, but we'll look into ways to incorporate various sided dice in a way that is genuine and not gimmicky.

1- Short Session Description: A fantastic treasure trove of tweet data is yours for the taking (ethically, of course). Add a new tool to your digital archiving strategy - learn how to collect and analyze tweet data using Twarc! In this workshop we’ll go through the basics of installing and using twarc, a python library and command line tool for collecting Twitter data developed by Documenting the Now (DocNow). We’ll cover how to search hashtags, create word clouds, count emojis, and best practices for archiving and sharing your tweet data. Participants do not need any previous experience with python; some knowledge of the command line is helpful but not required.

2- Session Format & Style: Hands-on technical workshop

3- Takeaways: Participants will leave with twarc installed on their computers, hands-on practice collecting twitter data and using basic analysis tools, and printouts/digital access to lessons and further documentation.

4- Organization: Fully-formed

5- Contact Information:

Elizabeth Mitchell - eam5hc@virginia.edu

University of Virginia Library

Community Advocate, Scholars’ Lab

Kara McClurken - kmm6ef@virginia.edu

University of Virginia Library

Director, Preservation Services

Jeremy Boggs - jeremy@virginia.edu

University of Virginia Library

Head of Research and Development, Scholars’ Lab

Session Description: Do you want to assist more students enrolled in foundational courses? Need to bend the ear of the sages (faculty members, coordinators) acting as gate-keepers? 

Come learn how to effectively gather faculty stories and problems, in order to frame library services around their needs (rather than what we think they need). In this skill-building workshop, you’ll create an outreach plan, practice informational interviews, and build confidence around faculty engagement.

Session Format & Style: Skills-Building Workshop

Takeaways:

Come away from this sessions with an outreach plan tailored to first-year intro courses with many sections (Rhetoric, English 101, etc).

Level up your engagement skills

Practice informational interviews

Organization: Formed. However, we recognize that we are from a research university and have that as a lens. If librarians from other types of schools (community colleges, liberal arts) are interested, we’d welcome additional collaborators and perspective.

Contact Information: Gina Petersen (gina.petersen@northwestern.edu); Becca Greenstein (rgreenst@northwestern.edu).

Short Session Description: The etymological root of the word “team” is based on the concept of animals harnessed to a plow, with all of its implied self-sacrifice. By contrast, the word “party” stems from the idea of dividing something, such as a pie -- or work. For this presentation, each participant will make a character for the Dungeon World tabletop role-playing system. Attendees will then form five person parties of adventurers, and we will discuss how each group would function as a library staff. The session will end with an exploration of how these sub-groups could evolve further as a workplace community.

Session Style/Format: Hands-on workshop

Takeaways: Creating character sheets for the Dungeon World role-playing system will be an inherent part of participating in this session. Attendees will be encouraged to take their completed character sheets home with them. A visually appealing handout will also be offered, describing how to implement the “party of adventurers” paradigm as an alternative to the idea of working as a team.

Organization: This session will be facilitated by me alone.

Contact Information: Joelle Mellon  Email: jmellon@mindspring.com