What librarians talk about when no one is listening

One of the many things I love about being Roane State's library director is the opportunity to hang out with lots of great librarians from all across TBR. Last week, I visited with other library directors at the quarterly TBR Library Deans/Directors meeting in Nashville. This was our spring meeting shared with deans from the UT Library system. In other words, this was the place to be for administrator types of the state's public academic libraries.

Wonder what people like us talk about when we get together? A few years ago, it was books, loan policies, interesting reference questions, database license agreements, consortial pricing models, challenging budget issues and so on and so forth. Interesting stuff, I promise. We still talked about all of those things this time, but more than anything else we talked iPad. More specifically, what the iPad and other tablet computers will mean for academic libraries and higher ed.

It was a fascinating conversation. Dr. Robbie Melton presented a compelling vision of the near future where learning is distributed to students through a variety of mobile technologies and web-enhanced classrooms. The key to student retention is engagement and the key to engagement is challenging content presented in a variety of modalities.

It got us librarians talking about the role mobile technologies like smartphones, SMS and video already play in our libraries. We talked about the importance of surviving bad budgets, lean staff rosters and shifting publisher landscape, while building new models for our collections and services. TBR and UT Libraries are faced with enormous technical, economic and political challenges. We have to meet these challenges and also embrace new tools. One librarian said what we were all were thinking, "This is impossible." Yes, but it sure sounds like fun, too.

On April 29, I will be attending a special event at the Renaissance Center in Dickson focused on the use of mobile tech in TBR. Apple Education developers will be there. Folks from libraries, academic divisions, and administration will be there. I'm really looking forward to the day. I think it will mark the beginning of a focused effort on the part of all TBR schools to harness the right tools together in the right way to reach students in powerful, creative and interesting ways.

All of this is just to say, I believe our best days our ahead of us. I look forward to working with you all to build them.