Annette L. Haines

Image: Poppies Triptych by Annette L. Haines

Haines does amazing work, and she's a librarian to boot.  Above is her most recent work done using the moku hanga style of wood-block printing on handmade Japanese Nishinouchi paper.  Haines even uses hand-ground pigments!

Check out Haines' blog at Serendipity Artist (she gives a great play-by-play on Poppies and other works).  Definitely check out her esty shop at www.etsy.com/shop/serendipityartist

Columbus Underground Interview with CML's Pat Losinski

Interesting interview between Walker Evans and Losinski. Losinski brings up an interesting user behavior: library use as habit. That has interesting implications, especially when crafting a library's message for funding.

The Evolving Role of the Columbus Metro Library

OAL's Holiday Events

Image: Ohio Art League Holiday Mirror Ball, A Member Appreciation Party

From the release:

HOLIDAY MIRROR BALL
A Member Appreciation Party
Saturday, December 19, 2009
8 p.m. to Midnight
Skye Bar in the OSU South Campus Gateway Arts Alley
1562 N. High Street

The Ohio Art League would like to invite you and yours to Holiday Mirror Ball, a member appreciation party. Please, join us for this festive evening as we say thank you to all of our members, friends, supporters and fans.

Entertainment for the night will feature:
Music by DJ Sally Simple
Performances by Jenai Cutcher and Whistling in the Dark Theater Company
Cash bar available featuring Elevator Brewing Company

Entry is free for all members ($5 entry fee for public). The first 100 members through the door will receive a special thank you gift from OAL.

If you are interested in volunteering for this event please contact Eliza Jones at 614-299-8225, email oal@oal.org, or sign up on our website at www.oal.org.

Before the festivities begin on the evening of December 19 don't miss out on...

ARTillery's
HOLIDAY ART MARKET
Saturday, December 12 & 19, noon to 6 p.m.
Skye Bar in the OSU South Campus Gateway Arts Alley

Stop by Skye Bar to get your unique holiday gifts from some of Columbus' finest local artists, featuring ceramics, jewelry, photography, painting, printmaking and more. Are interested in selling your work and would like more information, visit artilleryohio.com.

Also on December 12 at The Shoe Box in the Arts Alley:
Kids Holiday Craft Workshops and Holiday Movies
Noon to 2:30 p.m. & 3 to 5:30 p.m.
Kids age 5 - 11, $25 registration
Presented by (Mix)ed Media

For more info about OAL, please go to www.oal.org

News Corp., Google, and Copyrights

Really interesting article over on WSJ's blog about how Rupert Murdoch is considering having his news organizations' content (like the Wall Street Journal) removed from Google's indexing.

The article then goes on:

Mr. Murdoch added that News Corp. believes that the fair-use doctrine, which allows for use of copyrighted materials in limited ways such as search results, “could be challenged in the courts and barred altogether.”

Wowza. This is definitely something to watch. Will we have something akin to the RIAA/DMCA for bloggers who republish parts of works like I just did above?

Recap: Tom Kelley @CCADedu

Tom Kelley is from Akron.

Growing up Kelley witnessed first-hand the extinction of an industry due to the lack of innovation. In a span of less than 20 years, Akron (OH) went from making 100% of the tires used in the U.S. to making 0%. This affected his family, his community, and, of course, the tire manufactures.

Kelley spoke at Columbus College of Art & Design (CCAD) this past Wednesday. CCAD's Business Advisory Council made the event a reality, and CCAD's president, Denny Griffith, gave a poignant introduction that focused on creative economies.

In Kelley's presentation, he focused on 3-out-of-10 personal roles of innovators from his book, "The Ten Faces of Innovation: IDEO's strategies for beating the devil's advocate & driving creativity throughout your organization." Those roles include the anthropologist, the experimenter, and the cross-pollinator.

Each role has unique characteristics that lead companies to innovate.

The anthropologist sees with new eyes. Doing so allows for the observance of needs--not directing what should be needed. Observing the need(s) and matching with an organization's capabilities leads to empathic design.

This role is Kelley's favorite. He indicated anthropoligists must be in a mental state of vuja de (a play on deja vu). Anthropologists must use new perspectives to look at things that have been witnessed a million times over. By doing so, anthropoligists discover unmet needs.

The experimenter is all about trial and error. Experimenters are given the allowance to fail in a fostered and secure system because with many innovators (Edison, Dyson, etc.) new knowledge comes from failure. Kelley remarked that organizations need to "lower the bar for prototyping." He explained that we do not allow ourselves enough room to be creative, and he indicated that even the crudest prototypes can elucidate ideas, eventually leading to breakthrough products or services (Kelley highlighted a case study from their HBR article, "Design Thinking.")

Cross-pollinators, my personal favorite, are individuals that spread knowledge and ideas throughout the organization. Of course, this directly relates to librarians and knowledge managers. Kelley described cross-pollinators as "unstable elements" until they've spread the new information/knowledge they have. Furthermore, Kelley said that cross-pollinators are infinitly curious and part student, part teacher. He indicated IDEO actively looks for these types of individuals to help their organization remain innovative.

While although a bit like a presentation to sell his book & IDEO, Kelley's talk gave us much to think about. I'm grateful for central Ohio organizations like CCAD, their BAC, and the YPO/WPO/EO collective for bringing luminaries like Kelley to Columbus. I hope that the cross-pollinization between academic, public, and private sectors continues to thrive in Columbus, fostering our own creative economy.

Recap: Helene Blowers' Finding the Phoenix

Blowers Champions Localization.

Last month Helene spoke at OCLC about the future of libraries. Her talk was entitled, "Finding the Phoenix: Feathers, Flight & the Future of Libraries," and it focused on how we can move beyond current trends and create engaging learning spaces.

I was particularly impressed with her trends analysis. She highlighted trends that I'm pretty sure that most of us were already aware of (e.g. mobile web, e-readers, etc.). However, it was her analysis of these trends which lead to new insights and got the crowd thinking. The ability to formulate new thoughts around data/info that has been around for 3-5 years really blew me away. I realized that it's not necessarily about finding the latest trends but what insights you're able to create.

Blowers tapped into the idea of the creative community/economy to transform libraries into deeply-rooted, community spaces that empower and foster community members' creativity. Furthermore, libraries that "harvest community knowledge" will shift from a privider of intellectual outputs to one that includes both inputs & outputs.

This is a powerful idea. The intellectual input/output paradigm will implicitly demonstrate a library's ROI to the community. That is, if they come to us (online or off). Consequently, strategic outreach becomes a critical component for our libraries.

Overall, it was really good presentation. Thanks again Helene. And thanks to my employer, SC search consultants, for placing a high value on professional development (i.e. allowing me time to attend ;)

Below are the slides from the presentation.

Finding the Phoenix: Feathers, Flight & the Future of Libraries

View more presentations from hblowers.