"Startup.gov: Reworking Government Through Technical Innovation" at SxSWi 2011

Session main page: http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP7534

Presented by Jennifer Caldwell

The open government movement was well-represented, with local government officials from around the country and around the world. I was very heartened to see a lot of passionate bureaucrats (an oxymoron, right?) who wanted to make the government more accessible to the people it governs.

What did they mean by open government? Ideas were far-ranging, but many centered on the notion of using technology to bring the people back into government. Making more data generally available is one part of this: having government information be easily searchable seemed to be what people wanted most. Ways to do this include:

• building better government websites – right now government is exceptionally poor at disseminating information online
• making it so government databases can talk to one another better, including unifying local/regional/state/federal in a more cohesive way
• allowing government databases to interact more with private databases (lots of concerns about privacy here, and justifiably so)
• increasing the technological culture of government

More about this last point: many government agencies do not have a culture of being techie, being savvy, being comfortable with technology. Tim O’Reilly is pushing Code for America (http://codeforamerica.org/), modeled on Teach for America, wherein tech professionals take time to work with government agencies to a) help government reach its goals of connecting with the people, b) seeding a tech culture within these agencies, and c) help complete concrete projects with both short-term and long-term goals.

Another concern many government officials had was that they don’t have any model for working openly and enthusiastically with the public. There was a lot of wishing they knew how to connect with people, to listen to people, and to respond to people. Something that seemed obvious to me was that they do have a model: the library: the library exists just to provide information and service. I think the library is an ideal model for (other) government agencies to use to improve their customer service. Interestingly, when I brought this up, while everyone enthusiastically supported the library, it was clear they thought of the library as a place to drop off flyers and maybe hold town halls, and NOT as a model for public service. What this tells me is that while the library has a lot to teach, it also has a lot to learn about marketing itself, even to potential (and natural) allies and partners.

"The Sharing Economy" at SxSWi 2011

Main event page (with audio): http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP5774

I was interested in this session because sharing is the core of the library ethos and I wanted to see what a "sharing economy" looked like. How does it echo traditional library services? And how is it different?

Basically the idea is that a number of forces have made sharing increasingly attractive to people: the economy, concern about sustainability and efficient use of resources, resistance to what some see as an over-commercialized world, new tech tools like GPS-enabled smart phones, and the fact that "wired" young people have become very comfortable with sharing because of experiences online.

The projects that were discussed were not centralized organizations like libraries where a small group of people manage the collection. Instead, these were de-centralized, peer-to-peer communities leveraging group-buying power then exchanging the resources. Some of the first items to be shared tend to be things that are expensive to purchase and maintain, like cars.

Other companies were leveraging the new capabilities of smartphones to enable people to search their own neighborhood for people willing to share things like tools or books, etc.

I could think of other places where this is happening: community gardens, and Lendle, and closer to home, Gangplank Tucson, the community letter press that David Aguirre recently installed at the Dinnerware Artspace (sharing, but with fees), and the community darkroom in the works downtown, a project of the Tucson Community Darkroom (sharing, but with fees).

Websites mentioned in the presentation

• Shareable
• Itizen
• Zimride
• Swapitude
• Rentalic
• Latitude

"Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives & Museums" at SxSWi 2011

"Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives & Museums"
Main event page: http://schedule.sxsw.com/events/event_IAP6396 (with audio)

• Open Library
• Lookback Apps
• Philly History
• Post about their augmented reality project
• Texas State History Archive
• Azavea

 The part of this panel that gave me goosebumps was Deborah Boyer's rapid-fire tour of what happens when museums, libraries and archives open their collections up and go beyond digitization to mashups and augmented reality through the use of open APIs.

I love what she said:

• Make your archive as open as possible
• Use the tools you already have (like google maps)
• Form partnerships with local coder groups and have "hackathons" to connect APIs

Here are her slides:

Innovating & Developing with Libraries, Archives, and Museums

View more presentations from Azavea

How to Participate in SxSWi

Brenda Huettner couldn't attend but sent us a video about how panels are chosen, how you can participate, and how even people who can't attend can view or listen to the sessions.

Links:

• Lanyrd
• SxSWi Live
• Ogilvy Notes 

Welcome to Tucson Talks

Today we had a panel discussion for what I hope will be the inaugural for a series of library-sponsored talks in Tucson and Pima County about technology and how it can be of service to the community. Five of the Tucsonans who attended SxSW Interactive this year spoke about their experiences and big takeaways. On the panel were: 

• Kat Meyer, Conference Chair and Community Development Director for O'Reilly Media's Tools of Change, is a long time veteran of the book publishing industry whose background includes both editorial and marketing experience working for a diverse array of regional and national trade and academic publishers, including: Harcourt Brace, Communication Skill Builders, the University of Arizona Press, Rio Nuevo Publishers, and the RGU Group. Prior to joining O’Reilly as co-chair for the Tools of Change conference, Kat was Chief Content Wrangler of Next Chapter Communications, where she reveled in two of her favorite past times: all things bookish and all things social media! Twitter: @katmeyer 
• Molly Holzschlag is a web evangelist focusing on developer relations for the upstart Norwegian browser company, Opera Software. Recent presentations include “Drawing Back the Curtains on CSS Implementation” at SxSWi 2011, “Demystifying HTML5” and “The Emerging Open Web.” She is the author of numerous books on CSS and HTML, including Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design. Twitter: @mollydotcom 
• Scott Henderson is the Chief Technical Officer at Bookmans Entertainment Exchange and the Director of Gangplank Tucson, a collaborative working space. A musician and wired information junkie who travels extensively, he has more anecdotal stories than are reasonable or necessary, and possesses an uncanny ability to find and facilitate trouble. Twitter: @espressojunky 
• Brenda Huettner (appearing by video) writes articles and books and teaches workshops on management, usability, and technical writing through her company, P-N Designs, Inc.  This year marked her third trip to SXSWi, where she hosted a "Core Conversation" on improving the accessibility of information products.  Twitter: @bphuettner 
• Lisa Bunker: I am the Social Media Librarian for Pima County Public Library and the Research Librarian at the Tucson Museum of Art. I love telling the story of the library and finding new ways to interact with book and music lovers on Facebook and Twitter; I find I have more ideas for this than time to develop them! I'm currently working with Jennifer to roll out self-paced technology classes called "Baker's Dozen" for the public. This was my first taste of SxSWi. Twitter: @pimalibrary
• Rebecca Ballenger, the Online Content Coordinator at Bookmans Entertainment Exchange.
• Jennifer Caldwell is the lead librarian for our soon-to-be-launched "Baker's Dozen" technology classes, and is also the Teen Librarian at the Wheeler Taft Abbett, Sr. Library in Marana. This was also her first SxSWi.

Jennifer Caldwell and Brenda Huettner couldn't attend but I will include text and/or video they've provided.

In the subsequent posts I will summarize what panel members presented about and provide links to resources where you can listen to and comment upon the SxSWi sessions that sparked their imagination.