Recently I attended OverDrive’s International User Group Conference, DigiPalooza, in Cleveland, Ohio. As you might expect, the main focus of the conference is to share best practices to assist librarians in providing digital content to their patrons. However, I found the material presented at the conference to go above and beyond ebooks and audiobooks.
The conference began with a rousing presentation from ALA president, Sari Feldman. She stressed the notion that librarians must cultivate the “relationship with people and content” and “we have the obligation to promote the book and read it”. She also outlined the library ecosystem (Publishers>Distributor>Library>Readers) and stressed how all stakeholders have common interests. In conclusion, she introduced ALA’s new public awareness campaign, Libraries Transform (http://www.librariestransform.org/).
The heart of the conference was the information shared by those in attendance. Librarians provided real-world examples of how to engage readers. Topics included reader’s advisory (http://libraryreads.org/), book promotion (using the library space and social media) and digital literacy. (I will share presentations once they become available.)
If I were to sum up the entire conference, it would be to say that libraries are essential in connecting readers with content. To quote Andrew Richard Albanese (a presenter from Publisher’s Weekly), “The product today is reading”.
More conference content including attendee comments, images and videos may be found here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/digip15
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