MLA/DLA Annual Conference - Boldly Go Where No Libraries Have Gone Before

MLA/DLA Annual Conference

May 6-8, 2015

The Place to Find What’s Free, Online, Collaborative, and Shared (aka Crowdsourcing)

Joyce Valenza presented the “Hack Library” during Friday’s lunch and reception.  A school librarian and professor at Rutgers, Joyce explained that when we hack libraries, we are doing “…playful problem solving of a problem by understanding it as part of the system.”  A motto to librarians that hack is, “Nothing is ever complete.” 

When we think the best answers are only from scholars and databases, we learn from Joyce that there are free, online resources built in collaboration with several people and are meant to be shared.  “Crowdsourcing” resources have credible and insightful information from and about us.  Yelp:  http://www.yelp.com/ and Yahoo! Answers:  https://answers.yahoo.com/ are crowdsourcing mainstays.  Two unique crowdsourcing resources to try out are:

Ask.fm:  http://ask.fm/

Whisper:  https://whisper.sh/

Even Tom Croft, the graphic designer at the Frederick County Public Library, shared great resources during his program that he uses on the job:  some are free, and some come at a low-cost that also happen to be crowdsourced:

Dafont:  http://www.dafont.com/

Dafont has freeware, shareware, demo versions, and public domain fonts that get submitted in by “font authors.” 

Videvo:  http://www.videvo.net/

Videvo has free photo stock and motion graphics.  You can make a free account, find graphics by subject, and download for fair use.

Joyce Valenza’s presentation is available at http://www.slideshare.net/joycevalenza/hacking-libraries.  Joyce’s blog is the “NeverEndingSearch:” http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/.

Who’s ready to crowdsource?  

Paul Chasen, Statewide Coordinator, Maryland AskUsNow!