Taiga 2 Goes Open Space

By Jay Datema -- Library Journal, 03/01/2007

Assistant university librarians and assistant directors met for the second annual Taiga Forum a day before the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting in Seattle to discuss the changing dynamics of academic libraries. In a shift from last year, the participants used the Open Spaces structure to stage an unconference, where the conversation topics were chosen by the participants. Those topics included “Search,” “Radical Collaboration,” and “Google: Friend or Foe,” among others. The guiding principles were, “Whoever comes is the right person, whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened, whenever it starts is the right time, and when it's over, it's over.” Yale University assistant university librarian Meg Bellinger said, “We came away with the sense that we don't have all of the answers, but we all share the same problems. We must spend time moving beyond the current issues toward solutions.” The meeting was sponsored by Innovative Interfaces, Inc.