Link This | Email this | Blog This | Comments (0)

A Hot Time in the Cow Town Tonight
April 30, 2008

Recently I was asked to ride herd on three of my favorite speakers for the Texas Library Association Annual Conference in Dallas. I'm on the left in the photo, next to Stephen Abram, with Joe Janes next to him and Karen Schneider at the far right. With folks like this you have to know we had a rollicking good time. There were no shrinking violets on that stage, and I simply posed a few provocative questions and let them go at it.

I began with the question "What keeps you awake at night? That is, what major challenge worries you, or which new opportunity excites you?" (This I blatantly stole from the RLG Programs Podcast Series in which my colleagues and I are interviewing library, museum and archive thought leaders).

Backstage before the event Stephen suggested another couple questions: "If you could change one thing, what would it be?" and "What one thing would you want to know more about?". I wrapped up by allowing them all a brief time to give us any final thoughts. Starr Hoffman, who took the picture, also blogged the discussion, but I'm hoping the video is posted since it really must be seen and heard to get the sense of the discussion.

Suffice it to say that I've never been a part of a more interesting, engaging, and provocative library program. I've never experienced the amount of laughter and applause they elicited throughout the program. This venue is highly underrated -- get three very articulate, intelligent, opinionated, and insightful individuals, give them a few intriguing questions to riff off of and let it rip. The audience loved it, and hopefully took away enough things to think about for some time to come. I know I did.

Posted by Roy Tennant on April 30, 2008 | Comments (0)