The Education Institute’s Tech Tuesday: Talking with Techies series of audio talks begins this year on Tuesday, Feb 7 at 3 pm EST, with Aaron Schmidt’s talk about Socializing Your Library: Using Social Computing Skills. His talk last fall on using instant messageing (IM) was very popular. The Education Insitute is a parthership of Canadian provincial library associations and programs are open worldwide via audio and internet connecitons. Check out their spring line up. Join us.

Looking forward to the fall conference season, the call for speakers for Information Today’s Internet Librarian 2006 wants speakers for talks related to the theme, Integrated Experiences: Compelling Content Combinations, especially mashups! Think about the interesting things you are doing in your library or information service, and send us a proposal. We’d love to have you join us in Monterey CA, Oct 23-25.

Later this week the Ontario Library Association’s Superconference 2006 , held in Toronto, kicks off with an interesting theme, The Right Brain of Librarianship — Creative Connections and Innovation . Lots of great sessions including:

Stephen Abram’s Are Libraries Innovative Enough?, Session 1101 on Fri Oct 3 at 10:40 am

Jane Dysart’s The Right Brain of Librarianship Creativity Session #2: BUILDING CASTLES IN YOUR MIND: CREATIVE PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE, session #1212 on Friday, Oct 3, 2:10-3:25pm.

Rebecca Jones’ LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS: ACCELERATED STRATEGIC AND BUSINESS PLANNING, Session 1312 on Fri Oct 3, 3.45-5pm

Check out the conference at the Toronto Convention Centre and see future postings by roving reporter Juanita Richardson on this blog.

I was very lucky to have a sunny, warm vacation after the holiday season. While on the beach I read a new book from an author whom I have followed for years, J.A. Jance. Her crime fighting characters, J.P. Beaumont and Joanna Brady are like old friends. Her new book, Edge of Evil, is a departure featuring a female TV anchor who is fired and with the help of her university computer savvy son, starts a blog! Great fun to read, especially for mystery readers and bloggers. And guess what, years ago Jance was a K-12 librarian in Arizona — something I had never realized before.