On Wednesday, September 23, 2020, several faculty members of the Missouri State University Libraries attended “Like the Ceiling Can’t Hold Us: Sharing Innovations in Libraries,” an online conference organized and produced by Amigos on the general topic of innovation in libraries. Because the MSU Libraries is a member of the Amigos library consortium, there was no direct out-of-pocket cost for attending and gaining information and ideas from this conference. Some session notes taken by MSU employees are below: 

• The opening keynote address was given by Dr. Roslyn Dean, Community Engagement Manager at Broward County Library in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She recently was honored as a Mover & Shaker by Library Journal, one of the main periodicals of librarianship. Dr. Dean encouraged librarians to explore tech developments and opportunities beyond librarianship. She also encouraged attendees to get outside their comfort zone. Learn what you can. Don’t feel you need to completely understand everything about some tech trend before trying something in your library. One project she spent some time reviewing was Broward County’s Virtual AARLCC Project. The project’s goal is to expand access to Special Collections via 3D modeling. They received a $78,000 IMLS grant, and they partnered with the University of Arizona’s Center for Digital Humanities.

• Creating an Online Escape Room: This session was about creating an information literacy skills tutorial in the form of an online escape room. The session showed how librarians at Blinn College Library were able to take current library resources listed on their website and use LibWizard to create the tutorial or in this instance, their version of an online escape room. Using LibWizard, they were able to integrate the library website, databases, and subject guides into a tutorial in which students could get instant feedback (whether or not their choice was a correct answer) or get a clue to help them complete the escape room.  

• Down the Rabbit Hole: Using Social Media to Promote Digital Resources in the Time of COVID-19 by Joanathan Cavazos of Northwest Vista College (NVC).  Trello works well for in-house sharing of ideas for posts on social media and spreading out their scheduling so subscribers aren’t overwhelmed. From Trello, posts can go into Hootsuite for distribution to different social media platforms, and posts can also be deleted centrally from there. Canva.com/education/ (a primo account) works well for collaboration and ideas and has templates and stock photos available. It makes one appear as if one possesses far greater design skills than one actually does. Zoom and Google Meet can have closed captioning turned on for the hearing impaired. 

• Happy and Calm: Children’s Yoga & Mindfulness for Virtual and In-Person Programming by Becky Shaknovich of the Free Library of Philadelphia and Bari Koral, kids yoga expert and award-winning recording artist. When we practice slow, deep breathing with long exhales for as few as 3-5 times, we can be taken out of our fight or flight response and into our brain’s executive functioning instead. It also activates our bodies’ parasympathetic nervous system. Librarians can often take on others’ problems, and practicing yoga and mindfulness can help us let them go. Five years ago, Becky developed a chronic health condition that left her feeling sick. She wasn’t able to stop feeling unwell until she started yoga and relieved the stress stored in her body. They recommended Rainbow Relaxation—slowly inhale the color red, then exhale the color blue, and repeat. Notice when your mind is traveling and bring it back. Then go on to relax different parts of the body with different colors of the rainbow. Both offer extensive resources online.  

• From Inbox to Completion: The Secrets to Successful Workflow by Doug Crane, Library Director of the Palm Beach County Library System.  Librarians are knowledge workers in which part of your job is to define what your work is and the priorities that you should focus upon. This can be stressful because it may not be apparent how to win the “game,” you may know your goal but not where to start, or you may know where you’re going but keeping track of all the necessary next actions to get there can be overwhelming. Doug recommends the book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. We essentially move around a series of notes all day—email, articles, post-its, etc. that need to be managed effectively. Doug focused on Allen’s Five Stages of Workflow: Capture, Clarify, Organize, Reflect, Engage, which are also elaborated upon in the book. He recommended the Simplenote app. He also recommended the Eisenhower Box and noted that very few urgent things are actually important, yet others expect you to do those urgent things. He maintains a blog and a newsletter to help others.  

If you missed this online conference, the good news is that all of the sessions were recorded, and it’s possible to register to listen to and watch any or all of the sessions.