I’ll be gone for the next couple of days attending the New Jersey Library Association annual conference. Last year, I was co-presenter of the Information Technology section “Tech Lounge”, a gadget and gaming petting zoo. Attendees can come get hands on time with different game systems and a variety of gadgets (iPads, iPods, Kindles, Nooks, and whatnot). It was a success last year and I’m hoping to duplicate it again this year.
In addition, we schedule people to hang around the Tech Lounge to answer specific questions about different topics. This year, I’m happy to once again have Justin and JP from 8bitlibrary who will be answering questions about teen gaming, gaming programs, and video game collections on Tuesday between 1pm to 3pm. Doug Baldwin will be there on Wednesday at 12pm about alternate reality games and the very cool mystery game his library did with patrons. Karen Klapperstuck and Cynthia Lambert will be doing hands on eBook demonstrations (as in, how to download it to various devices) on Wednesday from 2pm to the start of Battledecks. I’m also very pleased to announce that Kenley Neufeld will be spending an hour at the Tech Lounge on Wednesday from 1pm to 2pm to talk about social media platforms. The talks allow attendees to ask additional questions and have longer conversations about certain topics; it was a great success this year and we have a variety of people this year. I’m looking forward to it once again.
In mentioning Battledecks, I am the slidemaster for this year’s competition. I have some truly wonderfully bad decks made for the contestants. I look forward to seeing how everyone does, considering how many random internet image searches it took to get all the pictures that I needed. I’m also thinking that the better description is “PowerPoint Improv” rather than “PowerPoint Karaoke”, since karaoke implies that they know the tune ahead of time.
I may or may not be able to squeeze out some blog posts (I’m leaving the laptop at home), so I’ll leave you with the official Battledeck competition design that I made with GIMP and Inkscape.
Behold it in all its terrible glory.
Agnostic, Maybe 
Great idea. Our national library conference is being held this year in my city, I’d love to organize a tech petting zoo. How did you get the range of gadgets to play with? We don’ even have nooks here, but some ereaders are available, and apple devices. Any other tips or suggestions for organizing something similar?
Yes! Another Librarian Redditor!
Ironically, I came across your blog from a Reddit post. ::subscribed::
Hey there Andy,
Why the NJ conference? I’m wondering if you have some connection with them or do they have a really strong library program you admire? Very interesting leap out of New England!
I did see two librarians from NJ speak at the VSLA conference. And their program WAS really strong, hence me asking.
Cheers,
Erikka
Well, I am an NJ librarian for one. The other reason is that we did the Tech Lounge last year with great success. I’m a member of the Information Technology section so I co-presented it last year. This year I’m happy to say that it was an even better success. I believe it was a big gadget year since there was so much interest in the eReaders (which from my own experience at my library was the gift that people got for Christmas).
If you have any questions about the Tech Lounge and how it operated, let me know.