I very occasionally speak publicly about library history, technology, and creativity.
Image description: A Computer Output Microfiche card
Upcoming: Keynote for Academic Libraries North Conference 2025
I’ll be delivering the in-person keynote at the Academic Libraries North 2025 conference in July, with a talk titled “The 10,000 year librarian: Radical sustainability for enduring knowledge.” My plan is to speak about different models of obsolescence, radical sustainability, and avoiding the wrong kind of longtermism in library planning. Whenever I speak publicly I try to work in some history of library technology, and this time Eugene Power and University Microfilms International will be on my mind. Pictured is an example of a computer output microfiche (COM) card, which was used to distribute information to universities that couldn’t afford their own computer terminals but did have microfiche readers.
Past: Keynote for British Library Open and Engaged Conference, 2023
While I was working at the Internet Archive in 2023, I was invited to keynote the British Library’s Open and Engaged Conference 2023. I spoke about some themes of non-commerical library technology innovation, focusing on the history of library card catalogs and the short-lived American Library Bureau office company founded by Melville Dewey. The talk was not recorded (and took place the day after the cyberattack on the British Library, which was surreal), but slides can be viewed below. The playing cards pictured were used by librarians for ad hoc library card catalogs during the French Revolution.
Image description: French suited playing cards with handwritten script writing on the back.