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ALA Annual 2010 Battledecks Champ!

I am truly, honestly surprised and thrilled to be crowned (or tiara’d) the American Library Association 2010 Annual Conference Battledecks champion. I still haven’t seen video of my competitors, but I can say with authority that they are all smarter, better-looking, and funnier than I.

Somehow though, I pulled it off. The official ALA video below doesn’t include my entrance, complete with luchadore mask (which I think got me bonus points). I wasn’t going to watch myself, but I realized I was so completely out of it during the thing that I barely remembered anything except the cataloger joke.

NOTE: about that. I worked as a serials cataloger for the 2 years of my degree at UNC-Chapel Hill, and took every class in cataloging offered. I have great respect for catalogers. But sometimes, you just have to go for the obvious joke. Please don’t hurt me.

By griffey

Jason Griffey is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he works to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise is useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of IT at the University of TN at Chattanooga.

Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently AI & Machine Learning in Libraries and Library Spaces and Smart Buildings: Technology, Metrics, and Iterative Design from 2018. His newest book, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, will be published by MIT Press in 2024.

He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.

Jason can be stalked obsessively online, and spends his free time with his daughter Eliza, reading, obsessing over gadgets, and preparing for the inevitable zombie uprising.

4 replies on “ALA Annual 2010 Battledecks Champ!”

Congrats! I look forward to seeing you defend yr title in New Orleans. (I especially liked yr take on the TFD slide.)

Congrats Jason. I think I have video of your entrance on my (lost, but then found again–thanks ALA lost and found!) flip camera. Will try to vids posted a.s.a.p.

I think American Libraries is going to put up the complete competition, including intros, at a later date and that this was just a quick way to spread the winning video to all. I am sending over slides, theme music and logo today so that Greg can make something awesome.

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