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The Aspen Institute Leadership Roundtable on Library Innovation

I’m currently sitting in the Denver Airport, waiting on my connection to Aspen, on my way to the Aspen Institute Leadership Roundtable on Library Innovation. The previous library work done at Aspen, their Dialogue on Public Libraries, was interesting and well done, and I am very excited to be a part of this new effort.

At the same time, I am wary of small groups “representing” libraries or librarians. I did a quick check of the attendee list (not currently public, but will be at some point, I imagine) and it could do better on both female/male balance (12/18) and representation of racial diversity (a rougher count, because I don’t want to assume too much about racial makeup or identification based on a name and photo, puts that at 23/7). It’s an impressive list of people, and I can’t wait to work with them. It will be very interesting to see the final makeup of the group, and to pay attention to the process of the working group as we dig into the issues.

The roundtable starts officially tomorrow, with working groups going non-stop Monday and Tuesday before wrapping up Wednesday. I will be doing my best to tweet as we go…I’m not great as a live-tweeter, especially if I’m trying to stay involved in the discussions and be useful. But I’ll do my best to do what I can, especially if assumptions are being made that I feel are questionable…that sort of thing I will throw out and hope to get some feedback on in realtime from the Twitter masses.

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.

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