Shanachie Tour: The End is Just the Beginning

I have had the immensely good fortune to meet a number of wonderful people here at the Internet Librarian Conference, and to rekindle old friendships too.  One of the most exciting experiences I've had is to speak with the gentlemen from the Shanachie Tour.  Three (and then four) gentlemen (Erik Boekesteijn, Jaap van de Geer, and Geert van den Boogaard) from the dok library (Delft) toured around the U.S., from New York to Monterey, and stopped at libraries along the way to see what innovative projects the U.S. libraries have managed to produce.  The result is amazing.  Go to the tour's website, read all about it, watch the videos, look at the photos, and be a better librarian for it. 

I think I want to move to the Netherlands. :)  Beyond my own personal fascination with this project and the participants, I also believe that the product of their work--the video interviews, the ideas, the cooperation--will affect many more libraries than we could even predict right now.  If you read what I write regularly, and sometimes click on things and sometimes ignore me, that's fine.  Just don't ignore this project, this idea, this amazing experience.