Radical Reference
presented at the 2009 New Jersey Library Association conference
Tuesday, April 28, 4:30-5:20pm
Ocean Place, Long Branch, NJ

Radical Reference is an online reference service provided by volunteer librarians using free/open source technology. Come learn more about how you can use this model to deliver services in your own communities. Presenters will share the five year history of the group and discuss how it collaborates, as well as give an accessible history of free/open source software.

Julie Crawford Tozer is the Teen Services Librarian at the Toms River Branch of the Ocean County Library. She received her MLS from Queens College, and worked in archives while completing the degree. She thinks that archivists and teen librarians are some of the most effective advocates and activists in librarianship. She has been involved with Radical Reference since 2005.

Eric Goldhagen is a technology worker and activist whose day-job is building Free Software with the Openflows Community Technology Lab. Eric one of the co-authors of "The Organic Internet: Organizing History's Largest Social Movement." A book that looks at the interaction between technology, politics and culture.
11 yeas ago he founded a free public access computer facility at ABC No Rio, a community center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Out of that grew a project called the InterActivist Network, a community-centric technology infrastructure and skills sharing project. Interactivist has hosted and provided technical support for the Radical Reference website since its inception.

Julie's presentation available below as a ppt, or here as a Google doc.