Break from Library: Monterey Bay Aquarium

Hi, dear readers. We have a break in the scheduled programming of Internet Librarian 2010 updates in order to talk about the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Now I’m a bit biased, as I’ll get into later, but I think everyone at the conference should take a break and go see this awesome aquarium.

So why am I biased? Well, for one thing a UCSC alumnus founded the aquarium (go Banana Slugs!). But mainly, it’s because one of my closest friends, Monika, works at the aquarium as an aviculturist. (If you go and see her, be sure to be nice and say hi.)

Monika at the Hot Pink Flamingos Exhibit

Monika at the Hot Pink Flamingos Exhibit

Not only is the Monterey Bay Aquarium a beautiful aquarium and lovely place, it is a great place to see technology being used wonderfully for education in a fun way. We can learn a lot about deploying technology in ways that really work. In the Hot Pink Flamingos exhibit, they have used video cameras and touchscreen computers in order to engage visitors to publicly pledge to do one thing that will help the planet (such as eating less meat, driving less, writing to your representatives, etc.). How could we use technology in ways that engage our users and are intuitive? Something to think about as you are going through the aquarium.

photo of avocets

Avocets

Oh, and the aviary is fantastic too, as you can see from the above photo. So take a break and go learn about the fantastically cool seahorses, the interesting eels, and the lovely birds. Then come on back to the conference refreshed and energized to dive back into the technological fray!