Bethel Technology Expert West
Returns from Trip to Dubai
By Mary Anderson

Bethel resident Jessamyn West attended the horse races while on her recent trip to Dubai. (Provided)

Jessamyn West of Bethel is often found traveling the world lecturing about technology topics and the digital divide. She recently returned from Dubai, where she was the keynote speaker at the Information Literacy Network Conference held at the Dubai campus of Zayed University.

This fairly new university serves 3,000 female students on several campuses. The goal of the conference was to provide professional development opportunities for information literacy professionals working in the Arabian Gulf region.

West left Bethel December 5 and flew for 14 hours to get to Dubai, where she stayed with a fellow librarian. Her speech, entitled "Library 2.0: Using Buzzwords to Help People," discussed how librarians can use new technological trends to reach their patrons and do outreach with minimal resources. Her talk addressed how librarians can use computers and simple tools to communicate more easily with each other and patrons, and also discussed how to create content on the web.

West also led two one-hour workshops on how to use blogs and wikis (software that allows users to create, edit and link web pages easily) and had approximately 60 students signed up for them. Her work will enable librarians to create their own online content without having to wait for an IT department or expensive tools.

"It was fun to work with people in another country," West said, adding, "I was pleasantly surprised at the lack of what we call ‘technostress’ surrounding using new tools. Everyone seemed very excited by the possibilities of being able to create things themselves and dove into practicing with them happily."

Following the conference, West toured some local libraries including the public library system in Dubai and the National Library in Abu Dhabi. She also spent time sightseeing and was pleasantly surprised to meet people who had seen her give a talk in Perth, Australia earlier in the year. While she was there, she also had what she calls a "funny small world moment" when she ran into Kristina Aaronson from Rochester.

West, who works for the Randolph Technical Career Center’s adult education program, "found Dubai breathtaking in how complex and interesting it was. It’s a Muslim country, but with a lot of Western influences and tourism. It was fascinating to watch the multiple cultures interact in a big, bustling city. I got to see the tallest building in the world, swim in an amazing outdoor pool, eat food from many different countries, go to the horse races and spend a lot of time walking around the old downtown area peering into shop windows."

West says her trip "was a really great adventure. Not only did I get to spread ideas about new technologies and solving problems in libraries, but I also got to go to a part of the world I would probably never have seen otherwise."

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