Erik and Jaap, the guys from the Delft Pub­lic Library who vis­ited the Chicago area in Feb­ru­ary to talk with librar­i­ans about gam­ing, are com­ing back this month on a nation­wide tour to explore inno­va­tion in U.S. libraries. Yes, a nation­wide tour. Only these two could pull off some­thing this ambi­tious. They’ll be dri­ving cross-country on their way to the Inter­net Librar­ian con­fer­ence in Cal­i­for­nia at the end of Octo­ber, stop­ping at the fol­low­ing libraries along the way:

• New York Pub­lic Library
• Darien Library
• Pub­lic Library of Char­lotte Meck­len­burg County
• Ann Arbor Dis­trict Library
• Morten­son Center
• Coun­cil Bluffs Pub­lic Library
• Den­ver Pub­lic Library
• Salt Lake City Library

They’ll be talk­ing with librar­i­ans, inter­view­ing them on cam­era, shoot­ing video of ser­vices, dri­ving west­ward, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the annual “gad­gets” pre­sen­ta­tion at the IL con­fer­ence, and then head­ing home to cre­ate another great doc­u­men­tary (like the one they did for their first trip). They’ll be in the Chicago area around Octo­ber 20–21, and I can’t wait to see them again. If noth­ing else, we will def­i­nitely have another video game night.

If you’re on or near their route, con­sider con­tact­ing and get­ting together with them — I guar­an­tee you won’t regret it. Their enthu­si­asm and cre­ativ­ity is infec­tious. I mean really, who else do you know who could get fund­ing for such a big idea as this?

When Erik first drew up the plan on a nap­kin in Feb­ru­ary, I loved the idea of librar­i­ans as “shanachies.” Their theme is “Keep sto­ries, tell sto­ries, make stories.”

“Orig­i­nally the shanachie in Ire­land was a very impor­tant per­son who in rank came after the chief and the druid car­ried the gift of keep­ing and telling the sto­ries. They trav­elled the coun­try and were given free lodges and food in return for sto­ries. The gift was passed on when the Shanachie died.”

More info is avail­able on the offi­cial Shanachie Tour site. They’ll be post­ing a video diary there as the trip pro­gresses. I can’t wait to watch what they do next!