It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Or is it? We shall soon see. After a week of craziness in the office, I am off to Philly tomorrow late morning for Midwinter. This is the first conference I have worked since coming to ACRL/ ALA and I am interested to see how the experience differs from previous conferences where I have either been an attendee or speaker. Perhaps I will blog about it.

My schedule is fairly full with meetings and such, but I am planning on going to the first hour or so the OCLC blog salon on Sunday. So stop by and say hi. Or I will be around the exhibit hall a good bit as well. I do have plans to see a couple of friends from the tubes, so it won't be a total work*a*thon.

I may blog a bit if I get a chance (but nothing juicy, sorry!) and will definitely post pics on flickr. And maybe even Twitter a bit.

Hope to see at least some of you in Philadelphia.

When I Get To California, I'm Gonna Write My Name In The Sand

In the morning I'm heading out to Monterey for Internet Librarian. David Lee King and I are doing our preconference on Sunday. After that, I have no presentations or anything the rest of the conference. So it will be cool to just relax and go to sessions. And then have a couple of days of vacation time.

I'm especially looking forward to seeing many of my conference/ Internet friends again. And meeting new ones. So if you see me, say hello. And watch this space for blog-style updates.

Return of the Twitter

Working on my presentation for IL, working on my schedule, and talking to friends about meet-ups for dinner and drinks and general catching up, is getting me back into the library world groove quite nicely after a little absence. In fact, I visited Twitter today for the first time in a long time. They've made a few cosmetic changes that look pretty nifty. I'll most likely be tweeting in Monterey, and who knows, maybe I'll keep going after that. Add me if you're going to IL. Or care about what I'm doing there.

I plan on blogging from Monterey as well. And posting pics on Flickr. I honestly haven't been very excited about any of this since I moved to Chicago, so I'm looking forward to getting back into it.

ACRL 2007 Wrap-Up

I've been super busy this week so haven't had a chance until now to post more about ACRL 2007. It's probably old news by now, but here goes. Probably the best session I went to was a discussion of how the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign reconfigured their undergraduate library to meet the needs of millenial students. They didn't spend a lot of (or really any) time talking about the demographics of millenials so they were able to go into more detail about what they're doing at their library. They did a lot with the physical space and with things like gaming collections (complete with consoles).They showed a promotion video they made about the library too. Very cool. The video was pretty new and I couldn't find it online, but I'm sure it'll make the rounds at some point.

During the Q&A one person asked how they handle providing services to older students. Fortunately UIUC has about 40 libraries on their campus so they can afford to take one space and direct it pretty much solely to the traditional 18-23 year old undergrad demographic. But this is a big issue for those of us who work with more varied student bodies and have few physicial resources to work with. In my library we have to try to appeal to everyone from 18 year olds to 70 year olds, and all the different learning styles and needs in each group. In 6,000 square feet. But I did get some good ideas from the session about trying to make small changes in our space and for the glorious day when we have more. Great job.

I purposefully didn't go to any social software/ web 2.0 related sessions. But I did notice a big surge of librarian related Facebook activity after coming back. New librarians groups on topics like first year experience have popped up and I have more librarian friends now. So some session or sessions on social networking must have been very inspiring!

My Cyber Zed Shed quickie talk about what we're doing with podcasting went OK. I thought my similiar Internet Librarian talk was better but hopefully folks got something out of this one too. The folks from Palinet recorded interviews with all of the speakers from the Cyber Shed and those should be available soon through the Palinet podcast site.

Other reflections: Poster sessions were crowded as usual. But most of the ones I looked at were really good and informative. Nina Totenberg was scattered and seemed somewhat distracted. The conference reception at the National Aquarium was fun. Sharks are scary. ACRL staff folks are nice. A decent bar across from a conference center is a plus.

John Waters Interview Podcast

The ACRL podcast interview with John Waters I mentioned a few days ago is now available on the ACRL podcast blog and presumably in iTunes. I just did the introduction and threw in a couple of questions, but it was fun to be involved and get to meet him. He was very pleasant, laid back and funny in person. I think the interview went pretty well, and he does actually talk about library issues some.

One more thing I need to add to the list of things I've learned from podcasting though: If you get to be involved in a podcast with someone famous or interesting, give your camera to someone to take a pic or two before you start working. That way you won't have to hope you eventually get sent pics from the official photographer.

ACRL Day 2

Why yes, I am just getting around to posting an update on the second day of the conference. The couple of sessions I attended in the morning were OK. I did manage to get a few tips on gaming and getting training on library resources to distance learning faculty, but neither session really held my attention. The content was there but the presentation styles were somewhat lacking. I’m certainly not a stellar public speaker but I really do think that as academic librarians, we can do better than we do in this area, whether at a conference or in the classroom.

John Waters did a keynote luncheon which wasn't completely library relevent (although he did talk about libraries and reading some) but very entertaining. It was pretty much what I expected and was great! I got to meet him afterwards for the ACRL podcast (I'll post more about this when I get home)and he was very gracious and funny.

I spent the evening exploring the Fell’s Point neighborhood about a mile or so from the conference center. I ran across a great little indie record store and had a great dinner of tapas and sangria followed by a couple of pints at a great low key Irish pub. Unfortunately, I didn’t note the names of restaurant or pub. But there are lots of great choices for both in the area.

ACRL Day 1

I arrived in Baltimore today and made it to the conference center in time to register and catch the opening session with Michael Eric Dyson. I was looking forward to his talk and he didn’t disappoint. He covered topics ranging from literacy to the state of the black community. It was a very politically charged talk but very entertaining and thought provoking. And he rapped selections from Nas, 2Pac, Snoop, and Rakim! Best line: “I may be preaching to the choir, but the choir needs to sing better”. I did notice several folks leaving during the talk, so maybe it wasn’t for everyone. But he did give mad props to librarians.

Afterwards, we hit the exhibits, and then heading to the Wharf Rat for dinner and drinks. And ending up sitting next to fellow ACRL conference blogger SaraRanger, although I didn’t know she was a fellow blogger at the time. It was cool enough that she works with Michelle.

I’ve got Flickr pics!