Tomb of the Unknown Librarian

Cindi over at Chronicles of Bean nails it. It is time to participate!

This was my first ALA conference and I’ve never felt like I got a lot out of most of the other conferences I attended. This time I got out there and met some awesome librarians, and made some new contacts and some new friends, and had a great time.

I have a lot of respect for “vintage” librarians who paved the way for information freedom and access, but they did not pave the way for rapid innovation, experimentation, and play. The new playing field for information freedom and access is there. Let’s play! And be edgy and experimental, and make mistakes, and learn from them, and not be perfect all the time. I heard this over and over from a variety of speakers; It’s not all recursive argumentation derived from one source. It emanates from all areas and arenas of librarianship, from being stifled and controlled and not being allowed to talk in the library, or play in the library, or experiment in the library. We have to get out there and try something new, and particpate in the culture of change by putting ourselves out on a limb.

PAR-TIC-I-PA-TION, or 37 pieces of library flair from Cindiann
http://alreadygone.blogspot.com/2007/06/par-tic-i-pa-tion-or-37-pieces-of.html

Garrison Keillor gave the closing keynote at ALA. He was hilarious. He talked about his fondness for libraries, a reverent nostalgic vision of the quiet library, a place that is unwired yet heavily used by teens. The audience murmured humorously. It was a packed house despite only ALA members being allowed in… no family or friends. That caused a little commotion.

I attended the exhibits floor one last time. After, I went over to the Day on the Capitol. Eight hundred or so librarians went to Capitol Hill offices to meet with Congressional and Senate members to urge them to think of the libraries that need their help. I actually didn’t get to meet with anyone. Seemed like no one was home but I got lots of photos of folks in red shirts that said Support Libraries. I’m not sure why they chose red for the color; Hasn’t anyone seen Star Trek?

D.C. was bloody hot and humid today, so after a few hours of roaming around the Capitol, I called it a day.

Today was another full day. Met early at Union Station for an “Insider’s Tour of Capitol Hill.” The tour was marginal at best but it was neat to actually walk into the Senator’s and Representative’s offices. The News Hour was covering two important Supreme Court cases. Ate at the Senate Cafeteria.

Visited a Google Scholar presentation which was pretty useful. Gotta give it to Google they know what they are doing and who their audience is.

Met some friends out front and just relaxed a bit with them before hitting the exhibit floor one last time. I really wanted to go and get ready for the SJSU SLIS Alumni Reception but went to see Armistad Maupin speak. He’s a great speaker in addition to being a great writer.

more later

After the YALSA YA author breakfast, I went to an awesome program on Building Websites with Drupal [droo - pull] presented by Eli Neiburger and John Blyberg. They used Drupal for the Ann Arbor District Library and built an API to integrate data from their library catalog. Most of it was custom programming using PHP. I love it. As a CMS it is cool, but as the library’s primary web interface, it really works.

They even created a way for patrons to tag books, generate old style library catalog card digitally, and write reviews.

Oh, by they way… comments are allowed. It just happened I was sitting next to the director, Josie Parker. I couldn’t help but mention to her how much trust she has, not just in her staff but her patrons too.

After that I met with some vendors about a marketing tool they want to sell the library. It didn’t seem to make much sense.

I stopped by a friends product demo before heading off to see Robert Kennedy speak. He spoke about a lot of current issues and some not so current issues: the media’s consolidation and control, the environment, the current administration’s malfeasance, religion, and politics. It was definitely a political speech but didn’t offer a lot of solutions. I’m all about the solution oriented feedback.
I forgot to mention I met Nancy Pearl, who is such a genuine role model for all librarians.
After the speech, I stopped by and got some dinner with some friends and witnessed my first Presidential road closure. President Bush was apparently en route to the theater… Ford’s Theater.

Day three at ALA started off at the YALSA Breakfast with some Printz Award winning authors. They played a version of speed dating where the authors were at each table for 5 – 10 minutes and then would switch. We started off with John Green and his editor. Laurie Halse Anderson, Virginia Euwer Wolff, Jack Gantos, Terry Trueman, and Lois Lowry all made it to our table. By about the seventh author the whole speed dating thing exploded.

John Green talked about his next novel set in Orlando. It sounds awesome. They all agreed that YA literature has changed significantly in the last ten years and it’s really opened the door for serious authors to write for teens.

more later

Saturday was fun but didn’t really start that way. The first program, I attended a forgetable program about collection data assessment. It focused on mostly academic resources but was not entirely innovative in any respect.
There was a small protest going on in front of the convention center. I visited the exhibit floor, it was a bit daunting but I loved the Spin the Wheel of ALA acronyms and got to see my grad school’s booth and saw Rhonda the recruiter.
The Ultimate Debate, Do Librarians Innovate? was very heated, but much of it was just heated venting, with Joe Janes, Karen Schneider and Stephen Abram, moderated by Andrew Pace. Karen made the distinction between invention and innovation, while Stephen Abram defined innovation as change leadership.
They talked about the library in Maricopa County getting rid of Dewey, going to an entirely browsing collection in one library and the uproar by librarians on the PubLib listserv. The outcry is an example of the fear of trying something new. Predictably, there were no complaints from the customers. I think libraries should keep dewey for workers, but use tag clouds added by library customers to the online catalog records displayed on LCDs on the shelf ends to show them what’s where. Joe argued that libraries don’t innovate, individuals do.
Other topics that were brought up were library schools role in teaching and promoting innovation, the slender margin of success librarians are allowed, a culture of playing the victim, and unrealistic expectations for librarians.
I wrapped the day with a visit to the LITA Open House followed by the LITA Happy Hour at the Capital City Grill.
Check out the rest of the photos from day 2 on flickr

I uplodaded photos of the second part of yesterday at ALA.

Check out the rest of the photos and let me know what you think.

So part 1 of today’s preconference at ALA2007 is over. Michael Stephens gave an awesome, fast-paced presentation on “Participatory Culture” in libraries. It really is going to take a cultural shift from control to play as he puts it. Good times. here are some photos.