I overslept and missed the breakfast, presentation, and first session. Whoops.
I looked in on the NWCentral session and the Picasso, Pollack & Programs session. I wish I had ended up attending the entire art session. It looked like they were having a really good time in there. I'm already a user and advocate of NWCentral, so it wasn't the greatest use of my time to observe that.
I ended up running into a few librarians from my home library system in Douglas County. They were really excited to see a product of their system entering the library profession. I was invited to give a talk to their board and county commissioners to tell my story of how I arrived at working in a library and attending library school. It was exciting.
For Friday PM I attended the Future of the Catalog session by our own Michael Boock. It was interesting to hear his ideas about the direction of the catalog and what other systems are doing. The idea of moving to an open source ILS is fascinating and sounds like something we should definitely be investigating (hint hint). What we think users want and what the users actually want still seems to have some disparity--reviews and comments and pictures of book jackets seem to be what they are after. Let's give it to them.
For the last Friday PM session I went to RFID: Before and After Workflow Comparisons. I didn't know anything about RFID going into this and was fairly amazed at the possible applications of this technology. I was also stunned by the practical nightmare it creates. The magic and allure were gone when the tagging methods for the transmitters were revealed and how users must position items on the sensor table to be properly scanned. Not to mention the cost of the transmitters, the labor cost of installing them, and replacement when they are damaged or worn out by rough handling. This conversion went hand-in-hand with a new check-in automation machine. As an outsider, it doesn't look like the cost benefits of this entire package was really a benefit--the manual check-in process seems to be more cost effective, though they're now stuck in automation because of the large initial investments.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
OLA Conference 2007, Day 1
It was a long day today. Very long. I didn't sleep very well since I was nervous about my presentation.
The Thursday AM keynote speaker Rivkah Sass was inspiring to say the least. She's director of libraries for Omaha Public in Nebraska. She had a lot of innovative things to say about where libraries are headed and most importantly, the attitude of librarians. To keep the tradition of libraries continuing we must keep current, be innovative, and be open to change. Another key point of her presentation was taking charge in the role of library vs. vendor. The relationship should be mutually beneficial instead of parasitic.
Thursday AM session. I went to the Ready to Read session by Katie Anderson from OSL. It was pretty informative, I learned a lot about funding for children/young adults at public libraries. I kept thinking of information literacy instruction themes beginning at the infant/toddler level. I imagine this really cool cooperative linear progression that guides children from storytime through their first college freshman research paper.
Thursday PM. I skipped out on most of this session, and poked my head in on the Web Design Initiatives session for a few minutes. Interesting stuff, but from what I saw, I felt more comfortable with what we're doing at OSU.
My own session, Getting Caught Up In Web 2.0. Essentially a session on library 2.0 and how it is practically used across different types of libraries. We had a great turnout with standing room only for about a dozen people. A link to the presentation and materials: http://camila.pbwiki.com on the right side of the screen is a little navigation window, "presentation" will take you to our presentation slides, and "getting caught up with" will take you to several pages we produced to introduce web 2.0 technologies and how to get involved with them. No users were harmed by the absence of PowerPoint slides in this presentation.
After our session was finished, I milled about the general reception for a bit, then joined the Emporia alumni reception to kill time until the banquet. My attendance to this was made possible by Aletha Bonebrake. In trade for a ticket, it was my job to lure Camila Gabaldón into attending since she would be the recipient of a surprise presidential award. I had a good time, the speaker for the banquet was author Maria Amparo Escandón. She shared some really great stories about her background: growing up in Mexico, writing, moving to the United States, and continuing to research, grow in her writing style, and publish. Here's a link to her bio/info from the OLA site: http://www.olaweb.org/conference/2007Program/mariaescandon.html
The Thursday AM keynote speaker Rivkah Sass was inspiring to say the least. She's director of libraries for Omaha Public in Nebraska. She had a lot of innovative things to say about where libraries are headed and most importantly, the attitude of librarians. To keep the tradition of libraries continuing we must keep current, be innovative, and be open to change. Another key point of her presentation was taking charge in the role of library vs. vendor. The relationship should be mutually beneficial instead of parasitic.
Thursday AM session. I went to the Ready to Read session by Katie Anderson from OSL. It was pretty informative, I learned a lot about funding for children/young adults at public libraries. I kept thinking of information literacy instruction themes beginning at the infant/toddler level. I imagine this really cool cooperative linear progression that guides children from storytime through their first college freshman research paper.
Thursday PM. I skipped out on most of this session, and poked my head in on the Web Design Initiatives session for a few minutes. Interesting stuff, but from what I saw, I felt more comfortable with what we're doing at OSU.
My own session, Getting Caught Up In Web 2.0. Essentially a session on library 2.0 and how it is practically used across different types of libraries. We had a great turnout with standing room only for about a dozen people. A link to the presentation and materials: http://camila.pbwiki.com on the right side of the screen is a little navigation window, "presentation" will take you to our presentation slides, and "getting caught up with" will take you to several pages we produced to introduce web 2.0 technologies and how to get involved with them. No users were harmed by the absence of PowerPoint slides in this presentation.
After our session was finished, I milled about the general reception for a bit, then joined the Emporia alumni reception to kill time until the banquet. My attendance to this was made possible by Aletha Bonebrake. In trade for a ticket, it was my job to lure Camila Gabaldón into attending since she would be the recipient of a surprise presidential award. I had a good time, the speaker for the banquet was author Maria Amparo Escandón. She shared some really great stories about her background: growing up in Mexico, writing, moving to the United States, and continuing to research, grow in her writing style, and publish. Here's a link to her bio/info from the OLA site: http://www.olaweb.org/conference/2007Program/mariaescandon.html
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