The OLA SuperConference has a special place in my professional life and history since it was the first ever library conference I attended. The event is dominated by librarians from all over Ontario, but there are some people from elsewhere in North America as well. Choosing which sessions to attend is always a problem, but it is one of the best kind of problems to have (the professional equivalent of deciding which chocolate to buy). In the end, I attended four events on various aspects of library work. My focus was mainly on the academic library context.
The first session I attended, given by Janice Mutz of Lakehead and John Dupuis of York, led a stimulating session on the future of academic libraries. Some of the presentation was familiar to me from Dupuis’s other writings on the topic but the discussion was lively. One of the most challenging points raised is the perception or brand problem that students and faculty tend to think the library is for print books and little else despite the fact that libraries have many other services and collections. Other debates were a bit more theoretical but still interesting; what happens if the trend toward consolidation and monopoly in academic publishing continues and continues? Is it impossible to imagine a day where Google owns all the major academic publishers? It could certainly afford to do that. In my view, most of the challenges to academic libraries in the next ten years or so are solvable but it will require some unusual thinking. For example, I think there is an opportunity for librarians to take on a publisher role by running and maintaining open access journals.
The next session I attended was all about using the Census, a tremendously valuable resource by any measure but also a difficult one to use effectively. I’ve always wanted to know more about how to use the census better and this session helped. The presenters - Sue Giles and Dan Jakubek from Ryerson – demonstrated how the census can be used to answer questions such as “Is it true that many Toronto taxi drivers have PhDs?” (In short: no. About 10% of Toronto taxi drivers have university degrees but only about 0.05% have PhDs) and “What is the average rent in my neighbourhood?” The presenters also explained the complexities of access to Statistics Canada and the relative precision of what you can kind.
The third session I attended, “The Role of the Library in Student Retention,” was interesting and provoked me to think of questions. The central question posed by the session is whether or not the library/librarians have an effect on student retention. Student retention can mean a few different things; keeping students enrolled until they graduate, preventing drop outs, that sort of thing. The speaker, Lorelei Harris of the University of Lethbridge Library, introduced us to the different theories that explain how and why students stay and succeed at college and university. Evidence that the library plays a critical or definitive role is still inconclusive at this point. There are some tantalizing possibilities though; providing student jobs at the library may improve student retention, for example. This session, like the other two above, left me wanting more and what higher praise can you ask from a curious librarian?
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