SLA 2009 Begins

Reposted from the SLA Blog:

As a first time attendee to the SLA conference, I must say that I am much impressed. The conference is very well organized, there is free wireless (well done to the organizers!), and a conference canvas bag made from partly recycled materials. I have also enjoyed reading through the latest issue of Information Outlook which came in the conference bag. It was also fun to see flags of all the countries where SLA members hail from. Though the conference proper does not start until tomorrow, I decided to get started early by taking two courses.

Both courses I took today were interesting and left me full of ideas. One of these courses included a CD full of PDFs on knowledge management – which has been a great resource. It has also been really interesting to see the range of organizations where information professionals work. Today alone, I met librarians that work in pharmaceutical companies, government libraries, and statistical companies.

In addition to this blog, Twitter is full of activity as people write about the conference. If you’re curious to know more about me, please have a look at my blog.

SLA Guest Blogging starts this weekend

This weekend and for much of next week, I will be guest blogging at the SLA Blog as the association’s annual conference takes place in Washington D.C. I will also be re-posting those posts here as well. I have most of my schedule prepared, but I am still working on some parts of it.

CLA Blog Coverage

The fine people over at CASLIS Ottawa have put together a guide to blog posts on this year’s CLA conference, including several by yours truly. I’m happy to see more people blog these events. The reflections are quite interesting and help me learn things that I missed and see other aspects that I might have missed.

CLA 2009: Day Three

The conference ended on a high note for me witha session on Net Neutrality given by two librarians from Concordia University, Alex Guidon and Danielle Dennie. I’m about to finish writing my thesis on Net Neutrality, but I still found this presentation interesting. At one point, it was argued that there should be a “third way” between ‘pure’ neutrality and the non-neutral view. I suddenly felt back in the late 1990s when Tony Blair andBill Clinton developed the notion of the “third way” in politics. That notion was always a bit vague, but there we are. Anyhow, it was a presentation where I learned things and that’s what I wanted.

In the afternoon, I got a bunch of work done while waiting around in the Montreal train station. A productive way to end the conference.

CLA 2009: Day Two

The second day of the conference was a different day for me as I had the opportunity to present my poster session with Meghan Eccelstone. I also got to learn about other new projects being undertaken by librarians across the country working in different contexts including designing information resources for people with HIV/AIDS, building resources for visible minority users and more. Though I am a bit biased as a poster session, I would certainly recommend this session to future attendees. You can learn a lot in a very short time and it is also a good way to find out about works in progress.

The first session I went to today was given by Hansel Cook, a librarian at St. Mary’s University which looked at “Libraries in wartime.” It reminded me very strongly of an article that I wrote earlier this year. I’m happy to see that others in the profession are looking at the difficult topic of how war affects libraries. The second session I went to was a rapid fire delivery of talks on “what’s cool at your library.” With nine presentations, there’s too much to report on. One specific idea that struck me as great was suggested by Nicole Eva, a librarian at the University of Lethbridge. The idea is to use computer screensavers to display library information (e.g. advertise reference services). They also regularly rotate and refresh these screensavers. It had never occurred me to me to that. There was also a memorable quote on service by presenters from McGill University: I do not care what you know until I know you care. My view is that most (if not all) in the profession care a great deal, but perhaps we need to emphasize that fact more. I rounded out the day by dinner with some friends and attending the annual general meeting of CASLIS.

I haven’t  blogged about the many vendors and exhibitors at CLA yet, so I’ll do some of that here. The Privacy Commission of Canada (they use Twitter, YouTube and have a blog – a rare thing in government, but something I hope to see more of) had a booth about their public education efforts.I think they do well in this effort. On the vendor front, I had a look at the new products offered by PlayAway which is all about delivering audio books on custom made players. In schools (and libraries to some degree), these are very popular in the United States to give students other means of accessing content. The company also puts best-sellers and fiction on the devices. The library model at play is that you have the device (physically, it is similar in size to an iPod), plug a standard AA battery into it and then ear phones and away you go. The recording cannot be modified by the end-user (which is apparently a plus for school libraries in the US…). I think there is much merit to providing audio for students. Finally, I also checked out the offerings by Adam Matthew Digital. I has a look at their Grand Tour research tool and was quite impressed with it. The content is stylishly presented, fully integrates social media sharing and combines original content (they commissioned a photographer to travel around Europe documenting sights for the product), original sources and more.

CLA 2009: Day One

The day began very early for me as I attended the First Timer’s breakfast. This was a good chance to meet some people in the profession. One interesting trend I’ve noticed at CLA is that there are relatively few people from Ontario (or Toronto) present. That means I’ve met lots of people from Alberta, the Maritimes and other provinces that are largely (though not complete) unknown areas. Conferences are tiring experiences, but rewarding.

The keynote address was given by Professor Joseph Janes of the University of Washington. His talk was called, “Rethinking the Library,” and it was an engaging look at this vital institution. He also provided a short and memorable summary of the defining attributes that define a library (and make it different from other things): place, collections, support, interaction, and values. I wouldn’t elaborate on each idea, but I do find it better. Also memorable, if somewhat ominous was his remark (which I am paraphrasing), “Don’t waste a recession.” In light of the fact that print will now be of ever decreasing importance, he observed we must be better online than we are now. This leads to his two part conclusion: be where are our users are & remember that “search” can also be a quest for meaning.

For the rest of the day, I went to three sessions on widely differing topics: designing an online resource, intergenerational attitudes about work and a workshop on professional image. The workshop on professional image – given by Lynne Mackay – was a high energy session with nearly a hundred people in attendence. It focused mainly on clothing, but looked at in a very thoughtful way. There’s much to learn here ranging from learning the five “levels” of dress (formal, professional, business casual, sportswear, holiday wear) to matching colours. Given that librarians absolutely love to classify knowledge, this aspect appealed to many. The session on designing an online resource was given by Margaret Fulford, a librarian at the University of Toronto, inspired me. She designed the Canadian Women Fim Directors Database and led us through how it was planned and executed. It inspired me to see that learning tools like PHP and mySQL are possible. The session that explored intergenerational views on the profession is difficult to summarize. It covered everything from how we define success, work/life balance to having conversations on career matters.

CLA 2009: Pre-Conference

On a rainy Friday morning, I strolled up the McGill University campus to participate in the Emerging Technologies Interest Group (ETIG) “Library Camp” event. We covered many of the topics that are current and of interest to Internet aware librarians: making the best use of social networking, blogging, the right attitude to innovation and the digital divide. It was informative and fun to meet some people that I’ve only known through blogs and Twitter thus far. I took more detailed notes in my Moleskine, but that shall have to do for today’s entry. Tomorrow promises to me an early and long day.

CLA 2009: It was a dark and stormy night

As I write this, it is a dark and stormy night with plenty of rain coming down. There were some major delays in getting here but I am here and the hotel’s Internet connection is going smoothly. I’m excited to begin the conference with a “library camp” event being organized by the Emerging Technologies Interest Group (ETIG 2009). The Library camp focused on emerging technology looks very promising and it strikes me as a great way to launch my own conference experience. I am hoping to blog the conference each day as it unfolds. I say “hope” here since my computer has been acting badly recently (possible hard drive failure). If all else fails, I take notes in my Moleskine and eventually transform those into a post. I may even have some photos to share as we proceed.

Notes on the TRY Conference

Yesterday, I attended the TRY Conference (the fifth annual conference for library staff at Toronto’s three universities: Ryerson, York and U of Toronto) and presented a poster session with some fellow students. Based on notes in my Moleskine, I’ll offer some of my impressions on it in this entry. I didn’t have the opportunity to attend every session, so this entry makes no attempt to be comprehensive – rather, these are simply some of my notes.

The morning keynote address was given by Dean Seamus Ross, the new Dean of the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. This address combined some observations on his own research (mainly involving digital preservation and efforts to communicate this such as this animation on YouTube) as well as the future direction of the Faculty. This emphasized the need to be creative and innovative, of seeking opportunities beyond the traditional Library environment. He also mentioned plans to launch an “information entrepreneurship” (and related ideas such as having an incubator to foster new companies with the Faculty’s students, professors, etc) course. That would be quite a departure from the public sectory focus that is customary to the field, but  I think it is worth exploring further.

The first presentation I attended was given by a science librarian on efforts to include information literacy skills in a third year psychology course. Not only is this a good idea on its own merits but I liked the idea of the assessment strategy that was used. Assessment is something I think the profession needs to embrace more – not only for reasons of financial accountability, but also to determine what works and how we can become better at what we do. While the assessment was based on the SAILS methodology, questions were raised as to whether adaptation of this intrument might be in order. In the Q&A section, I asked if clickers had been considered – they are a common tool in science classes and good for obtaining fast, simple feedback – and I gathered that they may be used in future.

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Ready for the TRY Conference

All the displays, handouts and technology is ready to go for tomorrow’s TRY conference where I will be presenting a poster session with three fellow students: Ania Dymarz, Meghan Ecclestone and Monica Rettig. We have a poster printed, handouts ready and technology ready for demonstration. I only heard about the TRY Conference this year – it is an annual event for library staff at Toronto’s three universities: University of Toronto, Ryerson University and York University. There are plenty of interesting sessions to attend (e.g. mentoring new librarians, using mobile technology, visual literay and embedded librarianship) and I hope to report on some of this tomorrow or the day after.

I’m really looking forward to this as it is the first time I get to present my own projects at a professional conference.