Free Range Librarian

From: Karen G. Schneider, Cupcake U. [note name change; not that I don't like peanuts, but cupcakes are more strategically aligned with MPOW's current direction]

Subject: ALA Annual 2011 (aka #ALA11): The Highlights

To: The World

Date: July 10, 2011

Flickr sets: Assorted Photos from #ALA11; Tour of St. Charles Parish Library

Professional Enrichment

ACRL President’s Program: From Idea to Innovation to Implementation: How Teams Make it Happen

James Young, a workplace systems consultant and the author of “Culturetopia,” gave a sparkling talk about what motivates people and what builds teams. He pointed out that Southwest is 85% unionized and yet their union contract has “warmth and friendliness” written into the company vision statement, enabling the company to hold employees to that standard. In turn, the company mission includes a commitment to the employees for a stable work environment and opportunities for growth.

Other key concepts Young delivered were the need to appreciate differences (especially work style, detail attention, and source of energy), soaring with your strengths, and watching the “emotional message”—55% of which comes from gestures.

Books to purchase: Jane Elsea, The Four Minute Sell; Donald O. Clifton, Soar with your Strengths; Jason Young, Culturetopia

Battledecks

Battledecks is a competition geared toward librarians who present and train as part of their responsibilities. Contestants present extemporaneously to a deck of PowerPoint slides (often with unrelated and nonsensical images) which they have not previously seen, on an assigned topic such as “library of the future.”  Judges (influenced by an active and noisy audience) rate the presenters on their presentation skills.

The results are hilarious, showcase the best presenters in the profession (as well as the worst), and are also a subtle lesson in how to handle the occasional public failure that happens for all instructors.

Two minutes before the competition began, Daniel Ransom of MPOW was volunteered by his colleagues to be an audience “volunteer,” and despite the last-minute notice and the fact that his boss was sitting in the audience, he performed admirably.

Technology/Administration/Buildings

I attended “Designing a Specialty Commons,” sponsored by LLAMA. Seven panelists shared their building and renovation stories. There was nothing hugely new, but it was worth noting that all panelists talked about beginning the process by identifying specific, local requirements for a library, key stakeholders, and the major question they were trying to address – such as supporting curiosity, better understanding of emerging technologies, collaborative computing, statistical work. One (inevitable) caution: adding technology increases the need for back-end support.

Joe Agati of Agati Furniture spoke about the need to consider “technology, comfort, and cooties” (the latter being the personal zones for library users), and noted that most furniture has a tendency to dramatically outlive technology–a theme emphasized by Linda Demmers in a site visit to Cupcake U last January. As noted in the day-long ALCTS building seminar at ALA Midwinter 2011, panelists described using color and interesting furniture to make their spaces appealing.

TouchIT Interactive Whiteboard

Most panelists described deploying massive quantities of both “analog” and interactive whiteboards. Afterwards, in the Q&A, I asked the panel if any of them had begun deploying second-generation interactive whiteboards, such as the boards from Polyvision or TouchIT—dual-purpose surfaces (can use regular whiteboard pens), lighter, more modular tech (some of these boards are only powered by USB), and much less expensive. None of the presenters had, but they noted that technology was changing rapidly and that in some cases they were waiting to purchase technology until renovation or new building was completed.

Reader Services

In anticipation of building our popular-reading collection this summer, I attended two book-related events: Southern Writers and the Stonewall Book Awards. Both were wonderful events that replenished my literary soul. I am a big fan of Tayari Jones, who writes about the Southern-urban experience. A common theme was that writing is a slow, iterative process. “When you commit to your work, your work commits to you.”

At the Stonewall Book Awards, Sarah Schulman and Dorothy Allison were amazing keynoters who lit the podium on fire. My tweet quoting Allison on archivists – “If you think librarians are funky and strange, you should talk to the archivists” – became a top tweet and was posted on the American Libraries magazine website.  Allison called libraries “the temple in which everything is available, in which our lives are honored.” Schulman called Susan Sontag a “Stepin Fetchit” for staying in the “content closet,” and indicted U.S. publishers for not treating lesbian authors as people, noting that in the UK, lesbian authors are more likely to get mainstream publishers and reviewers. Like I said, a heck of an event. I came home with signed copies of (free!) books.

A major downer for me was discovering that the LITA Imagineering Interest Group had sponsored Orson Scott Card to present at ALA. Card’s statements about homosexuality are out of sync with the positions on diversity shared by most libraries.  As I posted earlier, in 2008, there is a major distinction between buying books that readers want to read and uplifting an author whose personal views are damaging to vulnerable young people.  This was one of several incidents where LITA severely disappointed me at ALA11.

Other Events

I attended LITA’s Top Technology Trends session and the LITA “Awards Ceremony” (quotation marks intentional). Full disclosure: I am a former Trendster. I observe a growing tendency for TTT Trendsters to present trends and technologies they would like to see happening (Drupal, developers in every library, etc.) versus actual trends.

That said, Clifford Lynch was as always quite sage, talking both about the social-reading trends in the research community, computational photography, and the stratospheric rise in mobile tech. He also noted the huge rise in hardware-specific software and noted this was a return to a previous era that could “leave content more vulnerable to the ebb and flow of hardware.” For recommended reading (an audience question), Lynch pointed us to Kurzweil’s newsletter.

The LITA awards were pretty much just brief photo-ops tacked on after the Trends—award recipients were marched in front of cameras, and the smattering of people in this cold, dark room then applauded… a far cry from awards ceremonies of the past.

I realize that LITA has severe fiscal problems (in the red for two years now), but had they reached out to the membership, we could have found creative ways (including passing the hat) to make the event festive, as it had been in the past. As someone who had participated on an awards committee, I felt that this event shortchanged the award-winners, the award sponsors, and the committee members. I wrote both the award sponsor and committee chair to note my disappointment.

Navigator and Camino

I attended both user groups, and was excited to see the Navigator software roadmap and to see more libraries planning to join Camino, particularly after WMS integration is enabled.

I’m pondering a run for ALA Council, which would mean that by Midwinter 2013 I would have time commitments for several mornings at ALA. But that is definitely “crossing that bridge when I get to it.”

Professional Participation

I reported out from a GLBTRT (Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Round Table) bylaws implementation task force I chaired from May 23 through June 26.  The proposed roadmap for fairly significant changes approved by ballot in the Spring 2011 ALA elections was adopted unanimously (thanks to Lise Dyckman and Peter Hepburn, who did most of the mapping).  I also volunteered to chair a procedural review committee to create job descriptions for the officers under the new structure.

Site Visit

On Tuesday, September 28, my longtime friend Vicki Nesting, assistant director at the East Regional Library, St. Charles Parish Public Library, toured me through two brand-new libraries—both East Regional and the Paradis branch.

Glass Study Room, St. Charles Parish Library

As with most new library facilities, the new buildings were designed to support for personal technology (electricity and wifi), group study, instruction, pleasure reading, and other engagement. The furniture and color scheme was inviting—a mix of warm yellow and leafy green. (Disclaimer: I like any color, as long as it’s green.) Shelving was designed for browsing, and served a second use as display space. Study rooms advertised their presence through glass walls (a ubiquitous trend).

In the Paradis branch – an adorable wee library in a mixed-income community—the staff had just finished making popcorn for their movie showing that afternoon in a mixed-used program room.  This community has never had its own library, and response has been terrific.

Low shelving used to display student art

The larger library had been open over a year, but still looked opening-day beautiful. Part of that was very clear message discipline (no grotty handlettered signage — what I call “library graffiti”) and part of that was a building design that didn’t force impromptu signage, but a very important ingredient was the conscious decision to build in lots of storage space, so that the cruft of library work was hidden (and well-organized).

We concluded with my last meal in Louisiana for this trip, a toothsome luncheon at Z’s Spot, a local “dive” with delicious crab cakes and hush puppies, where I had the chance to chat with other library staff.

Festivities

I only attended two “happy hours” at ALA11, since I wanted to pace myself, have some quiet time, and be rested each long day. The LITA Happy Hour, on Friday, was near the convention center but a bit grotty. GLBTRT’s Social, on Sunday, was in an upscale bar that while fun was packed so heavily I felt a little claustrophobic.

As always, the ad hoc events were the most fun. My favorite social hour was with an impromptu group who gathered Saturday evening at the Swizzle Stick to discuss management and leadership over refreshments (I shall ever refer to this as the Chicktail Hour). I also had breakfast at the Ruby Slipper three times (shrimp and grits done to perfection) and had a decent turtle soup at Muriel’s with a fun group of librarians I hadn’t spent time with before. I believe half the conference was at the Carousel late Sunday night.

Exhibits

The Morial Convention Center is a bit of a slog. I greeted most of our key vendors but spent the most time looking at furniture and interactive whiteboards.

Venue, Travel, Lodgings

NOLA is boiling hot in the summer, but this is offset by interesting sights, great food, and a reasonably compact conference footprint (considering ALA Annual is about 20,000 librarians, each of whom appears to be holding a meeting). Attendance was over 20,000—higher than anticipated, given the economy and the location (attendance tends to be better in areas with better population density).

The convention center is both awkward to navigate (very long and narrow) and had a pervasive problem with wifi access that made it hard to engage socially with key events. Our wifi access was hosted by Credo but I really can’t fault them. I think the bandwidth was simply not up to 20,000 librarians bearing multiple wifi-intensive devices.

Travel is expensive these days; that’s all there is to it. That said, my original advice to split a cab versus take a shuttle (faster and cheaper!) led to a ride from MSY to NOLA with Stephen Klein of the County of Los Angeles Public Library, who shared the West Hollywood library’s building story (we also agreed that Linda Demmers is an awesome library space planning consultant). Stephen also mentioned that this branch was adopting the “concierge” approach — something I’d like to hear more about.

My hotel, Chateau Le Moyne, was terrific: a good value at $85/night, quiet, clean, reasonably convenient (about a mile from the convention center)—no drama whatsoever.

FYI: In 2015, ALA Annual will be in San Francisco (for the first time since 2000).

I will (probably) see you in Dallas for ALA Midwinter, unless I decide to send myself to another conference (midwinter is on my dime, and I’m on the fence about Dallas).

Note: iPads were endemic. It was almost as if they had been issued at the airport on arrival to MSY.

Bookmark to:

This year I’m doing a core dump from the scheduler — I just don’t have time for anything else. See you there!

Happy Hour (LITA)
Friday, 06/24/2011 – 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Offsite Location – Howlin’ Wolf Den Tbl 1
(High Priority)
Social event
Here’s your chance to catch-up with your LITA friends, and maybe make some new ones. …

(Plus a Sirsi event and a dinner hosted by a friend. I suspect I will actually collapse in bed and get rested for…)
Steering Committee I (GLBT RT)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 8:00am – 10:00am
Convention Center – Rm 239
(High Priority)
Committee meeting
Meeting of GLBT RT Steering Committee

Presenting the transition plan for the GLBTRT bylaws changes.

OCLC Increase Your Digital Collection Visibility with WorldCat: A Roundtable for OAI-PMH Repository, Digital Collection and WorldCat Administrators
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Hilton Riverside – Rosedown
(Low Priority)
Join us to hear more about increasing the visibility of your library’s digital content through WorldCat using the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway. Learn about the benefits of search engine optimization within WorldCat and your own digital repository.

OCLC Join the Revolution: Library Management at Web Scale
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 269
(High Priority)
Find out how moving traditional ILS functions to the Web has positively impacted library services, improved the bottom line, and increased global library visibility and collaboration.

President’s Program: From Idea to Innovation to Implementation: How Teams Make it Happen (ACRL)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 356-357
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Presidents program
We all value great ideas. … Jason Young, President of LeadSmart and author of the book Culturetopia, will share his perspectives on the importance of identifying and developing the essential factors that impact performance for any team or organization: leadership principles, management practices, alignment and employee behavior.

Council Resolutions Committee (ALA)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 1:30pm – 2:30pm
Convention Center – La Nouvelle Orleans BR A/B
(Low Priority)
Committee meeting
This is the committee’s business meeting

Celebrating Southern Writers
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 335-336
(High Priority)
Author event, Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
This panel will celebrate authors from the region, including Tayari Jones, John Hart, Jennifer Niven, and Pat MacEnulty The program will be moderated by Barbara Hoffert, editor, Prepub Alert, Library Journal. An author signing will follow. Some books will be given away and others will be sold at a generous discount.

OCLC Perceptions of Libraries, 2010
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Doubletree Hotel – Madewood
(High Priority)
In Perceptions of Libraries 2010: Context and Community, OCLC explores how changing contexts impact how people perceive and relate to libraries and information sources. Technologies and economics are vastly changed from 2005, when OCLC released the first Perceptions report. Join Cathy De Rosa for discussion of trends, perceptions and attitudes of the information consumer from this 2010 study.

Blog and Wiki Interest Group (LITA BIGWIG)
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Intercontinental – Poydras
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group

Designing a Specialty Commons
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 243
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
This panel will feature a discussion on space, furniture, equipment considerations in various specialty commons in three academic libraries in Michigan, North Carolina, and California. …

Standards Interest Group
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 287
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group
Todd Carpenter, Managing Director of NISO, will give an update on NISO activities. Jason Price, PhD, Collections and Acquisitions Services Manager at Claremont Colleges Library and Eresource Package Analyst/Consultant for the SCELC Consortium, will present on KBART.  Be sure to read Jason‚Äôs article in Serials Librarian, vol. 60 issue 1-4 (2011) entitled ‚ÄúMaking E-serials holdings data transferable: Applying the KBART recommended practice‚Äù. …

Bibliotheca Reception
Saturday, 06/25/2011 – 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Republic New Orleans, 828 South Peters
(High Priority)

HCOD Summit
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 8:00am – 9:00am
Ruby Slipper
(High Priority)

Camino Meeting
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
Hilton New Orleans, OCLC Blue Suite
(High Priority)

Navigator User Group
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 10:30am – 12:00pm
Hilton New Orleans, OCLC Blue Suite
(High Priority)

Council I (ALA)
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 10:45am – 12:15pm
Convention Center – La Nouvelle Orleans BR C
(High Priority)
Governance/Membership meeting
Meeting of the ALA governing and policy making body.

Tayari Jones on the LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 11:30am – 12:00pm
Exhibit Hall – @ your library stage
(High Priority)
Author event
Tayari Jones has written for McSweeney‚Äôs, The New York Times, and The Believer. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, received best of the year nods from The Washington Post, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Creative Loafing. …

Top Technology Trends
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session
This program features our ongoing roundtable discussion about trends and advances in library  technology by a panel of LITA technology experts. The panelists will describe changes and advances in  technology that they see having an impact on the library world, and suggest what libraries might do to  take advantage of these trends.

LITA Awards and Scholarships Presentation
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 3:00pm – 4:00pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A Tbl 1
(High Priority)
Award presentation
Presentation of LITA Awards and Scholarships.

Building the Future:  Addressing Library Broadband Connectivity Issues in the 21st Century
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 4:00pm – 5:30pm
Convention Center – Auditorium A
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Presidents program
The nation‚Äôs first National Broadband Plan was released in 2010.  Hear the inimitable Bob Bocher speak.

Social (GLBT RT)
Sunday, 06/26/2011 – 5:30pm – 8:00pm
Offsite Location – Hotel LeMarais, 717 Conti Street
(High Priority)
Social event
Social for members of the GLBT RT

Breakfast with Steve
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
(High Priority)

Stonewall Book Awards Brunch (GLBT RT)
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 10:30am – 2:00pm
Loews – Louisiana I
(High Priority)
Author event, Ticketed event
Brunch in celebration of the 40th anniversary Stonewall Book Award Winners and Honor books, with keynote presentations from previous Stonewall Book Award Winners Dorothy Allison and Sarah Schulman.   Presentation of the 2011 Stonewall Awards and Honors to Brian Katcher (Almost Perfect), Barb Johnson (More of This World or Maybe Another), Tom Mendicino (Probation), James Klise (Love Drugged), Wendy Moffat (A Great Unrecorded History), Justin Spring (Secret Historian), and more.
$55.00

Next Generation Catalog Interest Group
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 269
(High Priority)
Discussion/Interest group

The Ultimate Debate: “Library Web Scale Discovery Services: Paradigm Shift or More of the Same?”
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 1:30pm – 3:30pm
Convention Center – Rm 278-282
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Tracked Programs
Users have asked repeatedly for a more Google-like interface. etc.etc. Sponsored by LITA Internet Resources and Services Interest Group.

Battledecks 2011
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 5:30pm – 7:00pm
Convention Center – Rm 344
(High Priority)
Presentation/Session, Social event
Battledecks is not for the faint of heart. It is a nerve-wracking event where those competing must create a coherent presentation from a deck of slides that they have never seen before.  This is truly the perfect way to end your conference experience as these courageous individuals compete for the glory of being crowned the next champ.

Zoe and Thomas
Monday, 06/27/2011 – 6:30pm – 8:30pm
TBD
(High Priority)

Ladies who Brunch
Tuesday, 06/28/2011 – 9:00am – 10:00am
Hotel
(High Priority)

Tour of St. Charles Parish Library
Tuesday, 06/28/2011 – 11:00am – 2:30pm
(High Priority)

Bookmark to:

Getting down on the exhibit floor, ALA 2007

Bobbyi “Librarian By Day” Newman has a new post about surviving ALA conferences that links back to my own ALA survival post from last year as well as a few other useful conference posts. It’s worth re-reading those those posts, but  I’m adding a few tips below.

First tip (specific to NOLA): don’t waste your time getting there. A cab is $33 for up to 2 passengers, $14 each for 3 or more. The shuttle, which will make many stops, is $20 per person. The city bus airport-express is $2. The first time I went to ALA in NOLA I took a shuttle, and it took so long I swore I’d never do that again (and I haven’t). I can see spending $2 to take a bus (though I probably won’t do that), but a shared cab appears to be your best bet–faster and cheaper than the airport shuttle.

If you’re arriving at MSY (that is, the New Orleans airport) around 5 p.m.-ish Friday 6/24, and would like to split a cab, give a holler. (I’m coming in on Southwest 905.)

Plan in advance. This sounds so obvious, 36 conferences later, and yet to newcomers it may not seem important to have a game plan of what you’re doing before you get to the actual conference. But ALA happens quickly, it’s spread across dozens of hotels, events are happening concurrently, and transportation can create interesting logistical issues — you may not actually be able to get to point B from point A in the time allotted without setting aside cab fare.

I now use the ALA planner for my preliminary planning. The ALA planner is a work-in-progress that over a decade has gone from egregiously unusable to quite useful and powerful. Now, I say I use the ALA planner, but I also use divisional websites such as LITA, ACRL, and GLBTRT and the ALA conference page itself to quickly target meetings and events. Use it to line up both your “A” plan and your backup sessions/programs/activities.

At MPOW I adopted a practice from a previous job and held a meeting where those of us attending this conference “compared and contrasted.” I picked up tips about a few sessions and also was able to clarify how we’re coordinating receipt submission (details, details!).

Another preparation from MPOW is to start following the Annual Conference hashtag (#ala11) as early as possible. And don’t be shy about using that hashtag to tweet for assistance if you get lost.

Carry a printed map. Yes, even if you have a cotillion of location-aware hardware. The printed schedule has good maps in it. Tear them out and bring them with you, along with the exhibit-floor directory. The rest you can ditch or keep in your hotel room (because you planned in advance…). I also use a small foldout map.

Get expert help. If you are super-new to ALA Annual, one piece of advice from a sage at MPOW is to attend one of the “101″ sessions for newcomers, such as the orientations by the New Member Roundtable or a divisional session, such as the 101 sessions held by ACRL (Saturday morning) or LITA (Friday afternoon).

On the exhibit floor,  stop by the Membership Pavilion to see what’s new and interesting.

Rotate your shoes. No, not under your bed. Don’t wear the same shoes two days running. Your feet will thank you. (And of course, don’t wear new shoes to ALA!)

Pack a little first-aid. I thought I was prepared for ALA Annual 2010, but in that daunting heat I developed wicked foot blisters–yes, even with my homely-but-comfortable,worn- every-other-day shoes–and found myself hobbling in pain to a drugstore very early one morning. Now I have a small emergency stash of bandaids in addition to my analgesics.

Give back to your institution. This is another “obvious” piece of advice that may not always be so obvious. If you’re funded, even partially, to attend a professional conference, then for heaven’s sake, attend some sessions (or other activities