Librarian X With great power comes great bibliography.

Home from ALA Annual 2008

Man, am I tired.  I think I did more stuff at this conference than any I've been to previously.  Still recovering.  Some standouts:

Win: Preconference on "Library Instruction 2.0" presented by Karen Munro, Anne-Marie Dietering and Rachel Bridgewater was one of the best conference sessions I've ever been to.  I came away with a ton of ideas.

Win: BIGWIG Social Software Showcase was not only interesting but fun.  I spent the whole session with Cindi Trainor's Libguides discussion group since I had some experience with it and felt like I could contribute.  (Libguides seems to be a theme for me this summer.)  I'm so glad that groups like BIGWIG are experimenting with new presentation models like this.

Win: I got to meet Cory Doctorow, my technology activist hero!  The ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom had him, Beth Givens and Dan Roth in a fantastic panel discussion on privacy Sunday afternoon.  After hearing this session, I'm planning to create a guide to online privacy tools for students.  Win: Trading Twitter messages with Jessamyn West during the session.  Fail: The session was poorly publicized (last-minute addition?) and therefore poorly attended.  This should have been a centerpiece of the conference.

Addendum: Jessamyn's blog post about the session, Jenny Levine's post at Shifted Librarian, Kate Sheehan's post at Loose Cannon Librarian.

Fail: The (paid) speaker at the LIRT session "Energizing Your Instruction" included ads for his wife's (?) weight loss business in the handouts and opening slides.  That's the tackiest and most inappropriate thing I've ever seen in a presentation and it put me off even before he started.

Win: Meeting ("meating," as my friend Amy would say) some online friends and acquaintances in person for the first time: Karin and Cindi, great to meet you guys at last!  Fail: Logistical confusion ensued when some of us split off from the Twitter meetup at dinner and I didn't get to hang out with Colleen and others I wanted to.  Can we try again at Midwinter?  Win: Made some unexpected new friends as well as seeing some old ones.

Win: I'm now the co-chair of Library Instruction Roundtable's Teaching, Learning and Technology committee -- we had a great discussion at our meeting and it looks like we're going to do some sort of project based around reviewing/analyzing Libguides and its open-source competitors.  (Is there a name for programs like Libguides?  Research guide creator software?)