Being the Faithful Account of a TLA Conference Attendee, Part II (Amanda)

Wednesday, April 1

Dressed more sensibly today in lace-up oxfords and a longer sleeved shirt, I follow Melody and Angela into Convention Center auditorium on Wednesday morning. There, we and 5,000 of our closest friends will see Paula Poundstone, who surprisingly is the national spokesperson for the Friends of the Library USA in addition to being a stand-up comedienne and author. To be honest, she doesn’t talk about libraries or librarians that much, except to riff on the fact that we don’t like patrons to reshelve items. Mostly, she singles out people in the audience and pokes good-natured fun at them. I am glad to be seated in the nose-bleed seats.

After General Session I, I proceed to “Hot Topics Slam for Texas CE Providers,” which provides five presenters about 5-7 minutes apiece to showcase one of the topics on which they offer workshops. Christine Peterson from AMIGOS describes the “TAG” method of helping patrons understand whether an email is legitimate or not. Next, Jennifer Patterson from CTLS talks about team-building. Dawn Vogler from the Texas State Library follows her, telling us about a super cool tool called VoiceThread, which is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways—using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). I think this would be a fantastic way for our TAG group to produce content for the Teen part of our website, once we get one—Emily, check it out! Next up is perennial TLA favorite Pat Wagner, who discusses how nonverbal messages can make or break customer service. And last is Sandy Farmer from Houston Public Library, who describes for us how they have developed a workshop for teachers in HISD explaining all the tools the library offers to support their curriculum (subscription databases, Tumblebooks, etc). I am happy to see that several of the things that Houston Public offers are available through APL and HLC as well.

After the Hot Topics Slam, I get my first crack at the Exhibits Hall. For those of you have not been to TLA Conference, the Exhibits Hall allows library vendors, book publishers, library schools and associations, and performers to hawk their wares. You can access a list of the ones who came to Houston here. As you can see, there was a big honking amount of booths in that hall. I learned at my first Conference (Dallas, 1995) that the key to actually making it all the way through the Exhibits Hall is to stride purposefully and NOT TO MAKE DIRECT EYE CONTACT with any exhibitors. Really. Even the ones who look lonely and dejected. Otherwise, they reel you in like an albacore tuna and talk for the next 20 minutes without pausing for breath about how you and your library cannot possibly live without their product or service. And that’s 20 minutes of your life that you will never get back. Not making eye contact with people (especially lonely, dejected ones) is in direct contradiction to how I was raised, which was to smile at people and acknowledge them. So I have to admit that I am sucked into the vortex of an exhibitor’s booth more often than I would like. However, since the majority of people who come to Conference are school librarians and the exhibitors tend to offer goods that are meant for them, I have found that when I am pulled aside, simply blurting out, “I’m not a school librarian, nor do I work directly with children!!!” nine times out of ten will cause them to quickly relinquish me. I’m thinking of having a cap and T-shirt made with this slogan prominently displayed to save myself time. Maybe I could even sell them in a booth at a future Conference. I know for sure the academic librarians would buy them.

After choking down a personal cheese pizza lovingly made for my enjoyment during the Nixon Administration (I told you the Convention Center food was horrid in my email for Staff Picks), I hoof it over to a meeting on “Transforming Interlibrary Loan in Texas.” I really don’t feel that much is accomplished during this session by the panelists other than providing a history of the ILL Task Force and asking for input, but perhaps I am just being crabby because the pizza I ate at lunch is trying to claw its way back out of my stomach at this point.

Next, my case of indigestion and I proceed to the presentation “Rettig on Reference: Changing Relationships Between Librarians and Readers.” James Rettig is the current president of the American Library Association and is the University Librarian for the University of Richmond, VA. In fact, Paula Poundstone had picked on him earlier, telling him that he needed to “get out!” because “haven’t we already established that this Conference is for TEXAS librarians???” His presentation sketches the evolution of reference services from the day of the printed index (Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, anyone?) to today’s world of Web-based databases. He shares an amusing example of an entry from a precursor to Wikipedia, before user-generated entries were moderated and edited: “Shrimp. Shrimp is neat. It comes in three sizes: popcorn, medium, and jumbo. Prawns are also shrimp. Shrimp is mmm-mm good.” Boy, I’d love to see the research paper based on that information!

Next is supposed to be the Book Cart Drill Team Challenge, but only one team has entered this year (how sad!), so I call it a day.

Have Knitting Needles, Will Travel

And of course, it didn't help to see news reports about a Southwest flight being diverted due to passenger violence while we were waiting for the plane that never came. Seems a woman started hitting another passenger for bumping her. Really? How do you not bump people on a flight? Other passengers restrained the woman and she was arrested. I was just relieved to be allowed to board the plane with my knitting. However, as people kept boarding, and seats filled up, I realized my knitting would not be available to me--I wouldn't have the elbow room. Alas. Apparently airlines have cut flights to the extent that we are packed like sardines.

Looking back, I didn't notice the maniac cabbie, as I was grateful to have the ground beneath my feet once more. I can happily report that people in large cities actually cooperate with one another when changing lanes, merging, etc. Fancy that! Perhaps that spirit of camaraderie is what makes everything work as well as it does.

Registration went well, and it warmed my geeky heart to be able to add a "Speaker" ribbon to my badge. Give me accessories, I'll do anything, including speaking in public. The presentation went well, and I didn't get hysterical or trip, which I think surprised everyone concerned. I had questions and comments throughout, and I identified at least 2 academic librarians, though I believe the majority were public librarians. There may have been school librarians in attendance as well. Smaller libraries have problems with staffing and money--we all do, but this hits small, 1 or 2 person libraries much harder than a medium sized library with multiple locations. Many libraries don't enjoy a positive, supportive governing body as we at APL do.

Following my presentation was 23 Things, which is a learning project for Web 2.0. I am really interested in this program, though it was geared more for school librarians (guess the speakers being ISD reps should have clued me in on that, but noooo!) so I can take away some things. My crucial mistake here is sitting on the floor as there are few chairs left and I don't want to crawl across laps to get a chair. Once I hit the floor, exhaustion hits me. I was up at 3:30 am on Tuesday--speaker nerves I guess--and boom! The arctic climate in the convention center doesn't help, either. I scurry to the hotel (and its handy-dandy Starbuck's that is IN THE BUILDING, PEOPLE!) to regroup and refresh, and hopefully not pass out. Life-giving caffeine was the answer, and I made my way to the President's Welcome Party and later to the Tall Texans Social. It was a great evening.

And so it ended. I had a big day tomorrow, with Michael Stephens' program---check out his blog at http://www.tametheweb.com/.

Note: I intended to post while actually at the conference, but the lines at the Internet Room were daunting. The first day I did manage to get to a computer, but the sharks circling me put me off blogging. I was lucky to escape (relatively) unharmed.

Melody

Being the Faithful Account of a TLA Conference Attendee, Part I (Amanda)

Tuesday, March 31

Despite some flight delays and a cabbie who was, at best, a maniac intent on making it to Warp 9 on I-45 in the rain during rush hour, Melody and I arrived in one piece on Monday. Most Conference attendees will be coming into town this afternoon. Melody and I register and get our badges. As a member of the TLA Conference Program Committee, I get a nifty pin with streamers proclaiming me a “Conference Planner.” I later discover that wearing this accoutrement, rather than inspiring the respect and awe of my colleagues, causes people to assume I know where all the bathrooms are.

Melody will be giving her presentation “No Excuses! Creating a Patron-Friendly Computer Basics Course” at 2:00 this afternoon. On our way to locate and scope out the room we are assigned for the session, we run into Kerry McGeath, director of Southlake Public Library. We find out the next day during General Session I that he has received the “Librarian of the Year” award from TLA, but either he doesn’t know yet or he is disarmingly modest, as he doesn’t tell us ahead of time. He does tell us about some nifty big-screen monitors that Southlake has mounted throughout the library to advertise their programs and services. I successfully conceal the fact that I am insanely jealous of his nifty tech toys and want to poke him with my “Conference Planner” Badge of Power.

It is time for Melody’s presentation. We have at least 25 attendees in the room—quite a respectable number for the day before Conference really starts for most people. I introduce Melody and then sit back down. It is at that point that I notice that the room, while at a temperature comfortable for penguins and polar bears, is actually quite chilly for someone wearing a short-sleeved blouse. I proceed to form a layer of ice not unlike the one our delayed plane developed while in Colorado. Melody is not distracted by my uncontrollable shaking, the indigo color of my skin, or the icicle hanging off my nose and does an absolute bang-up job with her session. Here is the link to the content of her presentation. Now she is ready to relax and enjoy Conference, though the major bug-a-boo still looms for me on Thursday (more on that later).

Parting ways with Melody, I scamper off to my next scheduled event, hoping fervently that a brief jog will stave off the hypothermia to which I had been succumbing. The other program for which I am responsible as a "Conference Planner" is "Quick, Dirty, and Cheap Strategic Planning" with Pat Wagner, who many of you know from the workshops she has presented at APL. Since we only have an hour, Pat lets me off the hook regarding an introduction and just launches right into her presentation (hallelujah!).

A couple of good points that Pat makes in the course of her presentation is that libraries are good at ADDING services, but not so good at taking them away (which is why you need a strategic plan to help your organization stay focused on its goals), and that libraries should be in the business of helping people progress, in the way they wish to progress. Ultimately, a strategic plan provides parameters and protection, as it is a transparent contract between: (1) the library director and his/her governing authority (in our case, City Hall), (2) library administration and library staff, and (3) the library and its community.

Tuesday evening is the Welcome Party in Discovery Park, located across the street from the Convention Center. Since I had been emotionally scarred by the scarcity of food at the Welcome Party the last time it was in Houston in 2006 (after waiting in line for an hour, I ended up with two small cubes of Monterey Jack and a piece of limp lettuce—I kid you not), I have already eaten at the hotel and simply accompany my roommate Angela to the par-tae. Of course, this time, there is plenty of food. At 8 pm, we cross the street to the Hilton to drop by the TALL Texans Ice Cream Social. TALL Texans is a leadership development institute for members of TLA. I was in the class of 2003, Donna was a TALL Texan in 1998, and my mom was one in 2000. As far as I know, I am still the only second-generation TALL Texan (not that I get a special pin with streamers for THAT, although I really should). In addition to enhancing their leadership skills, participants in TALL Texans get the opportunity to develop a close network of colleagues from all types of libraries. In fact, the lady with whom I usually share a room at TLA events (the aforementioned Angela) was in my class. Participants also get the opportunity to suffer heat stroke, as the institute is usually held in June in the Hill Country in a camp-like retreat that has no air conditioning except in the dining hall and classroom. But this is yet another way to build character.

Melody joins us for the social. We look through the photo albums from each class. Donna had shoulder-length hair in 1998, which I had forgotten until I see her pictures in her class’s binder. After looking through the photos for my class, I decide the less I wear shorts in public, the better. At the party, we are encouraged to decorate a paper boot for our year, which will be pinned up at the TALL Texans booth in the Exhibits Hall. The bulk of decorating the 2003 boot unfortunately falls to me (artistically challenged) and Angela, who quickly develops a contentious relationship with the glitter pen that keeps clotting on her. We leave soon after. To catch the last shuttle to our hotel, I end up sprinting a quarter of a mile in 2-inch heels. Which I do not recommend, by the way.

Free Reference

Library Journal has an article on free reference materials at
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6646657.html?industryid=47124