Back from ACRL...

...which seems weird to say, since it was held in the city I've called home for almost 13 years. But still. I didn't come to the library for those days, I went to the conference for a different kind of work. I made a new friend, got nostalgic for the days I'd go to Pike Place Market for lunch every day, ran right into the St. Patrick's Day parade, and came away with a short list of ideas for things to do.

This was my first ACRL, and I got about halfway through posting talks and presentations of interest to my Google calendar before I gave up and decided to wing it, aside from a couple of firm commitments (not least of which was hosting the Washington chapter dinner, which was held in a restaurant where the University Bookstore's downtown branch used to be).

Best idea of the conference: the Cyber Zed Shed (but, uh, how to put this delicately: the "cyber" prefix is so very 1990s), despite a couple of participant no-shows. Which is a real pity because I'm starting to get my hands dirty with Voyager's new interface and it would've been nice to pick up some ideas. Lots of stuff about widgets in the other presentations, and not all of it was LibGuides-driven, even. The short presentations forced the presenters to stay on topic, be concise, and avoid digressions, which is something I can't really say for some of the more formal presentations.

Other things that were useful, fun, or both: the preconference on copyright, immediately relevant because of a project I'm currently working on; and the presentation on puzzles as promotional gimmicks at MIT. I like puzzles and think they could be a fun and engaging promotional tool, especially since we don't really do the once-ubiquitous library tour anymore.

The thing that interested me the most, though, is that the puzzles were presented not on the library website (where one might think at first to put them) but in the student newspaper. Because one doesn't come to the library website with the intention of engaging in a leisure activity, which is what the puzzles basically are.

Both of the keynotes I attended were stellar: Sherman Alexie, an author I've been reading since I discovered Reservation Blues sometime in the mid to late 1990s, and Ira Glass, who when speaking sets up as though he's in the broadcast booth, complete with mixing board. Both of them talked about stories. I mean, both of them talked about a lot more than that, but what struck me about both speeches was how they were centered around the concrete reality of story, and the hold it has on people. The thing that story gives you that other forms of information typically don't is context. I often think about what role, if any, storytelling plays in academic library instruction. Most of the time it seems to show up as an attempted-humorous anecdote, but when Glass talked about story structure--something I've learned about in a few writing classes, and I really wonder why it isn't taught me--it occurred to me that that structure might also be a useful way to structure lessons.

So, there. A few wee tips and tricks to play with, and one big idea to chew on. I guess that makes for a pretty good conference.

At ACRL: Cyber Zed Shed

Corny name, nifty notion. First session is totally jam-packed. Great ideas for a wannabe geek like me.

On the road again

Today, I am off to the ACRL-Oregon fall conference. I've gone to the Washington one the last few years, but this will be my first time going to Oregon. (For the conference, anyway; I've been to the state several times.) I'm going down early because ACRL-WA has a board meeting this afternoon. And before I go, the car needs servicing, so I get to spend my morning in the shop. Thank goodness for mobile technologies, or I'd have to tell you all about that afterward.

Er. Maybe that's not a good example.

Anyway, I'm developing a fondness for local and regional conferences. I'd started to draw back my emphasis from national events even before the latest economic downturn started to make that an eminently sensible move; although I still have a commitment that will likely take me to ALA this year, I wouldn't be going to ACRL if it weren't in Seattle already.

What I'm finding, though, is that a lot of really interesting stuff happens at these smaller-scale conferences. For me, "really interesting" means stuff I can take back to my job and almost immediately apply. I don't get the occasional derogatory comment about "how we done it good" kinds of presentations; personally, those are the ones I find most useful. Maybe I'll feel differently after a few more years in this profession.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to going for a run at Menucha. It looks beautiful.

I've been a little "eh" about the conference theme--the once and future catalog? Really?--but I think I get what they're getting at. The way we almost inevitably end up designing library websites constitutes, to me, an inherent failure of the OPAC. Maybe it's because I used to work for Amazon.com and have seen how this can be done well--there, the website and the catalog are so thoroughly integrated that nobody thinks of them as separate entities. And yet libraries almost have to do this, because catalogs handle so much so poorly.

I'm going to a users-group meeting on Voyager next month, and hoping afterward to brush up my somewhat rusty XML skills and really do some cool things with my library's website.

It's also been awhile since my last road trip. I've laid in a good supply of music, and downloaded the free portion of this audiobook. If I like the story (I expect I will, I like Jay Lake's work), I'll be buying the rest.

Going Local

I had my first meeting with the ACRL-NW board this morning--I'm a new Member-at-Large--and I have to say, I'm pretty excited. Not only do I know a lot of the board members already (including a friend from my graduate program and one of my mentors from the UW Engineering Library, where I worked in grad school), but even though we were videoing in from four locations (it was my first videoconference!), it felt like we were all in the same room. This group has a really pleasant synergy and I'm looking forward to working with them.

Running for the regional chapter board was a deliberate attempt to get more local with my professional service, as is my volunteering with InfoCamp 2008 this fall. I'm wrapping up a stint on a national ACRL committee, and while it's been interesting work and I've learned a lot about how the organization does its business, when the call for nominations to ACRL-NW went out I realized that I wanted to concentrate my efforts more locally. Here's why:

I like working with people in person. This might seem odd to say, since my first board meeting was a videoconference, but the difficulty with national committees is that you see each other twice a year--and maybe not that often, if people don't show up. Then, depending on how active your committee is, you might not do anything between conferences, not even via e-mail.

I like contributing where I live and work. This informs my community volunteer work as well; I look for opportunities in my own neighborhood, where I can get to know the people and how the community functions. I don't think I'll go for national service again until I'm established enough in the profession to feel like the national organization is my community.

Environmental conscientiousness. It's another argument for allowing virtual committee participation: air travel is one of the most polluting forms of transportation out there. ALA conferences regularly attract 10,000 to 20,000 attendees. I'm not going to drop out of participating in ALA, nor of going to ALA conferences entirely, but required attendance at two conferences a year because of a committee appointment was starting to bother me.

Getting to know local professional colleagues--and future colleagues. This is a really active area for librarianship. We have a library school, dozens of universities, several public library systems, and an active information architecture/knowledge management community. With such a wealth of professional knowledge and expertise nearby, it's less necessary for me to go farther afield.

Between this, South Sound Librarians, and InfoCamp, I've got plenty to keep me busy on the local scene for awhile. And it feels like what I do will have a bigger impact. One might well accuse me of big fish, small pond syndrome, but small ponds are where you find some of the richest ecosystems. What's in your professional backyard?