I recently embarked on a cross country adventure to the Annual American Library Association conference in lovely Anaheim, California. I had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people, learning some amazing things, hitting jackpot on the exhibit floor, and of course, Disney!
I flew across the country early morning with new friend and recent Syracuse University grad, Margaret (Follow her on Twitter: @tophile). We made it to Anaheim pretty smooth sailing and while we were waiting for our hotel shuttle, we ran into Barbara Stripling, Syracuse University Assistant Professor in Practice and President Elect of the American Library Association! It was nice running into a familiar face across the country.
We spent the rest of the (very long) day exploring Anaheim, reading books, and sitting pool side participating in #libchat. (Yes, we're nerdy librarians!)
Thursday we registered for the conference and I went to Disneyland with a couple of other librarians I met on Twitter. It was great to go on some of the classic rides I missed on my senior trip to Florida in 2006.
Friday was the big day: the official start of the Conference! We started the day finding the Unconference with Emily Thompson(@librarianofdoom) and Addy
Matteson (@queenaddie) of LitTech. (Emily is also an academic librarian in my local academic library!) Together we wandered the second floor lobby to find the unconference. What happened was we gathered a group of people also looking for the Unconference and filed into the room awing the 2 people who were already present. We were the unconference!
The unconference was really interesting. An unconference is essentially a group of people getting together, brainstorming topics they want to learn or talk about, and split into groups to discuss!
I joined groups that discussed teen and adult programming and social media in libraries. We agreed that both teens and adults want a social component to their programs. Great ideas for increasing teen involvement including big incentives for reading programs, using teen volunteers for the children's summer reading program, and ringing in clique leaders to increase teen involvement. I also liked the ideas of inviting local speakers and hosting library lock-ins. Someone had the cool idea for fundraising of hosting a pay for your dinner at a local restaurant and so much of the profit goes to the library.
I liked a lot of the ideas presented at our social media table as well. I think every library should have a facebook page and it would be a great way to connect with kids and teens if the summer reading program had a Facebook page as well. I know Emily's library has something to tweet about everyday: database of the week, website of the week, meet our staff, etc. four square initiatives to check in and receive a free coffee.
I went with new friends from that morning to an Indian restaurant. Topher, fellow iSchool student (@hieanon) was present as well. I discovered I actually dislike Indian food but some of us also venutred to Lego Land and acted like total kids building our own Lego people to abandon them after completion, taking pics of all the Lego models: Toy Story, the Genie from Aladdin, and a large dragon.
I was a bit disappointed by the YALSA meeting because it was overcrowded so nothing went as planned. We basically went around a room of 80 people introducing themselves then got up and left.
I got to see most of Rebecca MacKinnon's opening session about her book Consent of the Networked. A lot of what she was talking about related to topics we are and will be discussing in information policy this summer. The main point was its not the argument over whether the Internet empowers people but how it can support rights and liberties of people worldwide. She even spoke of Arab Spring which we were required to read for class that week.
I helped man the Syracuse University booth in the exhibit hall during the opening. I got to meet a few alumni and acquaint myself with fellow classmates (mostly campus students). I was reacquainted with Henry Mensch from my cohort (@henare) and met incoming student Kai Li (@nalsi).
I was pretty tired after an exciting day so I went home and crashed. I would call Day 1 at ALA a success!
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