Director's conference report!

June is always exciting for librarians. The reason is simple: The American Library Association's Annual Conference! It's giant. Think San Diego's Comic-Con with fewer comic books and more library furniture.

I didn't go to this year's conference for two simple reasons:

1. I went to the Midwinter Meeting in January, and one of these things per year is tiring enough. This year's Midwinter was hosted in San Diego, in fact, in the same convention center used for the Comic-Con. If you're familiar with what a huge event it is, you can get an idea of how busy Midwinter was!
   
2. It was in New Orleans. In June. I grew up on the Gulf of Mexico, and there's a reason why I left. The humidity is quite satisfactory here in Washington, DC; why be a glutton for punishment?

Still, two of us were brave enough to go a couple of weeks ago: Sarah Hamrick, our Director of Library Public Services (and my boss!), and Patrick Oberholtzer, my fellow Instruction & Reference Librarian.

Because they don't have enough to do (ha), I asked them to write up a report of their experiences for you guys. Today, you get to read Sarah's! Patrick's will come next week.

So: Sarah's conference experience. Here we go!

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I was one of 20,000 participants in the American Library Association’s annual conference, held in New Orleans the last weekend of June. ALA has more than 60,000 members who work in all types of libraries, and the annual conference is our opportunity to learn about new trends in libraries, network with colleagues, and meet with vendors to learn about the latest products and services. It’s also our opportunity to slip out of our sensible shoes, unpin our hair buns, and go crazy.

The conference takes place over a weekend -- there are preconferences and a few early meetings on Thursday and Friday, followed by the big kick-off Friday night. Saturday and Sunday are jam-packed with programs and meetings, and by Monday afternoon most of the sessions are over. The exhibit hall includes about 350,000 square feet of space full of vendors selling/promoting everything you can possibly imagine -- furniture (LOVE the child-sized desks and chairs in bright colors), equipment (I’ve got my eye on a scanner you can use to convert our old microfilm to PDF), clothes (librarians love t-shirts with cute book quotes), software, services, and books. Lots of books. There are always long lines of people waiting for author signings, and the free books many vendors hand out are always hot items!

ALA is spread out across the host city. Many sessions take place in a massive convention center (which in New Orleans is right on the Mississippi River, so it is very LONG), and there are meetings and programs in at least 10 hotels across town. There are always long lines at Starbucks, and at the end of each day there are many weary librarians with bags full of vendor freebies loading up on the buses that shuttle us around to our meetings and hotels. Since we were in New Orleans this time, all of those weary librarians were also kind of sweaty and a little wilted. Fortunately New Orleans offers many kinds of refreshment to perk up the heat- and humidity-bedraggled librarian!

I always learn a lot at ALA conferences and have met many colleagues there who help me do my job better. Of the sessions I attended this year two were particularly good.

The first was entitled “Libraries of the Future: Designing from the User Perspective.” The speaker was a librarian who retired after many working for many years in a college library (I hope that’s me some day!) and has started a new career (I hope that’s not me--I want to spend my retirement years at the ballpark and the dog park!) advising libraries that are designing new buildings. He talked about the importance of planning based on not only how students use the library building now but also how we WANT students to use it and how we THINK students will use it in the future. He spoke of two issues I thought were particularly interesting. Consider the exterior design, particularly at the main building entrance, and try to make it usable space. (A few comfy reading benches and some picnic tables would be nice!) And the first ten feet to the right of the building entrance is the busiest area of the building, so it is important to place the most heavily used materials/services there. (Coffee bar, anyone?)

The best session I attended was called “It’s All About Them: Developing Information Services with User Experience Design.” User experience (UX) is a relatively new field in the library profession, and it’s becoming a very sought-after specialization. UX librarians look at what students want and how they want to get it. It’s a customer service thing. Most UX librarians still do a lot of work in the technology area, but the field has expanded to include all types of library UX. The speakers at this program gave lots of tips about improving the quality of service to library users. One library schedules staff to walk through the building regularly, trying to see it through the eyes of the library user. Another library connects their library web site log-in with Blackboard so students who log into the library’s site get a specialized page based on their specific course needs. One of the program’s speakers works for a major U.S. retailer, doing the indexing for their web site. She talked about the importance of setting up our systems so that users are able to find what they need using the keywords and concepts they know and understand. While that has always been the general idea of library catalog systems, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on the issue from the retail perspective.The best part of the presentation was when a participant asked the speakers if their libraries had a UX brand or motto. The retail indexer said theirs is “Crush Amazon.” Sounds like a worthy goal to me!

That’s what I learned at ALA. I also enjoyed some delicious seafood, window shopped in the French Quarter, gazed at the mighty Mississippi, gawked at the sights on Bourbon Street, and caught a New Orleans Zephyrs ballgame. My favorite evening was spent at a very nice restaurant (delicious oysters) with friends who work in correctional (i.e., prison) libraries in Colorado. It was a very productive trip!