Last-Minute Recommendations

It just occurred to me, I do have recommendations that other people should keep in mind. Including myself, for the next time I do a conference this enormous.

a) Give yourself twice as much time to do things as you think you'll need. 

b) Have a backup plan for every event. Program full or canceled? Have an alternative planned out.

c) Keep your cell phone charged and biz cards someplace really convenient (mine were in my nametag)

d) Eavesdrop. (This tip is for you, not me -- I always do that anyway). It's amazing what you learn about just by listening to other conversations.

e) Remain flexible!

Also, everyone always says to find out where the free food is, and that's true. Chicago is expensive and it got really old eating at the Subway, Qdoba, etc. type of places (hence my delicious $20 bagel on Monday). I also kept breakfast bars in my bag.

wrapping up the conference with delicious food

Look at me, I'm terrible, I took last night off from blogging. Yesterday was not too terribly eventful, and in that it was a nice day. I was actually able to get out of bed in a nice, leisurely fashion, and decided to be even more luxurious and eat breakfast? really brunch, in the hotel restaurant. Never mind the costs! (The cost ended up being about twenty bucks for a giant bagel with cream cheese and mounds and mounds of lox... and a borrowed Wall Street Journal). After that I shuttled down to the convention center to help the OITP folks set up for their "Case Studies in Copyright" program. It was a combo program and poster session, so there was a lot to set up; handouts, giveaways, putting up posters, etc. I became the official Greeter and handed out giveaways at the door as people came in. None of the other programs I went to did anything like that, so hopefully we gave everyone a good impression.

The copyright program was excellent. I didn't really, really realize before then that the effort to follow copyright laws, guidelines, etc., is really just a matter of interpretation and how much risk you want to take. Phrases like "within a reasonable amount of time" are common. What is reasonable? You have to just take your best shot. The OITP endorses librarians to not over-examine every last detail. It was pointed out that often with copyright law, court rulings and subsequent laws are shaped by past public behavior, and to get too crazy with trying to be overly careful will only perpetuate that kind of environment, both formally and informally. Do what seems right and practical, and we should be fine, they said. It was very, very interesting. We also received a compliment from a student at Syracuse who really appreciated our "Copyright Help 5¢" booth (we called it the Lucy booth). It was great. They plan to keep the booth for next year and possibly for a few large state library association meetings. It is sorely needed!

After we packed up that program, they were having an awards reception which I was strongly encouraged to attend. I was late because the room was just about impossible to find, but I'm really glad I found it. The buffet was the best free food I'd gotten during the whole conference! :-) It wasn't very crowded so I was able to return for the little bite-sized pieces of bread with cream cheese and super tender pieces of beef. Mmmmm. Kathy gave me a couple of free drink tickets too, which was super nice. I had a good time.

I do have to comment -- the award that was presented (for furthering quality education in copyright law, given to a University of Wisconsin professor) looked, to me, exactly like a giant glass of beer. I kid you not. I wanted to make a joke about it but I didn't want to be inappropriate. It looked like a glass. The bottom was clear, most of it was amber, and the top was frosty white. How does that not look like a beer?! Was it an inside joke? I want to get to know these people better so I can find out!

Shared a cab with someone back to the Hyatt, since the end-of-the-day wait for a shuttle was going to be 15-20 minutes, and who wants to wait that long at the end of the day? My roommate and I went out for a walk around the downtown parks. Apparently the giant fountain is the one from the opening scenes of "Married With Children". It's been so many years since I saw that show, I really don't recall a fountain. I must say, it's one heck of a fountain though, and worth walking over there to see it.

Aaaaand that's all, folks! I hoped to wake up leisurely this morning, too, but a crazy alarm sound woke me up earlier than I'd wanted to be up. Scared the crap out of me, I had no idea what it was, and still don't. Annoying. Settled the bill ($13.65 per day for Internet; roomie and I split the cost) and shuttled back to Midway and its tacky Toilet signs. I was very sad to leave Chicago... but it'll still be there for the next time I want to visit.

Next stop, Midwinter 2010, in Boston, so I imagine I can go. I'd like to visit the copyright folks again. They do really good work.

A great conference day

This morning I woke up at 6 a.m., determined to get an early, relaxed start to my day. And it worked! I got a giant cinnamon roll for breakfast from the little stand in the lobby, and walked to the Hilton for a "digital preservation interest group" meeting. It was a very nice walk early on a Sunday morning. Found the Hilton just fine... went in and asked where the meeting room was... and...

Wrong Hilton.

But do I despair? Oh no! I was 20 minutes early, so I just got a cab and went to the right Hilton, for $6. No biggie.

I met a very nice preservation librarian, and watched  a few programs; one about file formats, which basically did not teach me anything I don't already know. Even so, it was presented in an interesting way, so that was all right. There was also a presentation about the Hathitrust project, which I'd never heard of, and then a presentation about DCAPE, "Distributed Custodial Frameworks for Archival Preservation." It's a grant-funded project just getting underway, so who knows, maybe we'll hear more about it in a few years. The idea is for small institutions to be able to have a place where they can deposit their works for preservation without having to build their own preservation infrastructure, and without having to depend on a for-profit vendor, either. Sounds good if it gets off the ground.

After that I hoofed it to the Copyright Advisory Meeting of the OITP, which was good; mostly talked about advocacy and educational outreach efforts. It was interesting to see what they are working on.

After THAT, I had to find a quick lunch to eat on the way to the convention center. Finally found a Qdoba and got a burrito, which I ate while waiting and riding on the shuttle bus. Once I got there I had to go to "Mobile Devices in Libraries" for the OITP, to run the video camera. A very exciting job, haha. That went fine; I can't say I was very interested in the program, but it really wasn't my type of thing.

Finally, last program of the day, Collecting for Digital Repositories. I had seen one of the speakers before, Paul Royster from the repository at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, on a webinar. He is a terrific speaker, and it was neat to see him speak again. The other speakers were interesting as well, and after the program I met Dorothea Salo, who wrote the article "Innkeeper at the Roach Motel." It was a really great article (published in Library Trends, but I believe she said she also put it out for free online) that I remembered so that was very cool to talk to her; she was super nice.

This evening I met up with Leo and we went to the CI alumni reception; FSU had a table there and I enjoyed seeing fellow FSUers! There are quite a lot of FSU folks here; I'd noticed that throughout the conference and the table attested to it; our table had the most traffic by far. A photo was taken for the newsletter (my baby! all grown up) and I'll try to add it here too, as well as some other pics... as soon as I get them off my camera.

Overall, a very good day.

Saturday night

Hmm, my crappy mood earlier must've been really obvious in this blog, because my mom wrote me a nice e-mail! Hehe! 

After blogging I went to the Scholarship Bash at the Art Institute and, well, there's nothing like art to make me feel better. My feet hurt, but I'm feeling groovy and looking forward to tomorrow.

Exhausted

Oh, these darn conferences. They sure do exhaust a person. So does the loud guy next door. But here, from the beginning:

Last night's hunt for pizza with Karen and Michelle turned futile when all the pizzarias in our area had at least an hour wait. We didn't want to wait. In hindsight, we should have, but oh well. After a lot of walking and debating we ended up at a sports bar-brewery type place, which was a winner because a) the wait was only 20 minutes; and b) it was not prohibitively expensive, which most downtown Chicago restaurants are. (I see now why pizza and hot dogs are so popular in this city). We did end up having a good meal and a good time, and that's what it's all about, right?

Took forever for the whole dinner thing to happen, and while I wanted to meet up for a beer with Steve, it was getting late for this old lady, so I chose to go to bed. Roommate and I turned off the lights at 11 p.m. Then the incredibly obnoxious loud conversation started. Called the front desk. It stopped. Started to drift off... WHOOP BAM BAM... loud music... call the front desk... it stops. We actually fall asleep. 1:30 a.m. or so... very, very loud idiotspeech wakes us up again. Fabulous. Call again. We finally fall asleep. I am annoyed and thinking that damn it, I may as well have gone out and partied since I wasn't going to get any sleep anyhow. Oh well. :-(

Woke up with giant dark circles. After showering etc., trotted over to the CVS around the block and up the street to get a DIET COKE and some granola bar type things. The hotel and the conference center only serve Pepsi and darn it, that's just not going to fly with this girl. I ended up hanging out for 10 minutes waiting for the CVS to open, but I'm glad, because during that hangout I realized there was still a price tag on my skirt. Classy!

First program of the day: A "Digital Library Showcase" put together by LITA. I missed the first part, which I'm very sad about, because the presentations I did see were pretty interesting. One was about the variety of scanners and cameras that are available, and I'm pleased to say that once again, our choice of scanner at SNHU is validated, being noted as the best one on the market that's in the "not insane" price range. She also endorsed an inexpensive scanner (around $350) that is one of those flatbeds with the glass all the way to the edge of the machine so you can scan books without breaking their spines. I mention this in particular because later, I saw the scanner in person at a vendor booth. The vendor was of course happy to provide a demo. It was pretty neat although the quality is not preservation-quality -- but a great little machine for making access-friendly files from bound publications. You avoid cracking spines and also avoid the distortion that often happens when scanning thick books on a flatbed. Pretty neat.

Also saw part of a presentation about a project at Clemson involving scanning some giant maps; it was an interesting lesson in large-format scanning and how you really have to closely look at the numbers to determine if you really want to do that sort of thing in-house or send it out. Very interesting. I talked to her afterward and it turns out she knows the digital librarian at FSU, who I worked with as a GA. I love a small world!

Okay so then, program two. "Future of Libraries" -- an OITP breakout session. Took forever to find it because I swear, this convention center is a big labyrinth. The plan was to go to this session and join the OITP folks for lunch afterward. Soooo... I get there a few minutes late, and the room is jammed. Absolutely jammed. There are people standing outside the doors peering in, it's so jammed. So obviously I'm not doing this. I check my schedule and realize the "Workflow Tools for Automating Metadata Creation and Maintenance" is at the same time, and wouldn't you know it, it was right next door to the program I was at earlier. Figures. So I scurry back across the convention center and pop in. I learned that I have a lot to learn. I mean, it made sense and all that, but I have a lot to learn about XML/XSLT etc etc etc. I wonder how I'll learn these things.

Unfortunately one of the metadata speakers never showed up, so the program ended early and I went back (aaallll the way across the conference center) to the Future of Libraries. They were taking questions and comments so I hung out for that, but honestly, I didn't see my OITP supervisor and I had absolutely no idea where the lunch thing was supposed to happen... and Leo had sent me a text asking if I wanted to do lunch... so I gave up and went to Chinatown with Leo and one of his colleagues and enjoyed some fabulous dim sum. I really hope that was okay. The whole thing felt like a comedy of errors.

To continue the comedy of errors, after lunch I planned to hang out at the conference center exhibits before a 3:30 program, "Collaborative Digitization Discussion Group." Now okay, I am not in a collaborative digitization project, but I might be someday, and I thought this would be a very valuable session to sit in on and network etc. Soooo, around 3 p.m., I check my schedule to see what room it's in so I can start to mosey over there. And it's at the $#@$! Hilton, three miles away. #@$@%#@!

I do get on the shuttle bus to that area of town, but by the time I get there, well, I have to be honest. I'm tired. I'm very tired. I'm really grumpy because I can't believe I screwed this up. And I am really not in the mood to stand around with a map and try to figure out where the darn Hilton is, and then try to figure out where the room in the Hilton is that I need to be in, and then walk in to what is probably a small discussion group, super late. (I'm really, really, really grumpy at this point). So I decide, never mind, forget it, there's a digital preservation thing that the lady from Clemson mentioned at 8 a.m. tomorrow and I'll just go to that.

Soooo, yeah, I just walked back to my hotel at that point and thought, yes, these are the trials of conferencing! I should've just stayed at the convention center and gone to something else instead... oh well. What're you gonna do.

So now I'm doing some much-needed relaxing in the hotel room. I bought a ticket for the "scholarship bash" at the Art Institute tonight. I'm looking forward to enjoying the art since I didn't get there last night. Why, I could just look at their Seurat for several minutes! Looking forward to it. Even though yes. I'm still tired. That guy next door better just go to sleep tonight like a normal person.

Friday night shenanigans

I did go to Filene's Basement and got some excellent stuff, including an absolutely fabulous Free People wool sweater that I will love, love, love, come wintertime in New Hampshire. It's fabulous. And I feel a little country bumpkin again, because I really have to say I really enjoyed just being able to look at and touch the Dolce and Gabbana dress (clearance, $600)... and all the other absolutely scrumptious designer stuff. Still out of my price range, even at Filene's... but soooo pretty. The trench coat with the flowers on it made my day, even if I couldn't take it home.

After my shopping marathon and stopping at the drugstore for a snack, I went back to the hotel to chill out and examine my schedule. I will be busy busy busy for the next few days, I can tell you that. Looks like I can go to at least two sessions specifically about digital libraries, and one about copyright, so that's pretty good considering I have to also work in my OITP duties. The Digital Library Showcase is at 8 a.m. tomorrow morning. So early! But I do really want to go so I guess I'll just make myself do it.

My grad school friend Leo arrived and we went to one of the hotel bars for a beer and caught up; perfect timing after my shopping! He's miraculously in the same hotel I'm staying in.  And, then, it's amazing how many FSU students/grads are here -- Michele and Karen called me to see if I wanted to go out for pizza, and Steve wants to go out later for beer. Yes, these conferences really are all about the catching up and the networking. So fun! Looks like I'll have a good evening...

Last Night and Today

Today's plan: Go to work with the OITP folks, which I'm thinking won't go past 2p.m. or so. Then I plan to come back up to the Loop shopping area and hit the pavement; I saw a Filene's Basement yesterday and who can resist a look? And then... from 5-9 p.m. today the Art Institute is free, so I could pop in there and enjoy some refreshing works of art, maybe pretend I'm an extra in the Ferris Bueller movie.

Last night was fantastic. After some treacherous waiting/trying to meet with people/etc., I managed to meet up with one of the other girls going to the show, Kathy S. (So many Kathys in my life all of a sudden). I am super-glad we found each other; not only did it make the whole experience more fun, but we were able to help each other navigate our way to the Chase Auditorium. It's in the basement of the giant Chase building, just so you know :-). We took the bus from the convention center back to the Loop, without a problem. 

Regarding the student to staff program -- Kathy is working for the Courant, the daily paper of the conference. She is assigned to write about one program for each of the four days she is here. She commented that she is so glad she didn't get stuck in the ALA Store. I didn't even realize that was an option, and YES, I am thrilled I am also not stuck there. Who wants to work retail for 16 hours of the conference? Certainly not me.

My comments about Wait Wait -- I had no idea how much gets edited out of that show every week. The back-and-forth was terrific in some places (especially from you, Paula Poundstone! She is too funny) and there's no way they have the time to keep all that. Peter Sagal said they do re-record some sections at the end of the show (so just sit tight, folks) and they did do that -- cleaning up some sloppy bits and, sadly, re-recording a section where he announced in the telling of the story that they used Wikipedia for research, and all the librarians booed him. That was HILARIOUS, and I'm so sad it won't be on the air! It's definitely worth going to if you're ever in Chicago on a Thursday night. They warmed us up with some librarian jokes, but I'm a little disappointed that the final cut probably will not reflect that the audience was made up of 500 librarians. Oh well. We know the truth. (Of course we do. We're librarians!).

Met the roomie last night when I got back from the show; she is of course very nice. She had to get up early to be able to meet her ALA people at 8 a.m. Terrible. I love that the OITP is allowing me to sleep in. :-)

All checked in

Good times -- I've met Kathy M. from OITP, who gave me a work schedule and asked me to go ahead and set up their table in the ALA "office" area. They have some super-cool handouts on the table pertaining to copyright law and net neutrality, so come on by, folks! Our stuff includes a copyright wheel thing that explains conditions for reproduction in a variety of situations. It really is neat stuff. Really. I'm not just saying that.

Tomorrow I'm going to attend an OITP Advisory Committee meeting so I have a chance to hear what they are about and meet the entire staff. Plus, Kathy put my name on the list for lunch, which was super nice. :-) Then we'll set up the "Lucy Booth" where all your copyright questions will be answered on Saturday and Sunday. I have my own copyright questions to ask, so I'm pretty excited about that.

After that I have a totally free Friday, so I'm starting to brainstorm how I'd like to spend my afternoon. So many choices... What will she do? Tune in to find out.

My work schedule on Sat-Sun is fortunately relatively open, so I should have an opportunity to go to most of the programs I noted as sounding interesting -- mostly digital library stuff. Monday is my big workday, with a couple of big meetings to set up. Fortunately I do get to sleep in that day, and after the meetings is an awards ceremony with food and a cash bar. I am encouraged to attend. Whoo hoo!

Added to all this, I'm excited that so many people from FSU are in Chicago this weekend. The FSU Alumni shindig is Sunday evening, and I'm really looking forward to saying hello to everybody!

Chicago: First Impressions

I've been to Chicago only once, for basically one day, half of which I spent in the Art Institute Museum. So, first impressions:

Chicago Midway airport: Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I really think the word "toilet" on all the airport signage could be substituted with an appropriate euphemism.

Shuttle ride from airport to hotel can hold, and did, up to 10 librarians, 7 of whom were overweight, middle-aged white women. Just an observation!

Chicago Hyatt lobby is very, very impressive. I felt just a tad country bumpkin walking in there.

About to take the long walk down Michigan Ave/Lake Shore Drive to the convention center. Hoping to grab a quick lunch on the way, and possibly pop into a couple of shops on the way back. More updates to come this evening!

Unnnghggghhh. I had trouble sleeping last night and around 12:30 a.m. remembered that of all things, I forgot to pack the conference badge and stuff that came in the mail a few weeks ago. Of course I got up and ran down to the kitchen to find it and pack it, or I would never have gotten to sleep!

Time to get going... have to leave in 45 minutes and I still have wet hair and an empty stomach. Looking forward to arriving at Chicago and meeting a representative from OITP at 2:30. Not looking forward to figuring out how to get from the hotel to the convention center, since the shuttle doesn't start running until tomorrow. I didn't realize this would be such a big deal until I finally took the time to look at the map yesterday. It's three miles! Not sure I would have agreed to meet there, knowing that... oh well. We'll see if it's easy to get a cab or if I'm in the mood to explore on foot.

ALA Conference Planning

I found the time to use the ALA Conference Planner! Whoo hoo! It's available on the ALA website, and allows attendees to create a calendar of events they are attending. At first it was a little awkward, but I quickly found that typing one keyword was the best way to pull up the programs I'm most interested in. Once I'm all finished, I can download the plan in comma-delineated format, which I plan to open and print in Excel. I imagine that along with a map of the conference locations, it'll be my Bible throughout the show.

I can see how the conference can be pretty hectic -- not only do I have several programs I'd like to attend, but there's also special author events, poster sessions, and the like to keep in mind... never mind the networking / getting in touch with distant friends part. Only a couple days to go...

The ALA Conference is just around the corner... right after the 4th of July weekend, which makes the whole first part of July a little nuts. This week, Friday is a holiday for the 4th (which is Saturday), and I'm taking Monday off too. Then that Thursday I'll be leaving for the conference. Life in the fast lane.

All 40 student-to-staffers have been e-mailing back and forth using the student2staff list Don Wood set up, trying to plan going out for pizza on Thursday night. However, I won't be there, because I am the excited holder of a ticket to see NPR's "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me" at the Chase Auditorium in Chicago! If you could hear Karl Castle saying those words in your head as you read them, then you know what I'm talkin' about! One of the ALA arms (I forget which) purchased all the tickets for the show and are re-selling them at a premium as a fundraiser. Wait Wait is in turn making it a library show. It should be quite a hoot. Anyway, I think there are at least four of us who are going to Wait Wait, so we'll hopefully get dinner together before the show.

That was, incidentally, something I hoped to try to organize today... we'll see what kind of response I get.

Now on to business. I will be working with the Office of Information Policy. They'll have two meetings about copyright that they'll need my help with; one on Friday and one on Sunday. Then they'll need me Monday from around noon - 6:30 p.m. for their programs on that day. So far it sounds like I have Saturday free, which is pretty amazing. I'm a little chagrined because there's a preconference on Friday that I would LOVE to go to, about XSL. I really need to learn XSL for work, but I feel obligated to help with OITP first, and they need me on Friday. I'm still debating whether I could go and just leave early; depends on the location of things. We'll see.

I can't believe the onslaught of e-mails I've been getting from different arms of the ALA reminding me to do this and that. I've just been forwarding the interesting ones to one e-mail account, and hopefully at some point I'll find time to sit down with a calendar and see if I can work out a schedule. What makes it crazier is that I'm on several listservs, so I get the same announcement multiple times. So maybe it's not that bad. But oh yeah -- I have to remember to RSVP for an FSU alumni thing! That will definitely be neat.

Well, 10 p.m. and I'm exhausted as usual. More to come!

A little introduction

Each year, 40 lucky students in graduate library science programs across the country get to attend the American Library Association Annual Conference for free -- that's right, folks, free -- in exchange, that is, for our labor. (Who said anything in life is truly free?) Each program can send one student; it is up to each program to choose which student to nominate for this experience. I feel pretty lucky that the College of Information at Florida State University chose me for this experience. (Thanks, Christie and Pam!). 

ALA is covering my conference registration, hotel stay, and provide $200 for incidental expenses; the College of Information agreed to pay for my airfare and other costs, up to $350. In exchange, I will work approximately 16 hours during the four days of the conference. Not a bad deal at all!

Each student is assigned to work with a particular part of the ALA organization; I will be working with the Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP). It looks like I'll be helping out with the programs OITP members will present throughout the conference. Since I am a newly minted digital librarian at Southern New Hampshire University (I started working there in March, and will finish my last class of grad school in August), this is an excellent fit.

Pre-conference programs begin Friday, July 9, and the conference wraps up on Tuesday, July 14. Look for me to start blogging like crazy on Thursday night!