Conference report, days two, three, and four (belated)

Blogging the succeeding days of the conference turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, due to limited availability of internet terminals and time.

The exhibitors' hall was somewhat smaller and attracted fewer vendors than the ones at prior Texas L.A. and American L.A. conferences I've attended, but I came across a few interesting regional publishers and distributors I wouldn't have found otherwise. At the library association sales table, amongst the high-priced and (ironically) poorly-indexed directories of state associations, lacquered jewelry, library-themed tchotchkes, and recent books by conference-attending authors, someone was selling bars of all-natural "librarian-made" soap in various flavors (pumpkin, rose petals, etc.) I asked her if she'd read Fight Club. She laughed knowingly. I didn't buy any soap. Others did, however; she was sold out by the second day.

The keynote speaker on the first day discussed at some length the various impacts that he thinks technology will have on libraries. Although a great deal of what he said regarding the social impact of constant electronically-enabled social connectedness made sense, I suspect that some of those few who read this blog will take exception to his statement that "bloggers don't care about privacy." It was the first, but not the last, time that the concept of privacy was dismissed as old-fashioned and no longer relevant to the modern, wired, interconnected world.

Gleanings from various sessions and workshops throughout the conference:

The state electronic library plans to change their interface this coming January. I can't see anything wrong with the current interface, but I guess Change is Good (TM).

A speaker on internet privacy recommended ZoneAlarm as a good free-or-cheap downloadable firewall to protect personal computers from viruses, trojans, etc. (Any thoughts/reviews from those more technically savvy than myself?) He also suggested, without overtly saying so, that a dismaying number of government computers were distressingly vulnerable to such malware. The fact that many such computers have access to citizens' private information was duly noted.

All Music Group has good swag at their presentations. I picked up a couple of nice classic-jazz compilation CDs at their presentation table before rudely skedaddling to another talk. (So sue me.) It occurs to me to wonder about the ethics of having commercial vendors do scheduled presentations about their for-profit products on the same featured basis as non-commercial speakers, meetings of professional interest groups, etc.

I sat in on a session about "use and creation of portfolios for professional development" in academic libraries. Who knows? Such information may someday be useful to me. While waiting for the presentation to begin, I noticed that one of the tech people from Suburban Public Library was also sitting in the room. Was she contemplating a job switch into the academic world, I wondered? And what did she think about seeing me in the room? It turned out she was receiving an award from the group sponsoring the talk. Thinking quickly, I grabbed my digital camera out of my briefcase and snapped a picture. Then I sat through the rest of the talk, about how to organize a portfolio for tenure review and/or promotion in academic libraries, as if it were a boring but necessary adjunct to getting her photo.

Meeting people from both "Huron State" and Suburban Public Library throughout the conference was slightly awkward. It was as if I were trying to negotiate a social event while juggling two dates. (Which, for the record, I have never done, and never intend to do.) Fortunately, the Huron State folks made it rather easy for me by not inviting me to go to lunch with them or otherwise interact with them for much longer than the space of a brief hallway conversation or two. The SPL folks were more friendly, which isn't particularly surprising considering that SPL was willing to pay my way to the conference and Huron State wasn't. I was a bit annoyed when I found that the other SPL folks were staying at the ritzy conference hotel while I roughed it at a cheaper chain hotel five miles down the road. But I shouldn't complain about it. I could have insisted on staying at the conference hotel, even when the head of reference darkly hinted that, for a part-timer, low conference expenditures would be a good idea. (Really, I don't mind that they had in-room jacuzzis while I had a dank chain-hotel swimming pool with cloudy water. Or that they had dinner and drinks in a top-floor-of-the-skyscraper bar and restaurant overlooking the bay while I gnawed on bread and cheese and apples from a cardboard box, or that they had spectacular tenth-floor views of the autumn colors of the northern Michigan forests while I had a first-floor view of a parking lot. Really, I don't mind. Believe me. Not at all. Nope.)

Thursday afternoon, a presentation billed as Business for Beginners turned out to be an overview of small-business-startup resources available from a particular state agency and other sources, rather than the more general discussion of current, general business-reference resources that I'd hoped for. But I did get some useful lists of resources for the occasional library user who's contemplating starting a business.

The "best of the best" presentation about exemplary small-library programs and projects in the state featured the director of the library of my former residence in the U.P. and, among other things, the display of wedding gowns and other feminine stuff that she and the local historical society had put on at the library. After the talk, I inquired about the status of their unique and extensive archival collection on a very interesting Yooper railroad. Fortunately, it seems they are in the process of digitizing portions of it, and took my e'mail address to send me further information. Unfortunately, I haven't heard anything from them since.

Thursday night, having opted out of the $38-a-plate dinner with accompanying celebrity speech, I decided to walk from the El Cheapo Motel to the local downtown for dinner. Bad idea. Three miles later, I turned around and started walking back. In the rain. Cold rain. At least I slept well once I got back.

The Friday morning presentation on library weblogs didn't tell me much I didn't already know, but it did inspire me to think that SPL might benefit from public and/or staff weblogs, and that if I were to suggest and implement such a thing it might actually look like a technological "achievement". (Gotta think about that portfolio.)

The motivational speaker at the end of the conference didn't particularly appeal to me, but others seemed to like her. Spent the rest of the afternoon driving up the very narrow peninsula north of Traverse City, past beachfront property that I'll never be able to afford and many, many acres of cherry trees and vineyards, to the Old Mission Point Lighthouse, where I snapped a photo of granddad's Land Yacht posed in front of the lighthouse, under a sign announcing the 45th parallel, the halfway point between the equator and the North Pole. I figured he might enjoy seeing how far north it's ventured. (The lighthouse, by the way, seems to be a private residence. It must be strange to live there, with tourists constantly walking by, gawking and taking pictures of your house from ten or twenty feet away.)

The Land Yacht performed flawlessly on the road, surging along the road like a battleship ponderously but effortlessly shouldering its way through the waves.

And so home, and so to bed.