You are currently browsing the daily archive for April 12th, 2007.
Word of the Day for this past Monday:
abecedarian \ay-bee-see-DAIR-ee-uhn\, noun:
1. One who is learning the alphabet; hence, a beginner.
2. One engaged in teaching the alphabet.
adjective:
1. Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet.
2. Arranged alphabetically.
3. Rudimentary; elementary.
So, I’m looking ahead to June and the ALA Annual conference in D.C. I’ve heard all sorts of opinions on Annual from “don’t bother, it’s too big/expensive/not worth it” to “freebies! networking! parties!” I haven’t done much yet in the way of conferences, certainly nothing with, oh, 30 thousand Nancy Pearls running around (bless her heart … even if she did leave out Connie Willis).
Naturally I started asking around to figure out what this whole Annual thing was all about. Here are some things I’ve learned this week (please feel free to correct, counter and add in the comments):
- ALA is all about committees; you go to Annual to see your tribe, I mean, committee
- not all the events happen in the convention center; a lot of committees hold their stuff in the hotels
- call or email people you know and plan on coffee/lunches beforehand; super important for 1st timers
- if you’re not on a committee, you’re not really in ALA yet
- ALA brings a mobile post office along so you can send yourself all those freebies you pick up
- don’t register at the convention center, register at one of the satellite places, usually a hotel
- did I mention committees?
I think you see the trend I’ve been picking up on. And I’m happy to be active, but how do I choose a committee? There are all those great bloggers in RUSA MARS, and then there’s the great connection between the IRRT and my new job, oh but I should probably hook up with NMRT, too. Doh! Pretty soon I end up with a schedule like this (fast forward to June) in which I’m listening to Meredith Farkas in one room, the European Library Education panel in another, and a librarian from Chile in a third. All at the same time.
About a week ago, Jennifer and I posted about the need for a library student community and Karin took us up on the idea. Lo and behold we now have LIS Students at Ning, which is a simple little community-making website. Our little ning corner already has some great discussions going, such as:
- Does your school have a thesis or practicum?
- Figuring out this year’s ALA Annual in D.C.
- Doing the library science degree at a distance
But wait! I can sense what you’re thinking … you don’t want yet another place to go check for updates and such. No problem – you can tap into the site on the RSS feeds in the comfort of your own cozy reader:
- Read all the forums in one feed (RSS)
- Read posts to the Ning site (RSS)
- or, Read the aggregate of all members’ personal blogs, if they’ve shared the link (RSS)
For the good of us all, visit the Ning site at least once – lisstudents.ning.com – to sign up. It’s simple and painless. Use the “Sign Up” link in the black bar at the top and you won’t even have to deal with another window or the back button or anything. Takes you less than a minute.
