Following, over the next couple days, will be a series of posts actually written DURING the ALA Conference. Due to technical issues relating to a tempermental wireless network card in my laptop, these are being posted after my return to Boise.

Friday, June 23rd

It’s my first day at the 2006 ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans. I arrived on in the late afternoon in time to swing by the convention center to pick up my badge (and accompanying tote bag) and run to a nearby hotel to attend the WebJunction reception. No reception is complete without a few words from the sponsor. At this event, WJ was promoting the Rural Library Sustainability project. Idaho will be participating in that project in the near future. It was good to hear about the successes of other states and I look forward to Idaho’s participation.

While talking with some WJ staff I also learned that a new eLearning clearinghouse is a big topic for them right now. There will be a session to talk about this endeavor later in the conference. I will try to attend or at least drop by the WebJunction booth in the Exhibit Hall to learn what I can. One of the many great things about WebJunction is their education focus. They have numerous web courses that members can sign up to take now and the informal information sharing in the community forums is truly valuable. This clearninghouse is a place where WebJunction members (membership is FREE!) can look for online courses relating to libraries. Nice resource for those looking to build on skills!

My evening ended with a quick stop by a gathering of librarians interested in women’s issues. These folks were just doing some informal networking. I met a high school librarian from Snoqualmie, WA. She told me about a small project she is working on to determine the subject reach of her periodical collection. She’s been evaluating the major topics covered, demographics, and even the publisher source of the periodicals in her library to be certain that her students are being exposed to a wide variety of sources to cover their information needs. Right now she’s been focusing on the print collection, but will be adding information about the online magazines and journals to which her students have access. I thought it sounded like a great idea to see what kind of coverage her collection has. She’s planning to use the data to support her requests for additional collection funds so she can provide adequate access to materials for the students.

Taking this time to do some social networking was a nice, easy way to get acclimated to the conference. And, it all happened within a couple of hours; which left me some time to go to pick up some snacks at a convenience store (you never want to be at conference without a few bottles of water and some portable snacks) and head back to the hotel to get my papers in order for Day 2.