Saturday, January 12, 2008

Back in PA

Well, here I am in Philadelphia, attending my first ALA conference. They may kick me out of the ALA for saying this, but I'm a bit disappointed. I was excited, planning to attend great workshops and learn heaps. Turns out, it's 95% committee meetings! ugh! Though I will say it's incredibly cool that we drive right by Independence Hall on the way to the conference center. And apparently the Liberty Bell is only a block or so from my hotel, so I must see that.

I did attend an interesting workshop yesterday on presenting fun library orientations. I'll blog about that next. And I'm going to a committee meeting this afternoon on best practices in video, with, I think, a nod to copyright. I'll definitely let you know about that, too.

I'm now off to tour the exhibits and talk to the 3M vendor about security systems!

2 comments:

  1. Looking forward to reading your conference posts. I had the remains of my security system hauled away this past fall. It hadn't worked for about 6 years and there has been no funding to replace it. We have some book loss each year but I think we are better off without it. I certainly don't miss having to put up with the clowns who hide books in friends backpacks to ring the alarm on purpose. When the system was working it did catch students who had honestly forgotten to sign a book out and gathered it up with their other things on the way out. But it was no deterrent to those who were intent on taking a book without signing it out. I tell the kids we work on an honour system now and trust them. Some will walk away laughing with a book hidden in their pack I'm sure. I guess I'm just happy to remove one more "policing" aspect from my job and try to promote a more collegial approach.
    Enjoy the rest of your conference, I hope things pick up!

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  2. Hmmmm That's a point, Leslie. We'll see. I just know I'm missing at least 1/3 of my collection, and mostly everything that would be useful!

    Of course, a big portion of it is books that were loaned out and never returned (or replaced).

    The students themselves are really frustrated that nothing they want is ever in, so if I approach it from that point, and say the "beepers" are just a reminder to check something out so we can keep tabs on it, I think they'll accept that.

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