My dream of doing an entry every day for a month is shot but anyhow, here's an update for yesterday…
Up early
yesterday for the first-timer's breakfast and did I make my joke about
trying to eat $18 worth of bacon and eggs in the last entry? If
not, consider it made (I was unsuccessful by the way.) Came
over to the Civic Centre at 9am on the shuttle (the conference had to
change
locations three weeks ago due to a strike at the Convention Centre
downtown as many delegates – including myself – would have refused to
cross a picket line. As someone who used to organize relatively
small conferences, I can't imagine moving an event with 1000+
delegates, dozens of exhibitors and all the related issues
three weeks out. The staff and their volunteers have done an
amazing job making this happen.) My first session was Michael Geist on
copyright and it was an amazing presentation which I hope ends up on his or the CLA's web site. I also took in a
presentation on the history of libraries in Canada which was good and
finished the day with another amazing one – a group who are working to
improve library access for disenfranchised people. I'll blog more
on this session which alternately had me in tears, furious, and fired up when I'm not at a time-limited terminal
(Off-topic but the lady at the terminal next to me was laughing while
checking her e-mail so I asked what was up. She said she'd gotten
an e-mail from a co-worker that a 9 year old boy had asked a reference
question at their library – “how many doors are there in the library?” so the person
wrote to the entire staff saying they'd counted 26 in the basement and
did anyone want to continue the task? This was the University of
Guelph by the way (smart kid!))
Went on the Pub Crawl last night but only hit two pubs. One
highlight was bumping into Toni Samek who is a prof and activist
librarian at the U of A whose work I've read for some of my
assignments. Great person to hang out with and provide
perspective on some of the previous conferences, current CLA issues and
so on.
I think that's it. Man, I wish the federal government would
decide to make wireless Internet access a free national service for
every major centre in Canada (and as techology and costs allow, blanketing the whole country.) I mean if you believe that
highways are part of our national infrastructure, why not include the
“Information Highway” in that?
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