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Twelve Ways To Improve The CLA Conference

Am I ever going to do a post where I'm happy about something instead of suggesting how to change and improve it?  (Probably not…) 

Obviously these suggestions come heavily from the perspective of a student and a first-time CLA attendee.

Twelve Ways To Improve The CLA Conference
1. Don't charge students to attend

2. Don't have an $18 per person first-timer's breakfast.  Maybe an $8 one at a nearby restaurant with a private room would work better and have more people out?

3. Have free wireless internet available at the conference site

4. Make video (preferably – or audio or text) streams of all presentations (as well as any powerpoint slides and handouts) available on the CLA web site.  Ideally, this information would be made available to anyone but if you had to limit it, a simple password system for registered conference participants (or all CLA members) would suffice.

5. Have a first-timers-only mixer early in the week so students get a chance to meet people from across Canada in the same situation as themselves.  Let people in for free instead of charging $18 to attend.  Don't have it in a venue (like a high-end hotel) that's going to charge $7 for a beer and $4 for cranberry juice either (that's one's for Michelle Lake.)

6. Send out a first-timer's package that pulls all the most relevant information from the conference program along with tips and tricks about negotiating a conference like this.  A lot of my fellow attendees expressed disappointment with their experience and I think this is partly due to the overwhelming nature of a conference like this.  I know I missed a lot in the conference program and I'm sure many other people did as well. 

7.  Include a list of registered conference participants in each person's registration package (may have privacy implications but I've seen it done and always appreciated it if I met someone and wanted to contact them at a later date.)

8.  This is something we tried to do at the WGA and SPG with our conferences.  Why not partner with local tourist attractions to host some of the events?  Instead of having the opening keynote at the hotel, imagine how memorable it would have been to have it at the Museum of Civilization or even on Parliament Hill? 

9. Fairly minor but listing not only the start point but the end point for the pub crawl in the program would have been helpful for those wishing to join the revellers later.  (The retired children's librarian I had a drink with the first night wanted to join the pub crawl after the awards ceremony but didn't know where we'd be for instance.)

10. My classmate, Paul hit the nail on the head.  No Elvis.  No Marilyn.  No clowns.  If you need to waste money on wandering entertainment (I mean, they weren't even performing), why not have some literary characters or famous librarians depicted?

11. Spend more money on the lunches and have a WAY better selection than two kinds of crappy wraps as the only choices (seriously, no salad, no pasta, no dessert, no juice.)  

12. Make sure I win a door prize next time!

Posted 22 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (3) ° Tagged:

CLA Conference – Paul & Kelly's Take

Here's the report that a couple classmates sent to our class listserv with their take on the CLA conference…

—
The good:

The 2 best presentations we saw were on Thursday, one
on recruitment in Academic Libraries, and the other was a debate on
whether we as librarians have made ourselves obsolete over the past
decade. The Academic libraries presentation was useful in that it gave
tips on applying, to make your cover letter stand out, the interview
process (a whole day, often), our generation's job prospects (not bad,
but there aren't as many retiring as we predicted – things should be
good between 2009-2014). They also raised a commonly-heard complaint at
FIMS, ie library schools' lack of adequately preparing its students for
jobs, especially the lack of technological skills….505, anyone?
anyway, it was probably the most informative seminar I saw.

The
“debate”, apparently a tradition at the conference, was on “It may not
be a paper-less society, but it could be a librarian-less society”. I'm
sorry to say, but the side arguing that it will be a librarian-less
society had the better arguments – in a nutshell, we've made it so easy
for the user, that they don't need us, and the fact that we've gotten
into bed with all the vendors. Soon, every library (academic,
especially) will be as similar as one Chapters to another, if we've all
bought the same package(s) from the same vendors. Another good point,
was that as a profession, we're too hung up on getting “respect” from
the outside, we have an inferiority complex, etc, and this is why we've
let big business slowly creep in to libraries. Kinda like a lively 501
class. But, good stuff to hear for us who
are entering the profession; maybe we'll put up more of a fight than
the people w ho've been there all their lives, and who don't  really
care anymore….

The Bad:

For
$90, the “lunch” provided was pretty pitiful, a wrap, either with
chicken, or “cup of noodles” thrown into a wrap, and called vegetarian.
And pop (2 kinds, 7up and Pepsi, guess we made a deal with only one
vendor). And, there were some fairly boring presentations, but you
never know til you go. And nobody knows how to use powerpoint effectively. Really, the worst I can say about the conference is this (apart from below).

The Ugly:

And,
I'm not sure how much CLA paid to have Elvis , a middle-aged Marilyn
Monroe, and an annoying clown wander around, but this money could've
been better spent on food, at the very least…

Anyhoo, time's
running out here on the internet access, but overall, it was definitley
worth going to. Maybe didn't shmooze as much as we should've, but
others may have had luck in this department.

And someday, we predict that Jason will be the CLA president 🙂

Paul and Kelly 

Classmate of the Day:
Emilie McLachlan for her Dell-inspired weekly summary for Management
class today (and I'm not referring to the Dell laptop she brings to
class).  

Posted 20 June 2006 § Library § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

A Few CLA Photos…

Shea had the camera while being a tourist (and we didn't think to take our old-fashioned film camera which still needs to have its current roll finished) so I didn't take as many shots at CLA as I normally would have.  Here are some though…

A couple from the Thursday night pub crawl…

Three previous winners of the Spirit of Librarianship Award aka “Spirit of Drinkingship” Award
(me, Sabina and Guida da Silva)

The view from the President's Suite of Parliament Hill at the Saturday night reception (sorry it's a bit blurry – it looked like it was in focus when I took it! )

Posted 19 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Friday Late Link – Monday June 19, 2006 (Jail Library Finds)

A Flickr photoset of the things a library volunteer finds on the book cart or stuffed in books in the prison where they volunteer:

Jail finds – a photoset on Flickr (via Librarian.net)

Posted 19 June 2006 § FridayFunLink § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Misadventures at CLA – Day Four (Saturday)

Just back from the CLA conference (it officially ended up Saturday but we stayed an extra day to do some sightseeing and so we'd have a full day to drive home instead of rushing on Saturday.)  Turns out this was a wise decision as I'll explain later…

Saturday, I was again up very early and over to an 8am session by Toni Samek on Intellectual Freedom issues and their relevance in library schools.  After that, I finally went to be a tourist with Shea, taking the van for a cruise around the city (tried to stop to say 'hi' to fellow Westerner Stephen Harper but he was apparently in Edmonton cheering on the Oilers) then went to the War Museum which was okay but not great. 

We had lunch in Byward Market (Chris Dixon sent me a great suggestion for a restaurant but it was closed for lunch on Saturdays!) then went back to The Westin in time for the AGM which, contrary to the popular opinion, was very interesting and yes, even exciting in parts!  After years of non-profit AGM's which tend to be very informal with a lot of “uhm, do we vote now?  No, I think we do discussion then the amendment then call the question.  Er, or that but the other way”, being at an AGM with a parlimentarian to guide the proceedings, a PowerPoint to follow as we moved through the agenda as well as to display a Word document with bylaws and resolutions so we could all see amendments as they were made – was pretty cool. 

Not sure whether I should be happy or embarrassed (probably the latter) that a few of my comments were paraphrased into the remarks of one of the speakers during the debate about a resolution to change the membership options slightly.  The resolution on the floor was that members shouldn't just get to pick one free division as happens now (the five divisions being public, academic, special, school libraries as well as one for trustees) but that they should also get the option of one division (for more established librarians or new librarians who know what they're interested in) or two interest groups (which are perhaps of more relevance to newer librarians, students and established librarians who don't fit in any of the five divisions – information technology librarians or librarian technicians for example.)  A compromise was proposed that it would be better to say “one division AND one special interest group free” rather than still making people choose. 

How Shea and I came into all of this was that there was a lot of debate about how much this change would cost the CLA ($6000-$30000 was their quickie-math prediction although I'm not sure I agree with how they arrived at these figures as they were using the “Every person who downloads a Britney Spears album for free would've otherwise bought it” technique so popular with the RIAA.)  Someone I'd talked to at the pub crawl got up to say how important it was to make this change to support students – including some students who couldn't afford to pay the reduced conference fee let alone pay $15 for interest groups.  She then went on to say that “some students including one who won the Spirit Award at UWO is here today but he couldn't even bring his wife to the opening keynote because of the cost of tickets for non-delegates on top of the costs he'd already incurred to attend the conference” (a slight exaggeration but the principle of the thing is definitely true.  It's pretty outrageous to me that in an organization dedicated to removing barriers to access, students who often have $0 income, pay their own registration, meals, accommodation and travel costs while working librarians who are likely in a better position to afford the related costs to attend the conference (even though their registration fee is higher.)  This is also assuming that their attendance isn't covered by their employer as it was for many of the librarians I spoke with.  My classmate, Alex Homanchuk puts it a bit more succinctly in his blog post entitled “Fuck The CLA!”) 

I actually went to the conference with the intention of making a resolution that students shouldn't have to pay a conference registration fee (for the reasons I outlined above, for the fact that it's a gesture of goodwill to their newest members who will presumably soon be making $50 000-75 000/year and will be able to afford to attend the conference regularly, because the CLA web site misleadingly said “Complimentary” beside the student registration option.)  But I let myself get a bit overwhelmed and intimidated at the conference and though I told a few friendly faces my idea (fellow students, sympathetic librarians and profs), I never took the initiative to find an Executive Member and find out how to get this resolution on the agenda.  (I did bring the idea to the First Timers interest group on Thursday and they were very supportive but by this point, we'd missed the resolution approval meeting.)  Next year I guess… 

The President, Barbara Clubb, ended the AGM by inviting everyone who'd lasted until the end of the meeting to join her for the traditional reception at the President's Suite in the host hotel which “has more square footage than my house” according to her.   Walked back to the University and relaxed for awhile then went to the reception (Shea wasn't feeling well and stayed at the University residence unfortunately.)  The reception was great and I got to meet the past-President, current President, President-elect, Executive Director as well as many other long-time members of CLA.  Also got some great information for my Independent Study and a possible lead on a research project!  The setting was amazing – 23rd floor of the hotel with a gigantic wrap-around balcony with views of Parliament Hill, the American Embassy and pretty much all of the major attractions of Ottawa that are in the area.)  Finished the day by having a drink at a nearby pub with two librarians who both previously worked in the Saskatoon Public System and who were able to give me a lot of the insights you don't get from sitting at a conference with no beer in you. All of this is why I'm glad we stayed the extra night. 

I guess that's it for now.  I'm debating whether to just spend the next week of entries posting about various aspects of the conference since there was so much that I took from it.  I've blogged about how I always carry a notepad to jot down ideas, quotes, book titles and whatever else I might come across.  I usually fill up a page every few days but this week, I filled an entire notebook in four days! 

Oh, I also wanted to give a long-neglected Classmate of the Day award to Paul and Kelly who sent their impressions of the conference to our cohort's listserv after a request from Kerry about how it was and tagged on the prediction that I will be President of CLA someday.  I don't know about that – I've got to learn my Roberts Rules of Order a bit better first and be a lot less chicken about introducing resolutions – but thanks for the vote of confidence.  Paul, if you're reading this, feel free to post your report in the comments!

Posted 19 June 2006 § Library § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: ,

Misadventures at CLA – Day Three (Friday)

I'm actually going to post an entry on the day I'm writing about if you can believe it!  Up early and over to hotel but the shuttle bus was full so I had to wait for the 9:20am one, missing half of the session I wanted to attend – “Public Library Statistics Across Canada” which was MUCH more interesting than the title would lead you to believe.  Skipped out of the second session (I think I went to something but it was boring so left) and ended up talking to various people who were also doing the “networking” thing.  Met one guy who convocated a couple years ago and who recognized me from my blog! I sometimes forget that I'm not just doing this little project for myself.  Yikes!  Went to the First Timers Interest Group (not the real name) meeting at noon and a couple of my suggestions – a mixer for students and recent grads only as an alternate to the pub crawl and also the idea of bringing forward a resolution that students should be allowed to attend the conference for free were well-received.  Unfortunately, found out later that we were too late to get the resolution on the agenda.  Perhaps we can make it happen for next year?  Or maybe they don't even need a formal resolution and can just work towards it as an executive?  Who knows – I have no idea how the politics of an organization this large work.  I'm used to organizations of betwen 50-500 members with about 10 active members in each!   What else?  Time's running out at the Internet cafe and I'm too tired and poor to pay another couple bucks so I'll wrap up quickly.  Went to the UWO Alumni Reception at the Honest Lawyer pub and it was good.  Mostly hung out with Sabina and David but also a few others.  Taking trays of food at a time was a risky proposition but no one stopped us which was good.  Went for a wander with Shea and that was enjoyable and made me realise that I've missed a lot being in conference all week while she did the touristy stuff.  Ended up bumping into Denise, Ella and Guida so had supper with them.  One minute left…bye!  (Off-topic – how embarrasing that my last song listened to on the sidebar for the last few days was left as Paris Hilton's “Stars Are Blind”???)

Posted 17 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Misadventures at CLA – Day Two (Saturday)

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?  

Posted 16 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Misadventures at the CLA Conference – Day One (Wednesday)

I meant to post
yesterday but the fact that we're staying at a residence.  On
campus.  In the year 2006.  And it still doesn't have ANY
Internet connection fuddled those plans.  So I'm probably going to
change the date stamp on this entry so it counts as yesterday. 
And then my next blog post will likely be from a Starbucks tonight
while I'm drinking an $8 cup of tea.  The Conference Centre has
about eight Internet terminals which are handy but always busy so I'm
skipping a session to do this entry (my priorities may be slightly out
of whack.) 

The drive up to Ottawa was an adventure – starting with me driving over
a curb and nearly into oncoming traffic as we tried to pick up one
passenger at a Tim Horton's where apparently, “Exit Only” means “Exit
ONLY!”  Ooops.  Shea, Sabina, Michelle, Denise, Paul and I were the
passengers in the van and it was a fairly boring ride after that
start.  We ended up going away from the McPuke's fast food rows of
every city for lunch and found a small town cafe run by two local
farmers who were trying to diversify by buying this business but
finding running a restaurant HARDER than farming!  Got to Ottawa
right at 5pm and having seen only the preliminary program, we thought
the keynote speakers (Stephen and Avi Lewis) were up at 5pm.  So
more crazy driving as I park in a bus lane till I get honked at, drive
through one red light (slowly – hard to explain how that happened) and
finally get to the conference hotel which has a bunch of police cars
and police tape right across the street.  I thought the librarians
were already beginning to party or their reputation precedes them but
turns out there was a murder.  Welcome to Ottawa – yours and my
capital city!  Shea and I realise that the keynote's been changed
to 7pm (which makes more sense anyhow) and so we go check into the
University residence, the rest of our paseengers having dispersed to
various points.   Turn around twice and come back to the
keynote while Shea goes shopping (cue nervous smile).  Stephen and
Avi Lewis were amazing in their “father-son as cross-generational
activists” chat and as one colleague said, that was worth the price of
admission by itself!  Went for supper at a nearby Scottish pub
with Michelle, came back and closed down the reception then ended up
going for a drink with a retired children's librarian from Ottawa while
Shea and Michelle went back to the residence.  I think that's all
I'm going to write today (er, yesterday if I can figure out how to
change the time stamp!) and I'll do some more later, either here or at
Starbucks.  It's the 21st Century and we're at a venue where I
can't access wireless?  Unbelievable. 

Posted 15 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Canadian Library Association

Turn around twice and after two days in Toronto, I'm off to Ottawa for the Canadian Library Association conference.  I'm taking my laptop but not sure what the Internet situation will be like where we're staying so new blog posts may be sporadic until next week.   The timing couldn't have been better – the one assignment I had due for the rest of the week was cancelled and so my schedule's clear.  (I know one classmate who ended up writing SIX papers over the weekend to clear her schedule so she could go.)  Six of us are going up together in a mini-van I picked up today – Shea and I think it'll be good practice for when we have kids to see if we want a mini-van and also, although we don't believe in it right now, if putting in a DVD is the easiest way to keep everybody quiet! Going to the Bright Eyes concert in an hour and in some ways, it would've been just as easy to not have tickets to a concert the day before I have to do a major trip.  But I'm pretty excited and plan to just enjoy the heck out of myself! 

Posted 13 June 2006 § Library § Main Page § PopCulture § Travel ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Book Expo Canada 2006 – The Summary

Back from a couple days at Book Expo Canada in Toronto and here are some random thoughts…

– if you've never been, how the Book Expo trade show works is basically you walk around a huge trade show (200+ exhibitors?) and all the
publishers and other writing organizations have booths promoting their
books, authors and services.  Most of them have authors signings and give away
free books, bookmarks, catalogues, brochures etc. as part of the promotions.  Obviously, the free books (and a chance to meet authors) is the big draw for many
people.  Some have gimmicks as well – a package of spaghetti for a book about Italian immigrants, hockey pucks for a hockey referee, beach balls, “surprise” bags, playing cards – anything to tie in to the book. 

– a big highlight was getting to see a bunch of people I know from the book community, mainly in Alberta and Saskatchewan but beyond as well.  For instance, went for drinks on Sunday afternoon with Deb Rush from Coteau Books in Regina, Greg Gerrard from Pages Books in Calgary, Nicole DeGrandmont from the Department of Canadian Heritage in Ottawa and Michelle Lake, a fellow library student here in London.

– It was great to catch up with everybody that I saw but not so great was hearing that my former boss fell ill in England.  Get well soon, Brenda!

– some of the big names appearing this year included Jack White from the White Stripes, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Tommy Chong, Martin Brodeur, Mike Holmes, Kathy Stinson, Camilla Gibb and many others.  I didn't stand in line for any of them since I'm not that enamoured with signed books OR twenty-minute line-ups but that's just me.  (Okay, I got a book signed by Kathy Stinson – her line was pretty short!) At the same time, how weird is it to be in a place where Margaret Atwood appears to barely makes a ripple?  She wasn't schedule to sign specifically but was demonstrating the “Long Pen”, an invention she came up with that allows authors to sign books from remote locations.  For instance, she could be in Toronto and conduct a signing in Vancouver.  I'm doubtful if this technology will take off since obviously it's having that brief personal encounter that makes signings so special in my opinion.  But you never know…

– I was glad they printed “Librarian” on my badge instead of “Library Student” as I'm sure that helped get me a lot of extra books.  I didn't exactly mis-represent myself but I didn't correct anyone who assumed I was the main acquisitions person for London Public Library (for instance.)  I've heard of fellow students who went to OLA as part of their vendor relations course and were treated very rudely by the vendors once they heard they were students instead of customers.  Don't these guys realise that students will be potential customers in a year or two? 

– another highlight was bumping into one of my favourite Saskatchewan poets, Mick Burrs, as we both stood in line to get a book signed.  Mick moved to Toronto last fall after around twenty years in Yorkton, Saskatchewan so it was a big adjustment.  I can't say this about very many Canadian poets but I was a fan of Mick's before I ever got into the book biz.  And the chapbook he gave me is probably the best book I got at the show.  That or the books the Scientologists were handing out (just kidding – they were charging for their books!)

Anyhow, that's my verbal take on things.  Here are some visuals…


This is the main trade show concourse…

Two colleagues from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta having just launched their “No Black Gold For Alberta Arts” campaign. 
(If you can believe it, various arts groups in Alberta are getting funding cuts, even as the province posts multi-billion dollar surpluses!)



This is one of my favourite poets, Steven Michael Berzensky (Mick Burrs)…


The look on my face is explained by who I'm sending my autograph to using the “Long Pen” (see next photo)…


Just kidding…she was at the booth at a different time (as the photo in the monitor shows.)


My final haul…

Posted 13 June 2006 § Main Page § Photo § PopCulture § Travel ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: