Riot Librarian

Category: ALA

  • ALA Annual Chicago 2013

    Once again, I find myself packing my schedule with overlapping events as I prepare for ALA Annual. I’m excited to go to Chicago: The few times I’ve been there before I’ve really enjoyed it. I’m flying in Thursday afternoon and leaving Tuesday morning, so I have a nice chunk of (already over scheduled) time there.…

  • ALA Again

    Sometimes it seems that the only time I update this site is when I’m heading to ALA. Sometimes it seems like I’m always going to ALA. I’m excited about this one: I love Seattle, and Sean is coming with me, for the first time. We have shared some wonderful visits in Seattle in the past,…

  • ALA Annual 2012 Recap

    This year, most of my time at ALA was spent in meetings, and I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to check out sessions and hear the cool things that people are doing in libraryland. I also cut out a lot of the social stuff I’ve done in the past, and…

  • Is it time for ALA again?

    Yes, it is, and this time ALA is practically in my backyard. Ok, it’s an 8 hour drive away, and I don’t really have a backyard, but I’m looking forward to a trip to Southern California. I’m extending my stay down south with a few days at the family compound (ha) in San Diego. So…

  • Thoughts after ALA Midwinter

    I got back from ALA Midwinter on Tuesday night, and after taking a day to ponder all the things I heard and discussed over the long weekend, I wanted to quickly write up a few observations and thoughts. I’m trying to take an overall approach, rather than detailing each session I attended, as I have…

  • Getting Ready for ALA Midwinter

    Like many of my library brethren, I’m getting ready to head to Dallas next week for ALA Midwinter 2012. I’m getting kind of excited, because I like conferences, and I’ve never been to Dallas, and I’m staying in a nice hotel. I like traveling to new cities for any reason, and no one who knows…

  • Banned Books Week: A Defense

    Another Banned Books Week is coming to a close, and once again, my RSS feed has been filled with arguments for and against this most well-known library tradition. I’ve always been a supporter of Banned Books Week, even organizing events around it for the Simmons College community when I was chair of the Simmons Progressive…

  • The Big Picture

    Since I got back from ALA, I’ve been thinking about how to tie together everything I saw and thought and learned while I was there. I’ve been looking for the big picture. Throughout the week, in a variety of sessions, a few phrases kept popping into my mind: Re-think the ILS, re-think the bibliographic record.…

  • Open Discovery

    I was lucky enough to attend a session at ALA on the growing field of Discovery Systems. A group of people representing content providers, discovery system vendors, libraries, and standards bodies came together for a preliminary discussion toward an Open Discovery Initiative. As this was a very preliminary discussion, nothing more tangible came out of…

  • Michael Porter on Library Renewal and eResources

    Michael Porter presented a session with a nice, attention-grabbing title at ALA Annual: “You Mean Libraries Will Be Able to Deliver Content Better than iTunes and Netflix?” The session wasn’t really about how libraries will deliver content better than commercial providers; it was more like a rousing exhortation to libraries to start re-thinking how we…