I just realized I didn’t write up the end of my ALA adventure. I did write up the last couple of sessions I attended at the LITA blog, you can head over there to read my takes on the Top Tech Trends session and the Keeping Your Computers Running session. Beyond that, most of what I did was either attend business meetings (including the Heads of Library Technology meeting) or social events. It’s too far back for me to really get into posting now – but let’s just say that I had a LOT of fun at the Facebook Librarians meetup, the OCLC Blogger’s salon (with apologies to David Lee King and Tony Tallent for monopolizing them at various points in the evening) and at my dinner out with the MaintainIT ladies, Sarah and Brenda. Vietnamese food is something I don’t get very often and I was pleased with both the food and (most importantly) the company! There was a lot of socializing going on at ALA!!
There were also the free food events – OCLC’s breakfast was informative – lots of information about the company and it’s direction, and the EbscoHost Public Libraries Luncheon was fabulous! Seriously great food and good conversation over the table with other public librarians (that was a class of folks that seemed pretty thin on the ground everywhere else – lots of academics, not many public library folks!). Getting a peek at what Ebsco will be releasing over the next months was nice, too! Anyone who follows my Twitter stream got the information about new databases and such at the same time I did – I just had to Twitter it!
Ok, that’s enough for ALA. I’m done (til next year, at least…) with that and I’m ready to tackle a BUNCH of new projects – one of which I’m hoping to firm up in the next 20 minutes or so!! More on that later…
Tag: ALA2008
Apologies…
Well, a nice big spike of traffic during ALA, plus a bunch of people checking out my OpenID presentation on SlideShare (the MP3 is hosted on this server) meant that my site became a bit overwhelmed with all the activity. Hmph. My site’s a wuss – who knew? Anyway, I’ve adjusted things and hopefully this won’t happen again! Not that I’m complaining about the traffic…
I’ve got LOTS to write up and no energy with which to do it. I will say that I’ve been attending a lot of great programs and spending time with a bunch of different people – the Blogger’s salon last night and dinner tonight being two of the best experiences I’ve had at ALA thus far. I plan to write up full reports about all of it. Tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday. Or possible Thursday while I’m on the plane…
Lita Happy Hour
Last night, after the OCLC Symposium, I headed to the Hotel Menage to meet up with other LITA members and get 1/2 price drinks. The drinks were secondary, though it was a very nice thing for the bar to do for us! I got to meet a few of my Twitter buddies in real space and got a chance to chat and generally mingle with others that I had just interacted with previously via email. I had a very good time – met more people than I can list here and got to talk tech with some of the brightest minds in the library business. How’s that for a couple of hours of socializing?
Now I have 2 sessions – the Public Library Tech interest group meeting and Public Computing in a 2.0 world – both being held at my hotel – this morning (at the same time, of course) before my 2 sessions that I’m in come up this afternoon. I’ll probably do the Public Computing one, but I’m hoping to at least pop my head into the Interest Group meeting before or after to say hi!
Social Software Showcase – OpenID
I’ve finally put together my (very first) screencast on Slideshare for the Social Software Showcase site! It’s up and available now – feel free to check it out and find out the basics about OpenID and the issues surrounding this identity management tool. According to my son, it’s pretty good (though he may be a bit biased…) – he was asking me last night if he should get one of these OpenID things, after he’d heard me talk through the presentation (about 4 times – he should be pretty familiar with OpenID by now…).
There is a list of OpenID tutorials for the nuts-n-bolts “how to” information below the screencast of my rather theoretical discussion of OpenID, just in case you all decide it’s something you want to try out!
If you are going to be at ALA, stop by the Social Software Showcase at 1:30pm on Saturday the 28th at the Marriott Anaheim — Gold Key I-III to talk to me and the other talented folks who are contributing content to this “unconference” at the conference!