A major part of my experience at the ALA conference this year was realizing that I really missed my friends from library school, and that we all have a lot to share with each other now that we’ve been apart for awhile. Some are well-established in their first post library school job, others are looking for the second job or still looking for the first one. Most people who graduated in 2007 fall into the first category– those who graduated in 2008 or 2009 in the still looking category. Hooray economy.
The other part of my ALA experience was being able to go on Facebook and Twitter on my iPod Touch. I was a “millennial” in action, I guess. Don’t tell anyone my favorite things to do on my iPod really are reading Sherlock Holmes stories and playing solitaire. You’ll blow my young person cred– though hanging out with my 19 year old sister reminds me just how old I am… Anyway, the point is I tried to tweet what sessions I was at, so you might have seen that. But I have an orange notebook in which I keep my professional development notes, so that’s where the good stuff is. Here’s what stood out– I did other stuff as well.
Saturday AM:
First Year Experience session. Basically don’t be mean to your incoming students and be student-centered. Also be aware of those who are first-generation college students. My current employer I think does a really good job with all this stuff, particularly with course-integrated library instruction, so this session was more about noticing what’s already working. One of my colleagues who went to this session agrees with me.
Saturday PM:
Advice to Job Hunters in a Recession. I handed out programs and chatted with attendees. One of my colleagues did a write-up for Library Journal, so I will point you to that: Tactics for Job Hunting in Hard Times.
Sunday AM:
Preparing Yourself to Teach. This session was presented by several people I know very well, including one former colleague, so I knew the presentation would be good. I teach both post-secondary and first grade students, and the advice would work for both. I got a lot of great tips from this session for how to go into teaching knowing how you’ll know if the students are getting anything out of it. Also there was some advice on how to motivate students, and how to use the classroom as a stage.
Sunday PM:
New worlds for collection development. There were two parts of this. First, how to educate yourself into being a better collection developer/how to develop in an area you don’t know a lot about. Second, throw out all the old rules. Have the attitude of an entrepreneur in your collection development. Remember that it’s a social activity– you won’t know what people need unless you actually talk to them. On the other hand, own and possess as little as possible. Figure out ways to get the collection through ILL/the cloud of ownership. Even a suggestion that the ARL libraries should be buying everything and the smaller libraries should be helping them pay. We’ll see.
Monday:
I didn’t really go to any sessions seriously. I tried, but the lure of Mexican food, the cooking pavilion, and random hallway encounters was so much stronger. And isn’t that what conferences are all about?