Library Web Chic

Late last night I arrived in Corvallis, OR for Code4Lib, the conference I’ve been looking forward to the most this year. Originally, I didn’t think that I’d be able to attend but I’m here and very excited. The conference experience started out good because I was able to catch a ride from Portland to Corvallis with Casey Bisson and Jeff Davis from the University of Alberta Libraries. Even though it was late, the car conversation was lively.

I talked about the content management system project my department is embarking on at UH and Casey shared some of his experiences with content management systems and gave me some Wordpress tips and tricks. Other topics and ideas were thrown around as well, but I don’t want to “spoil” Casey’s Code4Lib talk so I’ll just keep them to myself.

Meeting Jeff warmed my heart as well. He is a relatively new librarian who is interning at the University of Alberta Libraries that interested in technology and libraries. Its nice to know that more librarians are coming into the profession who care about the intersection of libraries and technology. The profession really needs people in this area right now. It may not seem like it because of the biblioblogsphere, but if you take a closer look there are many librarians with little or not interest in technology in the profession. This coupled with the overall technology skill level of librarians, is hurting us. It is one of the roadblocks to libraries being able successfully innovate and move forward. Talking in the car, Casey identified the roadblock as a “critical mass” issue, which I completely agree with. That is partly what this conference is about, getting critical mass. The breakout sessions allow people to get together, work on things , help each other, and communally solve problems. This is something that doesn’t happen at more traditional conferences which is why I’m thrilled about this conference.