Library Web Chic

The third and fourth days of ALA were as busy for me as the first and second days. Sunday was the Top Tech Trends panel with myself, John Blyberg, Marshall Breeding, Walt Crawford, Joan Frye Williams, and Roy Tennant. I’d never heard Joan speak before and I thought that she was awesome because she brought a different perspective to the panel. I was really nervous leading up to the panel but once we got started it was difficult not to want to talk about different things. Thank goodness for Maurice York who moderated the panel and kept the conversation and program moving. My one regret was that I didn’t get a chance to give a counter-argument to Walt’s discussion of privacy issues (which was spawned by John talking about RFID). Maybe if I have some time I’ll post that here or off of the recordings that will be on LITA Blog.

Monday was another day of meetings in the morning and catching up. Monday evening a bunch of folks went out to dinner at Meskerem, my favorite Ethiopian restaurant in Adams-Morgan. We got there at 7 which was just in time because when we finished dinner and headed back there was a line out the door for a table.

Overall my ALA in Washington experience was a good one. My roommate and I were able to find an affordable hotel. The conference locations were close together or very close to a Metro stop; and the weather was perfect (no humidity most of the time). My on gripe/regret about the conference was that my schedule was too full. I guess this is something I’m just going to have to resign myself to as long as I have ALA duties and/or am speaking. However, it seems awfully unfair to pay go to a conference just to do work (ie the business of the organization, or present).

I was back at work the end of last week after ALA. I arrived to find a mountain of work and questions for the site redesign. Things seem to be moving along (albeit not necessarily smoothly) and hopefully out new site will be up early in August.