Homedefault.xml Annual Report Conferences and Workshops

Conferences and Workshops

Midwinter Meeting

2006–2007 ALA President Leslie Burger (right) and FISH! philosopher Deena Ebbert.

2006–2007 ALA President Leslie Burger used her President’s Program at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Seattle to promote her presidential focus on transformation by urging fellow librarians to “learn to FISH!”—with the help of Deena Ebbert, founder of the FISH!Philosophy. Ebbert’s approach, which is intended to inspire organizational and cultural transformation, consists of four steps:

1. Be there;
2. Play;
3. Make someone’s day; and
4. Choose your attitude about how you come to work.

The FISH!Philosophy grew out of Seattle’s Pike’s Place fishmongers, who learned how to turn stinky, grueling, 12-hour shifts into a unique customer and employee experience.

2006–A street sign advertises two of life’s basic needs.

When they weren’t FISHing, the 12,196 Midwinter-goers who filled the Washington State Convention and Trade Center Jan. 19–24 were attending over 2,000 sesssions; about 500 technology vendors and publishers filled the exhibition hall, enabling attendees to examine firsthand a variety of information-industry products.

Whether you are contemplating dramatic change or looking for opportunities to effect smaller but no less meaningful enhancements to your mission, programs and services, or building, Ebbert said, the FISH!Philosophy will expand your thinking about how you do business and the impact you can have in your user community. Burger added that the FISH!Philosophy also affords librarians an opportunity to transform their own jobs—and libraries themselve

Joe Klein called librarians “curators of citizenship.”

Time

Tracie D. Hall led the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunrise Celebration.

Tracie D. Hall, an assistant dean in LIS at Dominican University, River Forest, Ill., led a capacity audience Jan. 22 in chants of “Keep your eyes on the prize and hold on” and “Gotta get ready for the big payback” at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Sunrise Celebration. ALA Executive Director Keith Michael Fiels opened the event, and Hall presented “The Parable of the Talents Retold: Librarians as Active Witnesses to History.” “We are called to this work because of our belief in justice. . . . If you’re here, it’s because you have work to do,” she told the audience, adding: “I don’t care about the good work you have done. I’m talking about the good work you still have to do.” The event is held at each Midwinter Meeting to commemorate the birth of Dr. King in January 1929.

Some 150 registrants attended “Definitely Digital: An Exploration of the Future of Knowledge on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Association for Library Collections & Technical Services,” sponsored by Amazon.com. The symposium examined significant changes in scholarly communication, library services, collections, and staffing created by the digital environment. Speakers discussed scholarship in the digital age, new communication models, the future of cooperative technical services and enabling technologies, and the training and education of staff working with digital collections. The ALCTS Member Reception drew almost 400 celebrants, who enjoyed food, drink, prizes, and a hilarious presentation, “Library Technology, Gadgets, & Paraphernalia: A Briefe Historie,” prepared by Karen Schmidt and artfully given by Olivia Madison. The reception was sponsored in part by YBP Library Services.

The Office for Literacy and Outreach Services convened a breakfast meeting of small groups of librarians, literacy providers, and funders for a wide-ranging discussion of online professional development for librarians serving adult learners. The group discussed developing courses, accessing content, identifying information and service gaps, and collecting resources for librarians and library staff. With the assistance of this expert group, OLOS plans to build short, easily accessible, on-demand professional development courses with a distinctly library-literacy focus.

The Library and Information Technology Association sponsored one preconference workshop, “Podcast U: Libraries, Podcasting, and the New Culture of Personal Broadcasting on Campus.” LITA also hosted its Midwinter Town Meeting, an interactive session at which it received feedback from the membership. LITA Vice President Mark Beatty facilitated the discussion with the assistance of Michelle Boule, LITA’s Emerging Leader.

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) held a preconference institute, “Building Teen Communities Online,” in which participants explored how and why teens interact online and discovered ways libraries can take advantage of free online tools to enhance the services they offer the teens in their communities. Technologies such as social networking sites, chat, IM, blogs, wikis, and podcasts were featured. YALSA also held its second annual Gaming Night; participants took part in the world of online and video games via demonstrations and hands-on play with all types of devices, including gaming consoles and handhelds.

Nearly 150 people participated in three Association of College and Research Libraries workshops, “Assessment of Academic Library Effectiveness: Using ACRL Standards for Continuous Assessment,” “Creating the One-Shot Library Workshop Step by Step,” and “Managing the Changing Research Models in the Humanities.”

2007 Annual Conference

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaking at the ALA President’s Program.

During the President’s Program of the 2007 Annual Conference, held June 21–27 in Washington, 2006–2007 ALA President Leslie Burger welcomed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a discussion of the important role that natural surroundings play in our work, our health, and our identity as Americans. In “A Contract With Our Future,” the concluding program in the Annual Conference Presidential Transformation Track series of programs, Kennedy explored why good environmental policy is good business policy, good economic policy, and good policy for posterity. By taking steps to ensure that our libraries follow sound environmental policies and procedures, Kennedy said, we can contribute to the transformation of our communities, our nation and our planet, enabling future generations to live in an environment that is safe, clean, and beautiful.

Nearly 1,300 people—a record—attended the Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder Banquet at the Washington Hilton to celebrate winners Susan Patron for the Newbery Medal–winning The Higher Power of Lucky, David Wiesner for the Caldecott Medal–winning Flotsam, and a video in tribute to the posthumous Wilder Medal winner James Marshall.

The ALCTS held its own National Conference June 20-21 on the theme, “Interactive Futures: A National Conference on the Transformation of Library Collections and Technical Services.” The one-and-a-half-day conference engaged attendees in a participatory exchange on the transformation of technical library services and the profession. Speakers and topics were: Richard Lanham: “The Two Markets: Libraries in an Attention Economy”; David Lankes: “Collecting Conversations in a Massive Scale World”; and Stephen Abram “Social Libraries: The Librarian 2.0 Phenomenon.” The ALCTS conference was sponsored by Preservation Technologies, EBSCO, Highwire Press, Blackwell’s, Swets Information Services, Coutts Information Services, and Harrassowitz.

Peter Morville, founder and president of Semantic Studios and author of Ambient Findability, drew an audience of 600 for his presentation, “Ambient Findability: Libraries, Librarians, and the Internet of Things,” at the ALCTS President’s Program. Morville is widely recognized as a father of the information architecture field, and he serves as a passionate advocate for the critical role that findability plays in defining the user experience. The President’s Program was supported by Elsevier.

Volunteers who headed off for “Library Day on the Hill" included (clockwise from top left) Stacy Menzies, Miriam Thompson, Joyce Scott, Lindy Weaver, and Lolly Petroff.

Some 2,000 librarians and library supporters visited Capitol Hill June 26 to call attention to the value of today’s libraries and the issues the library community is facing (with threats to funding high on the list). It was Library Day on the Hill, and members of Congress were also treated to a wide-ranging display in the Rayburn House Office Building of libraries of every discipline. In addition, legislators had a chance to make their own version of the ALA’s famous READ posters.

The same day, ALA President Leslie Burger and dozens of librarians and supporters from around the country joined Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Vernon Ehlers (R-Mich.) as they unveiled the Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries (SKILLs) Act. Among other things, the SKILLs Act requires school districts, to the extent feasible, to ensure that every school within the district employ at least one state-certified school library media specialist in each school library. The event took place in front of a state-of-the-art bookmobile, “The People’s University on Wheels,” which provides library materials and services to underserved areas in Cleveland.“The People’s University” was joined in a parade of bookmobiles on the Hill by nine vehicular compatriots from Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia..

Robert Wedgeworth

More than 100 friends and colleagues joined OLOS, the ALA’s Committee on Literacy, and the Center for the Book June 22 at the Madison Building of the Library of Congress to honor Robert Wedgeworth, former ALA executive director (1972–1985) and longtime adult literacy advocate. John Y. Cole, Center for the Book director, welcomed the guests; other speakers included Sandra O. Newell, Committee on Literacy chair, Peter Waite, ProLiteracy America executive director, and Peggy Barber, Library Communications Strategies, Inc. Vivian Wynn, Committee on Literacy event chair, presented Wedgeworth with a plaque recognizing his contributions to libraries and literacy.

The 10th Annual Diversity and Outreach Fair, sponsored by OLOS, highlighted bookmobile and other innovative services to underserved communities. Attendees took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about bookmobiles and literacy programs; mobile access to technology; and bookmobile services to specific populations, including people with disabilities, the homeless, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people, those who are incarcerated, new Americans, and children and the elderly. Visitors also saw examples of innovative services to other underserved communities, such as low-income families, homebound people, and at-risk youth. The Diversity Fair also featured poster presentations and—perhaps most valuable—informal conversation with colleagues.

Conference attendees pick up their badges near an alphabetic display in the registration area at the Washington Convention Center.

The ALA-APA hosted nine well-attended conference programs, one of which featured Evelyn Murphy, former lieutenant governor of Massachusetts and author of Getting Even: Why Women Don’t Get Paid Like Men and What To Do About It, suggesting how library employees can mobilize to get paid fairly. Called “Programs for the People,” ALA-APA program topics also included negotiating, affordable health care, and the history and current relationship between the ALA-APA and the National Committee on Pay Equity.

The Public Programs Office hosted an array of offerings to help librarians develop cultural programs for their communities, including “Break on Through to the Other Side: Cultural Programming for New Librarians,” “Partnerships Produce Successful Cultural Programs,” and “Engaging the Community with Documentary Film Screenings in Your Library.” Programs about current PPO initiatives were presented as well, including “Let’s Talk About It: 25 years of Reading and Discussion Programs,” the We the People Bookshelf project, and “PRIME TIME Family Reading Time: A Model Outreach Program.” And the PPO and YALSA presented the 13th annual LIVE! @ your library Reading Stage, which included readings by Sherman Alexie, Donna Leon, Lois Lowry, Nick Hornby, Dinaw Mengestu, and other authors and poets. In celebration of YALSA’s 50th anniversary, an entire afternoon of readings was presented by young adult authors.

The PPO began a year-long 25th-anniversary celebration of the Let’s Talk About It program with a reception in Washington and a conference program called “Let’s Talk About It: 25 Years of Reading and Discussion Programs,” which focused on new themes and resources. Since its inception, in 1982, Let’s Talk About It has become a nationally known programming model that has involved more than 4 million library users. The PPO has launched an online Let’s Talk About It archive so that librarians interested in hosting their own Let’s Talk About It reading and discussion programs can review and acquire program materials and resources related to more than 20 prior discussion themes.

Co-authors Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton, read their book The Great American Mousical to children at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library.

Frances Hesselbein, of the Leader to Leader Institute (left), with 2007 LAMA President Andrea Lapsley at LAMA's 50th Anniversary Celebration, June 24.

Julie Andrews appeared at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library for a media event regarding the value of America’s libraries and the announcement that she would serve as the spokesperson and honorary chair for National Library Week 2008. Andrews was joined by her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton; ALA 2006–2007 President Leslie Burger; Ginnie Cooper, chief librarian of the District of Columbia Public Library; and Leonard Kniffel, editor in chief of American Libraries magazine. Andrews and Hamilton read to a small group of children from their co-authored book The Great American Mousical. The Public Information Office has worked with Andrews to develop print and electronic public service announcements.

The Library Administration and Management Association President’s Program was based on the theme “LAMA: Learning, Leading, Looking Forward” and featured Frances Hesselbein, chair of the Leader to Leader Institute Board of Governors. Hesselbein, who was chief executive of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 1976 to 1990 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998, is the author of The Leader of the Future and a sequel, Leader of the Future 2: Visions, Strategies and Practices for the New Era.

Booklist-sponsored programs informed capacity audiences in youth, adult, and reference. The Booklist “Books for Youth Forum” commemorated the 50th anniversary of YALSA by hosting a Printz reunion, including the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award and the Honor Book authors who shared the podium at the Booklist Printz forum in 2000. Readers’ advisory experts David Wright and Kaite Mediatore Stover brought their popular Booklist column “He Reads . . . She Reads” to life as they bantered about gender-based reading tastes, while Reference Books Bulletin brought together an expert panel to address the ongoing question, “Is Print Reference Dead?”

Marian Wright Edelman

The Association for Library Service to Children Charlemae Rollins President’s Program was part of the ALA’s Auditorium Speaker Series in 2007 and featured Marian Wright Edelman, founder and President of the Children’s Defense Fund. Edelman’s moving speech about the state of America’s children inspired a capacity crowd of 700.

RAPUNZEL, RAPUNZEL, FILL UP YOUR ARMS — And ALA member Rapunzel Leonardo, Prince George’s County Public Schools, Landover, Md., did just that, gathering up free books as the exhibits opened.

Hundreds came together June 22 for the Many Voices, One Nation program, which included a book-signing reception. The program, begun as an initiative of 2004–2005 ALA President Carol Brey-Casiano, featured Nancy Garden, author of Hear Us Out and Annie on My Mind; Patrice Gaines, journalist, author, and prison reform activist; Reginald Harris, poet and head of the Information Technology Support Department at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore; Anosh Irani, Bombay-born novelist and playwright living in Canada; C.M. Mayo, Texas author and travel writer; E. Ethelbert Miller, author, literary activist, and director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, Washington; Mary Kay Ricks, Washington journalist, author, and student of District of Columbia history and abolitionism; students from the D.C. Writers Corps, a nonprofit that fosters the literary and creative talents of local youth; Tim Tingle, Choctaw storyteller and author of Native American fiction and folklore; and performances by the Ishangi Family African Dance and Drum Group and Lissen Da Grew^p, which specializes in go-go, a type of funk music that originated in Washington in the 1970s.

Barbara Gittings

The Jean E. Coleman Library Outreach Lecture paid tribute to ALA Honorary Member Barbara Gittings, activist for gay rights and libraries who died in February 2007. Gittings was noted throughout her career for her activism on behalf of gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered literature and rights. She chaired the Social Responsibilities Round Table’s Gay Task Force from 1971 to 1986; the task force later evolved into the ALA’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered Round Table in 2000 and honored Gittings in 2003 by designating the annual award for outstanding GLBT literature the Barbara Gittings Stonewall Award in Literature. The Coleman Lecture was presented by Anne E. Moore, University of Massachusetts–Amherst; Stephen E. Stratton, California State University, Channel Islands; and other speakers.

Some 225 people attended the 2007 Empowerment Conference—called “Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This (But I Didn’t Believe Her)”—held June 23–23 for library support staff and sponsored by the Office for Human Resource Development and Recruitment. Conference programs addressed topics such as career paths/transitions, E-learning, wellness, safety and security, and diversity. The speaker for the welcome breakfast was Joe Contrera, president and founder of Alive @ Work LLC, a firm that teaches, coaches, and consults with organizations on how to motivate and engage people at work. The conference included a breakfast featuring Cari Best, author of several picture books for young children, including Sally Jean, the Bicycle Queen.

More than 700 people celebrated YALSA’s 2007 Michael L. Printz winner Gene Luen Yang for his graphic novel American Born Chinese and honor book authors M.T. Anderson for The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation; v. 1: The Pox Party, John Green for An Abundance of Katherines, Sonya Hartnett for Surrender, and Markus Zusak for The Book Thief. . . . Nearly 400 people attended YALSA’s Margaret A. Edwards Luncheon honoring Lois Lowry for her book The Giver.

Armistead Maupin at the PLA President’s Program.

The Public Library Association President’s Program and Awards Presentation at the 2007 Annual Conference featured Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City, More Tales of the City, Further Tales of the City and (his newest novel) Michael Tolliver Lives. The PLA also offered more than 20 programs at the Annual Conference.

The Association for Library Service to Children hosted “ALSC 101: Making Connections,” featuring a program designed to orient new members to ALSC and to making the most of their conference experience. It was the most highly-attended “Connections” program in ALSC history, with more than 60 up-and-coming members participating.

2007 Annual Preconferences

The PLA offered two preconferences, “Extreme Makeover: Redesigning Your Library to Promote Usage and Circulation” and “The Fun and Facts of Early Literacy: Communicating with Parents and Caregivers Through Storytime,” cosponsored by the ALSC.

The ALSC and the Association of Specialized and Cooperative Library Agencies partnered on a preconference, “The Underserved 20 percent: Children, Teens, and Adults with Disabilities.” Featured speakers included Harriet McBryde Johnson, a leading disabilities rights activist, lawyer, and author of “Too Late to Die Young” and “Accidents of Nature”; and Katherine Schneider, founder of the ALA’s Schneider Family Book Awards.

YALSA offered a full-day preconference called “Sins of YA Literature,” featuring notable young adult authors and built around the Seven Deadly Sins, and a half-day preconference, “A Beginner’s Guide to Teens in Libraries,” which has evolved into a licensed institute.

The ACRL’s 48th Annual Rare Books and Manuscripts Section preconference, “From Here to Ephemerality: Fugitive Sources in Libraries, Archives, and Museums,” was held June 19–22 in Baltimore. The sold-out crowd of more than 350 included 19 scholarship recipients. The ACRL also offered two other preconferences: “Accepting an Electronic Resources Librarianship Position: The Best Professional Decision You Ever Made! Now What?” and “Writing and Using Objectives to Improve Library Instruction.”

The ALCTS presented four preconferences: “Fundamentals of Library of Congress Classification: An ALCTS/Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) Workshop”; “Comprehensive Series Training: An ALCTS/PCC Workshop”; “ALCTS Technical Services Management: Generational and Workflow Issues”; and “What They Don't Teach in Library School: Competencies, Education, and Employer Expectations for a Career in Cataloging,” which was hosted by Catholic University and focused on the current state of recruitment and education in cataloging, its suitability for the library environment, and the disconnect between what one learns in library school and the reality of working in the field.

Other conference offerings

The Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) marked its 30th anniversary by serving cake at its program, “It’s Showtime for Instruction Librarians: The Making of Short Films for Marketing and Instruction,” and the Staff Organization Round Table (SORT) celebrated its 70th anniversary with a dinner on June 24.

The Library Literacy Assessment Platform, an online tool to help public libraries of all sizes report on the impact of literacy services and programs, was officially introduced to ALA members on June 23. The innovative and field-tested assessment tool was developed with substantial and ongoing support from the Verizon Foundation. The initiative is managed by OLOS.

500-plus attend AASL 2006 Fall Forum

More than 500 participants from around the country attended American Association of School Librarians’ sold-out Fall Forum in Warwick, R.I., Oct. 13–15, 2006. During the focused 1��-day institute, they explored the role of school library media specialists in assessment of student learning in school media centers.

ACRL holds National Conference in Baltimore

The ACRL held its 13th National Conference March 29–April 1 in Baltimore, offering more than 250 programs on the theme “Sailing into the Future—Charting Our Destiny.” Programs included a full range of invited and contributed papers, panels, poster sessions, workshops, forums, Cyber Zed Shed presentations on emerging technologies, and roundtable discussions. Key areas of discussion included interactive gaming, the future of reference and online searching, open access to research, and federated searching. Attendance totaled 4,784 (3,069 registrants, 1,263 exhibitors and 452 guests), a 20 percent increase over attendance at the 2005 National Conference in Minneapolis. Those who were not able to travel to Baltimore could “attend” the ACRL Virtual Conference, held March 30–31, which offered live, interactive Webcasts of selected conference speakers, as well as text-based discussion boards, speaker materials and more. The flavor and discussions of the conference were also represented online by a group of more than 20 official conference bloggers.

ACRL offers regional institute, Immersion Program, seminars

The ACRL Institute for Information Literacy’s Immersion Program offered both a regional institute at Illinois State University in July and its first international Immersion Program at the University of Manitoba in August. The institute also offered a new program, “The Intentional Teacher: Renewal through Informed Reflection,” at the National 4-H Conference Center in Chevy Chase, Md., in December 2006. This program provided instruction librarians with the tools to improve their teaching and become more self-aware and self-directed teachers. The program received positive evaluations from the 32 attendees and will be repeated in summer 2008.E-seminars provided opportunities to learn about assessing student learning outcomes as well as building a comprehensive information literacy program. The ACRL continues to offer additional online information literacy seminars in partnership with the TLT Group. The ACRL also published Teaching Information Literacy Skills to Social Sciences Students and Practitioners, edited by Doug Cook and Natasha Cooper.

Advocacy workshop in the Pacific

In its global efforts to help other library associations, the ALA presented a two-day advocacy workshop in November for librarians from nine island nations during the Pacific Island Archives and Library Association Conference in Palau. By the end of the workshop, each country had put together an advocacy action plan. The Action for Development Programme of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions sponsored the librarians’ participation in the workshop.

More than 700 gather for 2007 PLA Spring Symposium

More than 700 public librarians gathered March 1–3 for the PLA’s 2007 Spring Symposium, held in San Jose, Calif. This is the first time the symposium has been held somewhere other than Chicago. The opening general session featured a keynote address by Mary Baykan, director of the Washington County (Hagerstown, Md.) Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Library, the Maryland Library Association’s legislative officer and Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year 2007. The Symposium included six one-and-a-half-day continuing education workshops, sold-out tours of San Jose’s public libraries, and a luncheon with best-selling author Po Bronson, whose recent works include What Should I Do With My Life? (2002) and Why Do I Love These People? (2005). Podcasts of the opening general session and the author luncheon and an informal wiki presentation are available for download at the PLA Blog.

55 attend PLA’s second Results Boot Camp

Fifty-five participants from 23 states attended the PLA’s second Results Boot Camp program in Nashville, Tenn., in November 2006. The weeklong workshop provided librarians with management training not covered in library school by focusing on current library issues and using case studies to help students apply new skills to real-life situations. In addition, the program reviewed all the publications in the “Results” series and showed how they interconnect.

ALSC Leadership Institute held in Pittsburgh

ACRL, ARL, and scholarly communication

LITA aims high for its National Forum