Westchester Library Association Conference

On May 9, 2008, I attended the Westchester Library Association one day conference held in Tarrytown. I took the Metro North up to Tarrytown. It was a long slow ride. On the way up, I read some more of Robert Grave's The Reader Over Your Shoulder. I am almost done reading it. The conference registration started at 8:00 a.m. which was quite early. I had time to get some grapefruit juice, coffee, and minimuffins.

I got a chance to look at the vendors in the morning. Archie Comics was there. They have a new design for their title Betty & Veronica. I actually like the new style of drawing, it is much cleaner and easier to look at. It looks a lot less cartoonish and the characters are a bit more diverse than before. The vendor gave me a free sample copy. The title is Betty & Veronica, Bad Boy Trouble. I think teenage girls will probably like this in a library setting.



I also picked up a discount sheet for Pimsleur language learning tapes-- 50% off.

The name of the conference was Sparkle, Dazzle, Shine.

The opening speaker was Jeff Connell, The Deputy Commissioner of Cultural Education of New York. His office is in Albany. He is governed by the Board of Regents. He talked about his position in the library world. His responsibilities include educational tv, the state museum, the state archives, and the state library in Albany.

He quoted Thomas Jefferson, "Information is the currency of Democracy." Then he gave a long rambling speech about his experiences as a librarian before he became a deputy commissioner. A lot of it was about merchandising books and improving circulation statistics.

The good news from him is that the state is not cutting the baseline funding of $14 million dollars from the New York State Library, but they are cutting 2% from additional requested funds.

There is also a position open for a new state librarian in Albany, New York..

The reason I was there more than anything else was because of a session called. "May I Please Blow Up The Reference Desk." by Traci Hall, Assistant Dean of Dominican University library. The main point was that the reference desk created physical and cultural barriers to doing reference work. Traci Hall claimed that the reference desk was a symbol of the 19th and 20th century, not a symbol of the 21st century.

She further claimed that the job of the librarian was to help the patron at their point of origin not make them go back to a reference desk. She was quite lively and stated that she was aiming to stir up a bit of trouble. She brought out the example of libraries failing and having to recreate themselves. For example in England, in some of the more troubled libraries, they were renamed as "Idea Stores."

She also used another example of the Infoplank, or Swedish cataloging system that is multilingual. She said we are no longer living in a monoculture, the world is changing into a multicultural, mobile, globalized world.

She then brough up ten key points. I am rewriting them in my own language because, there was a lot of jargon used which might not be understandable for people outside of libraries or in general.

1) We have a diverse multicultural, multilingual, globalized world.

2) People are dropping out of school early, and prolonging their college education. The educational system is failing. We have help people get educated.

3) People learn in groups.

4) People use informal peer review systems like Amazon.

5) We want have things customized for us personally.

6) We want things brought to us instead of having to go there.

7) An immediate human voice is preferable to a computer intermediary.

8) There are gatekeepers to peoples needs.

9) People using social networking want immediate sensation and results.

10) People are trading on popularity and empathy.

After this she started talking about how we need a new kind of librarian. It was kind of interesting. It was also a little overblown. The constant focus on the new was distracting. The message seemed to be teach people how to learn. This was the original basis for building the Carnegie Libraries. Libraries were not originally built for entertainment. They were built for self-education.

This is a summary of her ideas. Because, I am paraphrasing her, I am not sure that this is the exact meaning of what she said. I think it is close. One website which I found interesting that she mentioned was http://www.aadl.org/ Ann Arbor District Library which has their library website completely redesigned as a blog.

After the opening speech and the first lecture, we broke for lunch. I sat with my colleagues and gabbed for a little bit. The lunch was quite nice. I had the vegetarian plate which was vegetables with tofu, a salad, and an apple tart for dessert. They held a raffle, but I had already gone downstairs for the next lecture.

After lunch was over and coffee was served. Traci Hall gave the keynote speech which was on diversity. It was called Library 911. The key points she brought up were that libraries are diverse institutopms with a wide variety of people using them and libraries should be embedded in their communities. They should participate in things like the chambers of commerce and community events. She gave a brief quote from John D. Rockefeller, "I will pay more for the ability to deal with people than for any ability under the sun."

The last lecture I attended was "From Dress Casual to Eye Candy, Outfitting Our LIbraries For Online Social Networking." The librarian giving the lecture said her favorite library web site on Myspace was http://www.myspace.com/brackenlibrary . The library website which she ran on Myspace, Brooklyn College Library had 3980 freinds. It also had music, photographs, and instructional videos. It was very interesting to look at.

Following the Myspace examples, she gave examples of Librarians using facebook. One librarian facebook page which she said stood out was Gerry McKiernan.

One site which she mentioned teaches a free course for librarians on social networking called, "Five Weeks To A Social Library."
http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/