For the second morning session I went to “Making Cities Stronger: Public Library Contributions to Local Economic Development.” About a year ago, while I was still in school, I had put together an annotated bibliography of studies on this topic (plowing through several-hundred pages of mostly bad writing). So I was curious to see if this presentation would offer anything new. The first twenty minutes were a dude from the Urban Libraries Council going over highlights of a new report of theirs. That didn’t grab me, although the report itself might provide some details and numbers that would be interesting. I was finding it hard to concentrate (perhaps due to my lack of breakfast and not having my morning cup of tea) so I ducked out and went to touch base with the HR people from my system about some new positions they’re hiring for.

Some general observations

• The convention center signage is um…kinda bad.
• Food options are good, many more locations than a lot of conferences I’ve been to, and the lines aren’t ridiculous.
• As with many gender-imbalanced conferences, there is a bathroom problem. Namely, the mens rooms are empty and there are lines for the ladies…

Off to lunch with a friend from library school.