The last session I went to on Thursday was “Dewey or Don’t We,” which was a presentation by the fine folks at Maricopa County Library about their experience testing out a “deweyless” organizing system at a new branch. This became a very controversial topic in public library circles, so most of you probably have read stories in print or online about it. I was more interested in the practicalities of it all, since I think the concept makes a lot of sense. The presentation was pretty basic, the key takeaways for me were the need to get vendor cooperation and support (in their case from Polaris and Brodart), the use of the BISAC subject headings, and the critical importance of signage. There are one or two other presentations on this topic elsewhere at the conference, and I suspect that heralds a groundswell of support for the concept within the field.

The Friday morning sessions weren’t super-compelling. I went to “How to Work Positively in a Unionized Environment” because my system is unionized, and I’ve heard many many comments about how that is one of the big obstacles to change. However, the presentation was a little disorganized (there were seven people talking!) and the talking points were pretty general and obvious. (Respect, Trust, Understanding, Openness, Courage, etc.) There was also some roleplay to illustrate the difference between “traditional” positional bargaining and “interest-based bargaining” which is supposed to lead to win-win results. Of course, every single alternative negotiation methodology makes the same claim, so I’d take that with a grain of salt. Ultimately, I didn’t take much away from the session.

The other session I went to was “Optimizing Space For Results,” which interested me because the branch I work out is a big open building where the distribution of furniture, shelving, “zones”, etc. hasn’t been that well thought out. I was hoping to learn some specifics about how to reimagine or redesign the space, but the presentation was a little more general than that, along with a lot of visual examples of how various libraries have tackled certain challenges. It was all fine, but I had a hard time identifying any real takeaways.

Heading to lunch now.