The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
March of the Librarians
A humorous, documentary-style look at the ALA Midwinter Conference in Seattle by Nick Baker. Hit the play button to view (it’s 4min 58sec long, and totally safe for work).
Podcast: Impromptu interview with Joseph Eagan
The evening of Saturday, January 20 was a typical party-hopping affair. First I hit the NMRT social at the Elephant and Castle in the Red Lion Hotel, organized by one of our own conference bloggers Heidi Dolamore, and somehow found myself in the company of many, many ALA Councilors amidst the new members, some [...]
A wiki for public libraries: your feedback requested
I had the opportunity to run this idea by about 10 PLA committees on Sunday, January 21 at ALA Midwinter in Seattle, and everyone had really, really positive feedback, including volunteers to contribute people power and content, and ideas on related programs at the upcoming PLA conference in Minneapolis. You may have also seen [...]
ALA Council
Hi everybody, I’m Heidi. Now that I’m back home in San Francisco, I finally have time to post about Seattle!
My term as an at large member of Council began last summer, but so far that’s just meant that I got subscribed to the Council email list. The Council sessions at Midwinter were my first in-person [...]
PLA Committee Meeting
I’m a little slow with posting about the Sunday meeting of PLA committees, but it takes awhile to get used to the three-hour time difference/jet lag.
I’m on the PLA Services to Preschool Children and Their Caregivers Committee, and we met Sunday to discuss our plans for upcoming conferences and the like. We will be having [...]
Arthur Curley Memorial Lecture
In my previous life I worked for a vendor in various positions and did not have many opportunities to attend the lectures and programs held in the early evening. I took advantage of my new position at the conference to attend the Arthur Curly Memorial Lecture by Joe Klein, Time Magazine and began to [...]
On my way home…
I left Seattle at 1:17pm PST this afternoon, and I’m currently waiting out my layover listening to the State of the Union address on my laptop via stream from the NPR web site, while I check email and work on a few more posts.
Speaking of posts, you will likely see a few more posts over [...]
Blogging the Booth, Part 2: Noon to One : Avoiding Eye-Contact
I should’ve learned from my own experience mommy-(and my-cat-fluffy-) blogging: Never promise a follow-up post “tomorrow.” Sure, you’ve got about one day’s wiggle-room thanks to the International Date Line, but that’s rarely enough time for anyone with a life (or, actually, small children. There are plenty of lives that make “forgetting to blog” a [...]
PLA Service Responses Discussion Forum @ Midwinter
The discussion just ended, and boy, was it enthusiastic and involved. June Garcia and Sandra Nelson ran the session like a well-oiled machine, working through all 17 service responses in 2 hours, which is, in my mind, very impressive.
I want to say that there were 51 people in this room (one attendee was pleasantly [...]
Not Your Dad’s Interface
Yesterday, Saturday, January 20, I attended the “Not Your Dad’s Interface: Next Generation OPACs and Search Engines” Hot Topics session sponsored by MARS ( Machine Assisted Reference Section of RUSA). And the joint was standing room only, a fact that didn’t surprise me, but did surprise the moderator.
The purpose of the 3-presentation session [...]
