The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
Checking In for the PLA Blog
Hi. I am Rick Roche, and I will be blogging for the PLA Blog for the next few days. I will be attending various programs of interest to staff from public libraries and reporting on for you. I will also be writing some on my own blog ricklibrarian and posting some photos on my Flickr [...]
How to enjoy ALA 2007
One of the more useful presentations at today’s Rural Library Sustainability Forum was a talk by conference junkie John D. “Danny” Hales, who shared his handy tips for making the most of this year’s ALA. Hales, director of Suwannee River Regional Library in northern Florida – and a member of the WebJunction advisory committee - was [...]
The conference bloggers are landing…
…one by one. After many flight delays (apparently, this was a common occurrence yesterday), I finally got to my hotel at midnight last night. After a day which included a 7:30a breakfast meeting, registration, and crashing the Library Journal Movers & Shakers luncheon, I’m *finally* making my first post. On the docket for this evening [...]
Public Library Data Service demo
The PLDS Statistical Report, a project of the Public Library Association, is designed to meet the needs of public library administrators and others for timely and effective library-specific data that illuminates and supports a wide variety of management decisions. This data is now available in a dynamic, Web-based format via the PLDS Database (for detailed [...]
HowTo: Blog for PLA
Many of the emails of interest I’ve received about our Call for Bloggers for the ALA Annual conference have asked, “What does blogging for PLA entail?” Here’s the basics on how PLA blogs conferences, and how you can be involved. Who can be a PLA conference blogger? As you might expect, our preference is for [...]
Public Programs Office events at ALA
I love it when the PPO thinks so far in advance. If you’re heading to ALA, here are some programs you should consider hitting (via the PPO listserv): The Public Programs Office will present several Annual Conference programs for library programmers at all levels and in all types of libraries including: LIVE! @ your library [...]
Podcast: Casual wiki presentation from the 2007 PLA Spring Symposium
On Friday, March 2, 2007, about 55 people delayed the consumption of a well-earned dinner after a long day of learnin’ to attend my presentation on wikis and the PLWiki project. You can listen to the podcast of that presentation, attached to this post. You can also download the Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) file of the [...]
Podcast: Author Luncheon with Po Bronson
Many thanks to Po Bronson for giving us the permission to podcast his presentation at the 2007 PLA Spring Symposium Author Luncheon! After a brief introduction from PLA president Susan Hildreth. The author of What Should I Do With My Life? and Why Do I Love These People? spoke about recent research in child learning [...]
Step One: Care or The Customer-Centered Library
I am attending Karen Hyman’s morning session on customer service and the customer-centered library. She is a fantastic presenter full of deadpan humor and insight. Everyone here she pointed out is an expert on customer service because everyone is a customer. THINK LIKE CUSTOMERS! It is so natural to look at other models and so [...]
Podcast: Mary Baykan, LJ Librarian of the Year, Keynote Speaker
I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Mary Baykan, director of Maryland’s Washington County Free Library, executive director of the Western Maryland Public Libraries, and Library Journal‘s Librarian of the Year for 2007, present the keynote session for the symposium, which Mary graciously gave us permission to record and podcast for your listening pleasure. After [...]
