The PLA Blog | Official Blog of the Public Library Association
DIY Usability Study: Is Your Library People-Focused?
Library Journal Movers and Shakers Sandra Sajonas and Lisa Chow teamed up to run an excellent talk table on methods you can use to study your library and make sure you are focusing on users in ways that work for them. They presented a project they did for library school focusing on the Highlawn branch [...]
“It Wasn’t Reading, It Was Learning.” Children’s Author Luncheon with Kadir Nelson
(sorry it’s taken me so long to post this, I wanted to do justice to this amazing event!) Kadir Nelson, award-winning author and illustrator, had the crowd laughing at pictures he drew at five and learning from research he spent years on during his interesting and engaging talk at the PLA Children’s Author Luncheon on [...]
Tweeting at the conference
Everyone’s been doing such a lovely job of recapping sessions they attended, so I wanted to get a little meta on you guys and talk about how Twitter was used at PLA this year. For a little context, the way I was keeping up with PLA happenings on Twitter was partly though the people I [...]
New Buildings and Innovative Library Design
The very last session I attended at PLA was: New Buildings and Innovative Library Design: Reflecting Communities in our Buildings Presenters: Carolyn Robertson – Christchurch City Libraries Su Scott – Waitakere Library and Information Services Mirla Edmundson – Manukau City Council The presenters described themselves as “two hobbits and an elf” and that we’d see [...]
Using Organizational Culture to Improve Library Services
By Saturday morning, this middle-aged librarian was starting to wear down, but my first session of the day perked me up and gave me food for thought: Using Organizational Culture to Improve Library Services Handouts Slides – http://www.placonference.org/handouts/1560_Smith_Kirstaine_143728_Feb15_2010_Time_121337PM.pdf Worksheet – http://www.placonference.org/handouts/1560_Smith_Kirstaine_143728_Feb15_2010_Time_120709PM.doc Speaker Kirstaine (Kirsty) Smith – Great River Regional Library Kirstaine started her talk by [...]
Data Driven Library
The last session on Friday gave me a lot to think about and was titled: The Data-Driven Library Presenters Greg Edwards – Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County Paula Brehm-Heeger – Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County The presenters opened their session with a quote by Sherlock Holmes, “It is a capital mistake [...]
Reorganizing the Organization
After I finished lunch on Friday, I attended: Reorganizing the Organization Presenters: Ann Cress – Jefferson County Public Library Marcellus “MT” Turner – Jefferson County Public Library Paula Kiely – Milwaukee Public Library Additional presenters were scheduled to attend from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, but were unable to make to PLA. [...]
Talk Table: Supervising Volunteers
My second session on Friday was a talk table called Supervising Volunteers and was facilitated by June Bass and Sherry Braga. Maybe it’s because I was frustrated with group work back in grad school, but I’m not normally a fan of talk tables. But my library is trying to make better use of volunteers and [...]
Cents and Sensibility: Will your Technology Pay Off?
I started off Friday morning with: Cents and Sensibility: Will your Technology Pay Off? Powerpoint – http://www.placonference.org/handouts/1560_Freeman_Gretchen_L.__143763_Mar17_2010_Time_100115AM.pptx Presenters: Lori Bowen Ayre – Galecia Group Kathleen K. Smith – Fresno County Public Library Gretchen L. Freeman – Salt Lake County Library In the excitement of chasing the next shiny new thing, we sometimes forget to analyze [...]
Mourning the Loss: Challenge of Change
My last session on Thursday was: Mourning the Loss: The Challenge of Change Speakers: Pam Nissler – Jefferson County Public Library Beth Jones – Jefferson County Public Library Ann Cress – Jefferson County Public Library Melissa (Missy) Shock – Douglas County Libraries As of this writing, neither handouts nor slides were available for this session [...]
