This trip began with the worst nightmare of travelers. My
Palm pilot read that our flight would be at
After retrieving our bags, we caught a taxi to the Wyndham
Palace hotel, which was located away from the convention center, and
rather close to the Disney Parks. It was a fairly long ride, so we didn't mind
the fare of $40. What we didn't find out soon enough was that there are two
kinds of cabs in
The hotel was beautiful, with lots of lush landscaping on the shores of
The next morning, we had just enough time to spend a few hours at Epcot before I had to go to the Innovative Users meeting. We got to the park just as it was opening, and made a dash for the Space simulation ride to Mars. This was the best ride of any of the parks. When the cabin lifts up and you see the birds flying over the launch tower and you are pushed into your seat, it is simply amazing. Just as we got to Mars, the simulation ended suddenly - I could hear people outside yelling things, and wondered if we were hanging in air by a cable somewhere. Eventually, the door opened and we were just sitting there, so they gave us an entry pass that could be used later in the day when I came back from my meeting.
After announcements from III that Millennium Silver's release was imminent in the next few weeks, we heard from the IUG officers. The official launch of the IUG Clearinghouse was announced at innusers.org/clearinghouse, intuitively enough. You need to be an IUG member to use it because it is passworded. First proposed by Peter Murray back in 1999. They don't have web space for the entries, so they just link to web sites by the providers. Each entry will have a title, control number, author data and abstract. Only 25 mounted so far. Very slight crowd at this - I only counted about 50 people, including several Innovative VPs Up to maybe 60 or more after the break. This is hard to figure out because III is signing customers like crazy, but the IUG only seems to hold a steady number of members, even though it is a hugely valuable resource.
Afterwards, we went back to Epcot and had a great buffet dinner at the
Norwegian area. When we got out of that, it was almost time for the fireworks.
This turned out to be coordinated with the regular
Saturday morning, the exhibits opened, and Donna and I hit them within minutes of the doors opening. We spent about an hour, dropping in to see the usual suspects. The good people from Backstage were there passing out those excellent glowing stars, but otherwise the giveaways were pretty slim. Donna checked with somebody at Thomson Gale about a party, and they looked her straight in the eyes and lied. There was no party, they told her. Later, we found out from somebody else that their party was in the Rosen Plaza Ballroom from 6 to 8, but we didn't bother going since they had gone so far out of their way to make us feel unwelcome, even though both of our libraries have spent a fortune on their products. I went out to the Ritz Carlton to attend a meeting of the Standards Committee at the request of Catherine Lee, outgoing chair of the ACRL/CLS Communications Committee. It turns out that a lot of colleges who are facing accreditation get very interested in the matter of how their libraries stack up with the standards for college libraries, and it seems like a good bet to put as much of this as we can on the CLS web site.
I had just time enough to get back to the conference center and cross the
street to the
Distance learning the journal is being sponsored by
David Shepard. Head of a consortium of 14 libraries. Started as a TV
broadcast teacher while working for a library. His general studies program was
the only program that did not involve campus attendance at all. In
Gwyneth with the Gannett system which coordinates the efforts of a number of universities. Also include commercial training. They have their own campus, which allows their students to get instruction without ever visiting the campuses of the schools in which they are actually enrolled. Part of the Georgia GALILEO system - a statewide consortial purchase of databases. They have a shared catalog. Developing a complete statewide union catalog with requesting capabilities for users. Can send ILL materials to any participating institution.
Phalbe, who is the director of the Bradford County Public Library in North Florida - Started her interest in distance learning in the 1950's when prospective teachers had to drive 230 miles to get an Education Masters' degree in the Carolinas. The bad old days. Librarians are now attending to the needs of students like this. Her town is between two towns that hold colleges, where most students live at home. Her library fills the need for a satellite campus library. Gets $14,000 a year to keep up with materials for this program. It's a challenge to identify which patrons are the students. Students don't need their ID cards on campus, but they do at her library. She is going to go to the college in September to issue library cards to all students.
Will also do this for high school and middle school. This will facilitate
their access to the database proxy. Their high school library is dirt poor. She
is moving away from using SS numbers to identify patrons, although the college still requires her to use these. She serves a radius
of about 50 miles, including a few patrons from over the county line in
Afterwards, I went back across the street and went back to the exhibits for
the one party that Thomson Gale had sent me a flyer about - birthday cake at
their booth. Donna met me at the door and told me to forget about the party -
the cake disappeared in the first 5 minutes. Afterwards, we went back and
changed into light clothes for the Proquest scholarship bash, where they rented
out Universal Studios for the night. This was a good idea because we could go
to rides without waiting in line for an hour. We hit science fiction row at
first - Men in Black, Back to the Future and E.T. Men in Black is like a
ride-through shooting gallery and it was a huge amount of fun. I should have
quit there because Back to the Future was one of those rides that entertains
you by knocking you senseless. I left the ride with back spasms, and happily
rode on the E.T. ride which was a gentle tour of E.T.s planet for the most
part. Donna and Bob went on the Jaws ride which, by this time, had a pretty
substantial wait. We walked past Earthquake (no thanks) and walked through the
wonderfully crafted
Sunday was a whirlwind, starting with an author's breakfast at 7 AM, which included 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones, author of "The Known World," short story writer Oscar Casares, author of "Brownsville: Stories;" novelist Khaled Hosseini, author of "The Kite Runner," and biographer and journalist Valerie Boyd, the author of "Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston." Chosen from the 2004 Notable Book Council's "List for America's Readers," an annual list of 25 books for the adult reader, I had to admit that I had not heard of any of these writers, and I came away determined to read all four books. The one that impressed me the most was Casares, who seemed too shy to say anything until he started reading the book. After 3 days and 3 theme parks, finally here was real magic as Casares invited you into the lives of these interesting, downtrodden people.
Afterwards, I went back to the Ritz and had an excellent lunch, followed by
my last meeting after 4 years on the CLS communications committee. I never felt
that I'd done enough for this group, but they seemed pretty happy with me for
the few things I did do. Afterwards, I went back to the Convention Center area
for the traditional party night. First I went to the combined library school
reception and sat at a round table with a number of alums from the
Then I met my wife and son at the other Rosen hotel for a very nice party sponsored by 3M security systems. Everybody got two drinks, and there were excellent hot and cold snacks. We had a nice conversation with Ira Bray from the State Library of California, who offered to let me shake the hand of someone who had shaken the hands of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I told him fine as long as he knew that I'd shaken hands with Bobby Kennedy many years ago. Next we took a cab to the first Rosen hotel for the Innovative Party (two minute ride - $6), which was supposed to be pool-side, but the 9PM storm had other ideas, like showing up an hour early, so they moved it into a roped-off area of the lobby. This kills a long-held belief that Jerry can control the weather. It was a particularly nice dessert buffet with an alcoholic orange punch, but it was so packed that we didn't stay long. We had to get to the convention center for the special screening of Fahrenheit 911. Every seat of the 2000 seat theater had been sold, and it looked like it. There was an introduction by Ann Sparanese, who was the librarian that got the ball rolling to save Michael Moore's latest book from the shredder. The showing was simply electric as the crowd laughed and applauded through the two hours. He did show about 5 minutes of the reality of war - the stuff that gets glossed over by the American press, and that was a tough ride. Some people just completely lost it at that point. At the end though, we all left the auditorium smiling and ready to man the barricades.
Somehow, they were able to line up enough buses that we didn't have to catch
a taxi home at
The next morning, we slept past 8, and then decided on one more theme park -
Disney World. It was easily the least good of the parks, although there were a
few good rides - particularly Buzz Lightyear and
We got back to the Center for a last round of exhibits, and crossed to the
Peabody Hotel for a reception given by the Nation. The guest of honor was E.L.
Doctorow, who wrote my favorite novel from the 1980's, Ragtime. We chatted
quite a bit with a very pleasant librarian from the
And that ended the conference on a very high note, to say the least. The
next day, we added as vacation days, rented a car and went to
At the panel "Reading between the Lines," authors Patricia Henley and Andre Dubus (House of Sand and Fog) relayed the difficulties of publishing literary fiction. Tips on aiding reading groups and book selection were mentioned, and will be implemented at EMPL. "Harnessing PR Magic" focused on the total packaging of programs and library holdings and stressed cooperation between librarians and PR staff. The RUSA Breakfast, which features authors winning the 2004 Notable Book Awards, was a treat. Authors speaking and reading from their books included Edward Jones (The Known World) and Khaled Hosseini (Kite Runner). "If you brew it they will come" was a workshop on how to update the look of your library and make it more "user-friendly." The participants challenged us to observe the layout of our library and make small changes that would help our patrons fit the library into their busy schedules. "Creative Narrative Non-fiction" charted the new trend towards literary non-fiction that "reads like a novel." Owen Gingerich, author of Book Nobody Read about the writings of Copernicus, his editor at Walker Press, and a reviewer at Booklist spoke on how to identify the best of this new genre.
Interspersed with programs was a new convention feature, LIVE@yourlibrary Reading Stage. We were able to hear authors reading from their works every day from 12:00 to 3:00. I also spent several hours at the exhibitions looking at the publisher's new books.
The highlight of my trip was meeting E.L. Doctorow and Ann Sparesee at a reception. Ms. Sparesee is the librarian who saved Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men from being shredded by e-mailing her fellow librarians, who, in turn, protested to the publisher. She is the example that counters the argument that one person can't make a difference. Mr. Moore previewed his film Fahrenheit 9/11 at the convention and all proceeds went to ALA's efforts to prevent censorship.
I have been to several ALA conventions and this was the best and most useful one. I thank the Library and Board for allowing me to attend.