End of a conference...

After Saturday at the conference, I was tired and a bit overloaded. I headed for Hwy 5 and inadvertently got caught in the express lane heading north. No problem, I was just going to get off and head south when I realized I was a mile away from University of Washington. I have always wanted to see this campus and since my cousin Morgan is a pre-nursing student, I called her and she was home. It was great to get a personal tour.

It is a beautiful campus with an old, gothic style university library. We walked into the third floor reading room and it reminded me of a cathedral. Beautiful and filled with light! Morgan had never seen this room before so I know she enjoyed seeing it as well.

http://students.washington.edu/prabir16/library.jpg

We walked around the campus with its gorgeous trees and views and then I dropped her off at Trader Joe’s for work. Great ending to a great day!

Sunday, I arrived early for the Sunrise Session on Transforming the Future: 20/20 Foresight. A futurist, Bob Treadway outlined planning strategies for the year 2020. I then headed for the exhibits where I attended a exhibit seminar on Library Services in the Web 2.0 environment where the Alliance Library System in East Peoria, IL has established a library place called Info Island on SecondLife.com. It is amazing how engaged their users are in this virtual library space. I then went to a presentation on Overdrive’s audio and video collections and then looked for exhibits that may help us with marketing and delivery of services. I was interested to find Bookletters, a great looking marketing newsletter as well as READ posters customizable with pictures of Library or college staff.

After several hours in the exhibits, I met Gail Palmer from OCLC for lunch and we discussed some of my projects as well as some grant ideas.

Monday--I attended the exhibits picking up some free books for my library and then headed to the CJCLS (Community and Junior College Library Section session meeting. There were 4 table discussions and I joined the one on membership, publicity and publications. I thought I might be able to provide some insights on the Vo-Tech book, but we ran out of time.

On Monday, Sirsi’s drop in session on Social bookmarking introduced me to del.icious and the value of using this service of categorizing and capturing bookmarks for reference (or personal) use. Can’t wait to try it…Also attended the Contentdm Users' Group meeting in the afternoon.