Librarian Funland, Part 1 --- Two, two, two posts in one!!

I just attended my first librarian conference evah. I gotta say, I arrived clueless and am still pretty much the same. Oh sure, I found a shortcut from our hotel to the conference sight on the (*actual) last day of the conference, but I still am completely baffled as to how I fit into the larger picture of this thing.

Are they unwelcoming to newbies? To students? To both?

Don’t get me wrong – I had a great time, but that was mostly due to the social aspect of it all. I could have done that without the Ay-El-Ay. It’s my understanding that they held a newbie meeting on the second day, first thing in the morning, but it’s also my understanding that it was lame and that the speaker neglected to show. Thankfully, I chose not to get up at the crack of dawn to attend this unhelpful meeting – I would have wanted my precious sleep back.

I’m left wondering, are the tips of the trade offered in this newbie gathering something that could be offered online or sent by snail mail or email to conference participants who are first time attendees? Or what about having seasoned attendees volunteer a couple of hours of their time to meet with a newbie and give them a hands-on introduction to navigating the conference and determining which meetings and discussions are right for them? Now THAT’S a user-centered approach!

I have to say, I was enormously intimidated by the whole thing. Here I was, among approximately 11, 999 other librarians (and presumably some other librarians-to-be) and every single other person seemed to know what to do, where to go – they all had a PURPOSE! Now, granted, they were all librarians and we’re a pretty resourceful bunch. And, in all fairness, I was perfectly fine navigating the city of Seattle and sniffing out places to imbibe and to dine. I never got us lost, but some of my restaurant choices were beyond filled to capacity or they were rockin’ the $$$$$$. I blame *Giada, in part.

So what went wrong, you ask? Oh, plenty. First of all, the conference website (which was posted who-knows-when and I seemed to find sometime in October-ish) showed the dates of the conference as Jan. 19-24, which led me to believe that the dates of the conference were Jan. 19-24. Silly me. The *actual (see above) days of the conference seemed to be Jan. 19-21 (or 22 at 1pm, if you wanna get technical). When peeps were asking me how long I was staying and I said, “until the 24^th,” they would shoot me weird looks and ask why. What gives? some would ask. I’m still asking myself that same question.

Now perhaps part of the problem lies with my film festival background. When a film festival says that it runs from xx-xxx, it means exactly that – and all of the days are important, with the last two being almost as important as the first (Closing night!! Awards ceremony!!). How the hell did I know that the last 2 ½ days of this conference were mostly board of directors meetings and such? After all, they didn’t post the discussion schedule on the website, so I had no clue! Not that I’m complaining about extra days in Seattle…I just think the librarianfolk should know how to better organize their information! So there I was doomed before I even arrived, the laughing stock of all of my librarian friends, and wondering what else would reveal itself to me as a byproduct of my newbie cluelessness (and you call yourself a budding librarian, Bad Kitty?).