A Passion For ‘Puters

Today was my driving day - I went from Jefferson City to the suburbs of Chicago on 2/3 tank of gas. I love my car. Anyway, I left this morning and got in at 4ish, registered, got settled and decided to go exploring. Since it’s a bit rainy (not quite Noah’s Ark rainy, but close…), I confined myself to exploring inside, though the outside of the Pheasant Run Resort & Spa looks pretty damn amazing. Can’t wait for the storms to pass so I can wander! The inside is nice, too - with an indoor recreation of Bourbon Street (complete with a Ben & Jerry’s shop!!!) and lots of little shops and cool little nooks. While I was exploring, I stopped and registered for the conference and got the best bag of swag I’ve received for a conference yet. It included a lovely NAGW (National Association of Government Webmasters) polo shirt, a 2G thumb drive and my ticket to Zanies Comedy Club on Friday night to see Kevin Nealon. Score!!
I then took off for dinner (IHOP - close and cheap…) and came back to go through the paperwork in my bag. I made sure I know what I’m doing for the next few days - tomorrow is pre-conference day where I will be learning about prototyping techniques in the morning and PHP5 in the afternoon - and checked my email/friendfeed/etc.
I’m going to call home now and say goodnight to the kid and the boyfriend and then settle in for some TV. I thought I might check out one of the lounges, but I’m seriously tired and have to be up and at my pre-conference session at 8am tomorrow! I’ll blog about what I’m learning as I learn it!

Oh - I almost forgot - as I was registering, I gave my name and the lady behind the desk started laughing and said “oh yes, the webgoddess!”. I had completely not realized that my job title would be published on the list of attendees page on the website and was way amused to see it there. Apparently she was too. I was blushing like a schoolgirl by the time I left the booth…

I don’t think I’ve completely updated my Presentations & Publications page with all of this yet, but if I do it here, I can just copy & paste later, right? This is my schedule for the next couple of months - if you are going to be around any of these places, look me up and say hi!

Sept 8-12 -National Association of Government Webmasters Conference - speaking on Sept. 11th on Web 3.0, but will be there for the whole conference.
Sept 17th - MaintainIT Webinar on making Public Computers 2.0-ready
October 1-3 - Missouri Library Association Conference - speaking on the 1st on Collaboration 2.0 (2:45-3:30) and Library Learning 2.1 (3:45-4:30) - but will be there for the whole conference, introducing speakers and going to business meetings….
October 19-22nd - Internet Librarian - since I somehow forgot to send in a speaking proposal, I won’t be speaking here - just attending!
Nov/Dec - Computers In Libraries - Article on how to use social media/2.0 tools to collaborate.

That’s it - so far! Hope to see you around at one of these places!!

I just realized I didn’t write up the end of my ALA adventure. I did write up the last couple of sessions I attended at the LITA blog, you can head over there to read my takes on the Top Tech Trends session and the Keeping Your Computers Running session. Beyond that, most of what I did was either attend business meetings (including the Heads of Library Technology meeting) or social events. It’s too far back for me to really get into posting now - but let’s just say that I had a LOT of fun at the Facebook Librarians meetup, the OCLC Blogger’s salon (with apologies to David Lee King and Tony Tallent for monopolizing them at various points in the evening) and at my dinner out with the MaintainIT ladies, Sarah and Brenda. Vietnamese food is something I don’t get very often and I was pleased with both the food and (most importantly) the company! There was a lot of socializing going on at ALA!!
There were also the free food events - OCLC’s breakfast was informative - lots of information about the company and it’s direction, and the EbscoHost Public Libraries Luncheon was fabulous! Seriously great food and good conversation over the table with other public librarians (that was a class of folks that seemed pretty thin on the ground everywhere else - lots of academics, not many public library folks!). Getting a peek at what Ebsco will be releasing over the next months was nice, too! Anyone who follows my Twitter stream got the information about new databases and such at the same time I did - I just had to Twitter it!
Ok, that’s enough for ALA. I’m done (til next year, at least…) with that and I’m ready to tackle a BUNCH of new projects - one of which I’m hoping to firm up in the next 20 minutes or so!! More on that later…

Well, a nice big spike of traffic during ALA, plus a bunch of people checking out my OpenID presentation on SlideShare (the MP3 is hosted on this server) meant that my site became a bit overwhelmed with all the activity. Hmph. My site’s a wuss - who knew? Anyway, I’ve adjusted things and hopefully this won’t happen again! Not that I’m complaining about the traffic…

I’ve got LOTS to write up and no energy with which to do it. I will say that I’ve been attending a lot of great programs and spending time with a bunch of different people - the Blogger’s salon last night and dinner tonight being two of the best experiences I’ve had at ALA thus far. I plan to write up full reports about all of it. Tomorrow. Or maybe Wednesday. Or possible Thursday while I’m on the plane…

Oh goodness, where did I leave off? Yesterday, before my planned trip to Rose Hall Main House, I went back out onto the beach, where I laid out with a trashy beach-read novel in one hand and a margarita in the other. This, my friends, is how we are *supposed* to be living! I enjoyed it for a bit too long, however, and I ended up burning the bejeesus out of my legs. Oh well, it was worth it!!
After that a big thunderstorm rolled in and the Rose Hall tour was out. So I came back to my hotel room and relaxed on the balcony (without closing the door behind me…) and watched the storm roll by. After that was a quick trip down to the bar for a before dinner drink, or two. I made the mistake of getting the “special” of the night, a lethal concoction called the “Bam Bam”. It lived up to it’s name (Just about knocked me flat) - and it was the first drink of the trip served with a paper umbrella, so I had to snap a picture.

After dinner, I went to the talent show, which was great fun! Us Americans won a prize for being the loudest national group there. We were so proud.
After that, I came upstairs, called Mom, talked to Alex and then called in to the Uncontrolled Vocabulary show. It’s usually on while I’m putting Alex to bed, so I’d never called in before, but since I had the opportunity here…
This morning, I got up and went into Montego Bay proper after breakfast. I spent *way* too much money at a little craft fair thing (but folks are getting great souvenirs this time!) and then came back to the hotel in time to catch Erik & Jaap talk about their previous gaming in libraries tour and their current Shanachie Tour. It was an excellent show!
Now I’m getting ready to go to my last “official” session of the conference. Cliff & I agreed to sit in on an Academic SIG meeting and field questions from the members. It should be fun. After that I’ll be joining Michael and Mary for the Rose Hall tour, then possibly on to an English Pub just a bit down the street.
I’ll catch you all up later!

Well, today has been interesting. I got a message via the BIGWIG site today asking if I was still interested in being part of the social software showcase that happens around and at ALA. I said yes, I was interested, thank you! I’m schlepping my “Collaborating in the Cloud” presentation all over the place these days!
Speaking of, that was the presentation that I did today - and it went over very well. It was another packed room, standing room only, and the audience was very receptive! After the presentation, I got an invitation from a reference librarian at the College of Bermuda to come to them to give the talk again. I’m still unsure if I’ll be able to do that one - timing issues and all - but I’m certainly going to try!! After that, I came back to my room to check my mail and discovered that Michael Stephens, whom I had just name checked in my last post, has asked me if I’d like to post information about what the library is doing in our transition from Exchange email to Google Apps for Domains on his Tame The Web blog. I said yes to that one, definitely!! It was a busy, very productive day!
Besides my session, I also attended the forum on copyright this morning. Michael Sauers was one of the panelists and he did a great job explaining the problems with American copyright using funny (and yet sad) stories from the disasters of our copyright policies - he asked the Carribbean folks at the conference not to do what we were doing. He was followed by a lady from the Jamaican copyright office who reported on Jamaica’s attempts to do exactly what the US is doing in regards to copyright. Michael’s expressions during her talk were priceless…
I also attended Cliff Landis’ presentation on information overload. I would tell you more about it, but I don’t want to overload you… ok, I’ll overload you! He discussed a number of ways to manage information - being selective about what you choose to receive, such as listservs and the like - and 3 tools to help you manage your information and achieve balance. The slides he used are up on slideshare, so I’ll let you take a look at ‘em yourself.
In between all of this activity, I spent a bit of time in my room. At one point, I decided to step out onto the balcony to smoke and see what was going on outside. I shut the balcony door - a bit too hard, apparently - and managed to lock myself on the balcony. Those of you who know me, know that I’m really bad about doing that to my hotel room - done it twice this trip and haven’t blogged about it because it’s just expected and it’s not really news. This is the first time I’ve gotten stuck on a balcony, though. I had to shout 5 floors down to the outside bar below my room to get them to send someone up to let me back into my room. Talk about embarrassing…
After the bulk of the conference day was done, we all loaded up in buses and went to the Montego Bay Civic Center, where we saw a collection of performers who gave us a great look into the culture of Jamaica. It was seriously cool!!

Today I shopped, then I laid on a lounge chair on the beach. That pretty much sums up my day.. I registered for the conference and cleared up the hotel room issue as well, but for the most part, I bummed around until about 6:30pm, when I attended the ACURIL opening ceremony. The ceremony part was nice - a presentation of the flags of the Carribbean nations, lots of welcoming from the various people who have worked hard to put this conference together and a speech from a representative of the Ministry of Tourism about how libraries assist in getting tourists to their destinations (with lots of facts and figures about the number of people who use the Internet to make or research travel arrangements). The real fun of the evening came with the Hatfield Folk & Cultural Group, though. They did some traditional folk songs, some drumming and some dancing. It was a really cool introduction to the Jamaican culture! We also heard the Mount Peace Mento Band do some Bob Marley tunes - which were real crowd pleasers!
After the ceremony was the reception. I sat (somewhat to the dismay of the ACURIL president, who wanted us to mingle) with most of the American presenters at the conference. Michael Sauers, Stephen Abrams and Cliff Landis - as well as Michael’s wife and a Jamaican librarian whose name I never did catch - sat around the table and discussed issues of librarianship and the sad, US-centric state of both the US and US librarians. As Stephen is a Canadian and we had a Jamaican at the table, the insights into how silly we Americans often look were enough to make us one of the loudest (laughing, not arguing) tables in the water park (where the reception was held).
Tomorrow is Stephen’s keynote speech (which I’m looking forward too - I always love hearing him speak!) and my Mashups presentation. I’ll blog about both of those tomorrow night - stay tuned!