Lucy says: EVPL is coming of age. This is my third Internet Librarian. Before hearing Steven Cohen in 2004, I'd never heard about RSS. He's still rattling on about it in 2007; he says the aggregator he used then (my favorite Bloglines) is now obsolete--Google Reader is all the rage. Lots of things I heard about only three years ago have passed into the electronic beyond, and there's still more new stuff crowding in behind. The difference this year? Not only did I understand the jargon, but I actually sat in one session and thought, "We're doing this better." Just one, among dozens of others that inspired me, gave me ideas, and educated me, but . . . we're getting there. And then there was Josh and Maryann's presentation on gaming. I watched two people furiously blog the talk; the questions indicated that people wanted hand-on how-tos, so they're getting there too.
This is not an abstract, paper-presenting kind of conference. It's librarians doing things people outside the profession aren't doing yet--or aren't doing as well. It's sharing ideas and information that will, if we can use them, make libraries viable in the digital world. And it's fun--how many ALA presenters ever appear in costume? Of course, yesterday was Halloween . . .
We'll continue to post to this blog as we put together our reports. I hope you'll add comments and questions--but if you'd rather just talk to us face-to-face, that's fine too. Just don't be surprised if the four of us get unholy glints in our eyes when we talk about what we've learned--this is pretty exciting stuff!
