by Christina Stoll,

The 100 year celebration of the Special Library Association conference did not disappoint.  Held in Washington DC June 14-17, 2009, the event saw 5,856 attendees from 30 countries, with 299 Exhibitors at 462 booths, 48 of which were first timers.
The centennial celebration theme was present from start to finish, .  The conference kicked off with a ribbon cutting and champagne toast at the opening of the Info-Expo.
 
Other themes included a strong presence of green efforts and a change in vendor giveaways.  From my conference bag made of recycled materials to the paperless presentations (http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2009/Conference/handouts/index.cfm), the green efforts carried on throughout the conference right up the very end when one lucky attendee won a smart car. The raffling off of big prizes was a pleasant change, from Kindles to Video I-pods.

The opening general session began with a presentation of the SLA Awards & Honors (http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/awardsrecognition/index.cfm) followed by keynote speaker former Secretary of State and Retired General Colin L. Powell.  Funnier than I expected a former Secretary of State to be, General Powell shared his experiences bringing the US embassies into the 21st century technology to his own personal change into retirement and learning how to Instant Message his grandchildren.

The week offered spotlight speaker presentations, evening networking events, and time with the exhibit vendors.  While the conference focus is on Special libraries I was able to connect with vendors that cater to our other library types.  The Association of Independent Information Professionals (www.aiip.org) booth offered services that new and experienced librarians may wish to consider if they decide to work for themselves one day. A representative from the British Library (www.bl.uk) shared with me article and database resources that our academic libraries may find of interest, while the folks at the www.galaxypress.com booth gave me a book and DVD samples of their L. Ron Hubbard series which our school and youth services members may want to explore further.

Opening Ceremony of the Info Expo at the SLA 2009 Conference

While I’m an experienced conference attendee, this was my first SLA annual conference.  As a first timer, I thought I’d see what the First Timers and Fellows Connect event was about and found this to be a wonderful opportunity to meet both SLA fellows and other first timers.  I connected with current library school students as well as a librarian from the United Kingdom, and won a Centennial Celebration t-shirt.            
As a Dominican University’s GSLIS alumni I was asked to sit at their table during the SLA Alumni & Student Connect, which served as another great opportunity to meet specials libraries from all over the country.

The sessions that best stood out for me included:  

George Scott, Director of Channel Marketing for Springer (www.springer.com) presented ROI 2.0 Corporate, wherehe shared his company’s five step process on how a special library can convey their Return on Investment to the larger organization.  The complete presentation can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/libraryzone/sla-hot-topic-roi-20-corporate-libraries.
     
Jay Liebowitz, author of Social Networking: The Essence of Innovation spoke about the power of social networking within an organization and how it can support the flow of information and knowledge sharing and potential innovation.  This is a practice I’ve followed in that that you have to share knowledge before you can capture and use it.  Often the first step towards implementing a knowledge management initiative is to review your organization’s culture, possible conduct a social network analysis to determine who on your staff are the key people others go to for information versus those isolated, and then determine how to make a stronger flow of information.

The SLA Hot Topic: Wikis, Tweets, and Blogs, Oh My! included panelists Keith Kupferschmid, Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy and Enfo, SIIA, Jill Hurst-Wahl, President, Hurst Associates, Ltd., and Laura Malone, Associate General Counsel, The Associated Press.  Their discussion focused on the impact of social networking and new media, particularly what is considered correct copyright practices in a world where both individuals and journalists are using social networking to not just convey a story, but in some cases become the story.  

One example given to show the changes of social networking on the media was the http://www.huffingtonpost.com use of writers they do not pay.  Another example was the speed in which events happen and how newer technologies in some cases are just better equipped to report a story vs. traditional news sources, as was the case with CNN’s reporting of the Iranian elections hours after the story had been broadcast through Twitter and YouTube.

I was slightly disappointed with the no show speaker for the session on Forensics: Beyond the TV Shows, but can you really question a Secret Service agent’s priorities?  This did give me the opportunity to hear author Steve Denning, someone I have followed throughout my own Knowledge Management work, talk about the power of storytelling.  Denning’s presentation itself was one story after another which honed in on his message that anyone can convey a difficult concept to non-believers by breaking it down into a simple story.  His presentation provided some of his key elements, from practicing your story, to honing your  listening skills, getting insider your listener’s world and capturing your audience’s attention, to being aware that you’re doing to disturb your listen’s world, and yet stories can convey new ideas which can inspire change.

The Awards and Leadership Reception took place at the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, which offered the opportunity for attendees to tour the main reading room and the card catalog where I found two drawers with my ancestors’ name of Blount/Blunt, William Blount having signed the Constitution for the then state of North Carolina.

Outside the Library of Congress Jefferson Building, and the main reading room.

Card Catalog room at the Library of Congress Jefferson building, and proof that even the Library of Congress uses carts!

The Closing Keynote Session included broadcast journalist Judy Woodruff who moderated a lively panel which included Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who’s work lead Pluto losing its planetary status, John R. Patrick, former vice president of Internet technology at IBM Corporation and author of the blog http://patrickweb.com, and Robyn Meredith, Senior Editor, Asia for Forbes Magazine.

The group was posed with questions around the increasing amount of information and the speed in which it is coming at us and the role this offers to libraries and information professions. There was a strong consensus among the group that search engines miss the human ability to judge and interpret, offering information professions the role of interpreter, teacher, and selector of relevant information.

They also touched upon the generational differences of the value of privacy, and that while technology can open some scary doors, individuals also have the ability to turn it off and be as private as they want.

Another example of the potential technology brings was with healthcare in its current analog form offering little to no security, and yet could be made more secure through digitization.

Globalization of information was a final theme the panel touched upon as their view of information in the future. Examples given included US education with regard to our poor test scores and how do we light a fire under our students to remain competitive with the rest of the world.  Two solutions were given, the first being to offer more opportunities as grand as they once were during the Apollo mission that inspire students with the “go to the moon” bug so they are knocking down the doors to entire the fields of Science and Math. The other suggestion given was to use social networking technologies such as wikis to share lectures world-wide, so students everywhere have access to the best educational models.

The panel also addressed the impact of September 11 and the increased difficulties visiting students are having with getting visas to not only study within the United States, but to remain here adding to our country’s knowledge vs. going back home and taking their knowledge with them.    

The closing session also provided the opportunity for SLA CEO Janice Lachance and current SLA president Gloria Zamora to share some of the recent and up and coming changes to the association.

http://www.slatv.org  was launched as an additional way for SLA to connect with its members.  The organization will also consider a name change as part of SLA Alignment Project (http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/alignment/index.cfm).  

Conference photos are available at http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_blog/2009/06/photos-from-sla-2009-now-available-for-download.html Attendees could also access the SLA wiki for conference information (http://wiki.sla.org/display/SLA2009/Welcome+to+the+2009+Annual+Conference+Wiki%21), Twitter during the conference @sla2009, or read the conference blog posts at http://slaconnections.typepad.com/conference_blog. 

I could not have asked for a better time.  Even the trip back to the airport was eventual, my taxi stopped as the President’s motorcade drove right in front of me.  Let’s see how next year’s conference can top that in New Orleans, June 13-16, 2010.  

Questions about this article can be sent to stollc@mls.lib.il.us.

Published July 8 , 2009 in vol. 3, iss. 13 [View]