Looks like I'm going to the Internet Librarian Conference this year. It will be my first time to go. I've wanted to go before, but felt like it would be an exercise in frustration. Now we have new administration and some institutional changes, and I'm looking forward to learning some things I'll actually be able to implement. Amazing!
This spring I attended a quick & dirty reference conference at Tulane. My reference tech guru and I were the only public librarians there. What's with that? It wasn't expensive and we drove down both days. Whatever... We both learned a lot and found out about a couple of techie things we were itching to implement when we got home. Within a week of the conference, I had chat reference going (Bless LibraryH3lp!!), LibX installed on all the staff computers (that was a new one for us), and a trial of Reference Universe in the wings. I call that a useful conference!
Speaking of LibraryH3lp... If you're having problems with your IT folks implementing chat reference, this happy app will definitely improve your chances. It's hosted externally so you don't need a new server, and you can limit access to chat. We do it only through our website, so the IT people aren't so paranoid about network compromise. We get a lot of play just through the website. Pump up the ref stats, y'all!
Having had such a great experience at Tulane, I'm really jumpin' to get to the Internet Librarian. One of my goals for the coming year is to gather all our digital library stuff into one spot -- a digital branch full of ebooks, databases, libguides, music, archives, and, of course, the catalog. It's not like you can't get to all our online content through the website, but how much cooler would it be to have it all in one area? So I have high hopes that attending ILC will get me going and give me the tools I need to get started. I love starting new things!! So exciting!
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