A Wandering Eyre

ALA has been working hard, as have the divisions, in the past couple of years to incorporate more unconference type things into the schedule at Annual and Midwinter. Up until this point, these things have been special events and, while there are a few, most of them are not recurring. It is time to start [...]

This past weekend, I drove 5 hours Saturday and 5 hours back home Sunday with two small children to go to the wedding of a very good friend. The kids were great and it was worth the hassle to see my friend so happy. It reminded me that so many things in life are about [...]

My local NPR station recently started playing talk radio all day (hallelujah!) and I have been wallowing in all the wonderful shows I used to listen to regularly when I lived in Dallas. Last month, I had Talk of the Nation on and Don Tapscott was talking about higher education. My ears perked up immediately [...]

There are a lot of reasons why you, your library, or your library related organization should participate in National Library Unconference Day on Monday May 2nd at 1pm EST. It could be the amazing speakers lined up for lightening talks. Maybe it is because unconferences are always so darn fun. Perhaps, this is the perfect [...]

Something happened yesterday that I am still trying to understand. I am not talking about the shooting in AZ. This was much less tragic in the worldly sense, but more tragic to me personally. An open meeting was closed to me because I could not physically sit in the room, though the means necessary for [...]

I am presenting at 3:20 in room 205. It is going to be very interesting and FUN! I am going to talk about how to use the concept of an unconference to solve your staff training issues. There will be zombies. Participation is required. But not participating zombies. Sorry, no brains for afternoon snack time. [...]

Today, I am getting ready to leave for LITA Forum. Leaving the house for a couple days and leaving Mr. Rochester, The Bairn, and The Dogs behind means a lot of extra preparation for me. I will leave them food and water so they should all be alive when I return, I hope. I will [...]

It is humid. The World Cup is on. Women in sensible shoes and cat vests are mingling with NextGens sporting tattoos and dyed hair, all vying for advance reader’s copies or a cold beer. It must be a librarian conference! It has been a couple years since I was really in the swing of an [...]

These are my notes on the presentations given during the Unconference at ALA. Here is how they came into being: As a large group (we had over 50 participants!), we brainstormed trending topics in libraries. Topics generated during this ranged from the digital divide to services in libraries. Then, each person was able to vote [...]

Something that has the potential to be the most exciting and fun thing happening at ALA Annual this year still has a lot of spaces for people to attend. And it is a free event. And if you come, you will have a large say in what happens, what we talk about, and how what [...]