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On Sunday, we woke up to HUGE snowflakes coming down, which turned an hour later into a cold rain. Seattle weather may be worse than Detroit’s. I dutifully trudged down to the convention center for the closing sessions.

“Buzz Off! Tossing Traditional Collection Development Practices for Patron Initiated Purchasing,” Sue Polanka, Wright State University, Alice Crosetto, University of Toledo, Kari Paulson, EBL

The presenters asked the same questions I have asked myself from time to time, what if we just stopped guessing which books to buy and let the patrons select them. Actually, I presented a paper on this at ACRL in Charlotte when Wayne State had a grant from the Ford Motor Company to buy netLibrary ebooks. [As an aside, the speakers used Turning Point clickers for the first 50 people in the audience , which was fun.] Kari Paulson from EBL explained the concept. Patrons make selections by accessing the ebook online, either on the first or second click. The advantage is that you get 100% usage, unlike the traditional method of guessing what books patrons will actually use. At Wright State, they did a study of approval plan books, which showed a 50% usage rate (like the classic Pittsburgh study from years ago). Some models even offer a short-term lease. You could think of it in terms of the ultimate 2.0 experience. You can set controls by setting price and subject or other parameters if you feel compelled. The speaker who chose the “con” side emphasized the professional responsibility of the librarian to see the collection as a balanced whole and that no one else is better equipped than librarians to make those judgments with limited funds. She saw it as a control issue, which is not very noble imho.

Closing Keynote, Ira Glass, This American Life,

Ira Glass tried to explain his (rather unusual) approach to broadcast journalism, combining humor with drop-dead-serious topics. They have a staff of 8 researchers who develop the stories surrounding compelling personalities. Topics like Guantanamo, Afghanistan, the mortgage crisis, post traumatic stress disorder, or race in the 2008 elections take on a real-life dimension when digging into the humorous, fearful, tragic or heroic sides to ordinary people. They maintain a storytelling structure (anecdote, comment, anecdote, comment) to their show meant to keep the audience engaged (and tuned in) which seems a lot less like manipulation if you just go with it, besides which it is the same structure that is used by clergy of every religion. He tried branching out to TV, which turned out to be a bigger difference than any of them thought. The “John Smith” clip he showed was amazingly moving for its length. He closed with the story of Scheherazade, who saved her life by telling stories in the Arabian Nights. Ira Glass, master storyteller. This might have been the best keynote I have ever heard. The last standing ovation I saw at a library conference was Barack Obama!

Sunday afternoon and evening, I met with our University Libraries Group cohort. I can’t really share the details, as the stories were of the director-to-director-to-stay-in-the-room-only type. Suffice it to say that every campus is having the same economic difficulties, that political battles happen all the time, either centralizing or decentralizing can take away staff on a moment’s notice, and we will all be glad when the stock market returns to normal.

I am now sitting in the airport waiting for the red-eye connection to Atlanta and then on to Greensboro tomorrow morning. Wanda had terrible luck and missed her connection in Atlanta, so she left the hotel at 8:30 this morning and will get back to Greensboro at 8:30 tomorrow morning, ironically on my same connecting flight. I hope the rest of the gang make it back OK.

It may be too early to offer reflections on the ACRL experience, but I basically have nothing else to do for the next hour an one half. So here are some random observations:

Academic librarians, much like undergraduates, are getting younger all the time. I definitely looked and felt like a senior citizen compared to the hipsters of the ALA crowd.

I was reminded that ACRL is basically a public service type conference. It was a little heavy on the reference/information literacy kinds of topics, which is great if that is your thing but not so much if you are not, if you follow me.

ACRL would do well to push back the submission dates for contributed papers, since the ideas are now a full year old.

The major message I am bringing back is the don’t-waste-a-good-crisis philosophy, which I will play out in various nefarious ways.

And finally, I hope everyone realizes that we take these conferences seriously and work darn hard, day and night, nights and weekends, all to bring back fresh ideas to ZSR. This was a good one.

See you tomorrow, a bit rumpled.