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Erik, Susan, and I are sitting in the Salt Lake City airport, writing up our final blog posts after getting a meal at the food court.

If you’re interested in the detailed notes from the last two sessions I attended, here they are:

The Next-Gen Catalogs session was interesting since we’re using VuFind now. The talk about about a VuFind implementation and touched on the results from a few usability tests. Overall, their remarks were good, though they pointed to changes in workflow for the library staff. They also demonstrated Summons from Serials Solutions, a product I’d only heard of before this session. It was interesting to hear how they had the two systems work together.

Liz Lawley’s closing keynote (another person that I’m a huge fan of) was a fun discussion of an Alternate Reality Game that her lab created to engage young professionals and help them learn about the area. I appreciated her thorough discussion of how they implemented it and the work that went into creating a good game. Lawley pointed out that in a pilot, many people are willing to donate time and money, but they need a more sustainable model to offer the game again.

I am so glad to have attended LITA Forum for the first time. It was a solid conference: good facilities, location, schedule, programs, and people. I picked up a few things along the way, but as with any conference, a lot of my learning happened between sessions and at meals. LITA seems to really get that, leaving good blocks of time between sessions and organizing networking dinners for those who want to attend. I hope to get to attend again sometime soon! Thanks, too, to Susan. As a committee member, she played a key role in making the conference a successful one, and was busy doing things for the conference for the entire time we’ve been here.

It looks like our plane just landed, so we’re about to board. See you all on Monday!