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Lawrence Argent’s “I See What You Mean,” at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.

This year I am on two committees and both met today. The first one started at 8 am, which wasn’t a problem since the 2 hours time difference had me wide awake by 4 am (MST). This was my new committee, LLAMA’s BES LIFE (Library Interiors, Furnishings and Equipment). The group of people on the committee seem very knowledgeable about renovations and repurposing of space. A few of the members are architects. (One of the other new members is a new colleague from UNCG, Mike Crumpton, who is working with our folks on the Entrepreneurial Conference. He had color flyers that he distributed). The major goal of this group is planning programming on LIFE topics for ALA Annual. There are three programs set for this summer in Chicago. But it isn’t simply a matter of deciding what program to do. The committee chair must present the program proposals to other ALA Conference Planning groups for approval a year in advance. So, we spent most of the morning brainstorming for ideas of programs to develop for ALA Annual in 2010. These will need to be formulated by this June for initial program proposal. I found it to be very fascinating to learn about the very formal process involved in putting together programs for ALA conferences.

After this initial meeting, I headed for the exhibits, where I looked up Bill at the Alibris booth. He and I concurred that it seems that attendance is down this time around. Then I ran into Elisabeth Leonard, and we caught up over coffee.

The early afternoon session I chose to attend was an Elsevier sponsored symposium on “New Gen Librarians: Who are They & What Do They Want?” The panelists were two fairly “new” librarians, a second-year library school student and Gary Strong, UCLA University Librarian. After each talked about their “story” for 5-10 minutes each, the audience held group discussions to come up with questions to pose to the panel. The questions covered such things as today’s library school curriculum and whether it prepares new librarians for the job market, the issues in management style for different generations of professionals, and how current practitioners can effectively recruit new librarians into our profession. Wanda also attended and asked a good question about how administrators can participate in the education process so that new graduates bring the skills that we need to the job. It was an interesting discussion that demonstrated to me that new and seasoned librarians aren’t actually on opposite ends of the spectrum in regard to their expectations and goals.

My second committee meeting was in the late afternoon. This is the LITA National Forum 2009 Planning Committee. With the conference scheduled for this fall, there is already a great deal accomplished and even more to be done.The committee has been making good progress through virtual means, but it was very helpful to have a face-to-face meeting to go over details and organize assignments for all the things that remain to be decided. The conference will be in Salt Lake City.