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Victor Steinbrueck Park

It is wonderful to be back in Seattle, my third trip to this vibrant city. It brings back memories and not only because my first trip here was to attend my first ALA Midwinter in 2007. But what was also special about that first trip was that it was the inauguration of the ZSR Library Professional Development Blog. So, this week, we are celebrating 6 years of sharing our educational and professional activities with each other and the wider library world!

After a somewhat challenging trip west for group, Roz and I arrived early afternoon, before our rooms were ready. We checked in at the conference and then took advantage of the unexpected sunny skies and hiked to Pike Market Place. After 7 hours on a plane, it was a good way to stretch our legs and our brains so we were ready to dive into the conference!

Because we were delayed, my first event was the LITA Happy Hour which is a wonderful networking opportunity. I got to see old friends and colleagues and it sets an energetic tone for the other LITA events over the weekend.

Roz has already done a thorough report of our first presentation by Steven Bell this morning. So i’ll just point to some interesting resources that he mentioned during his talk:

• The new Pew Internet report that says people think libraries are important but don’t know what services libraries offer.
• Start with “why.” People want to know why we do what we do. Read Simon Sinek’s book on the subject.
• His alternate textbook project.
• From the Bell Tower, his Library Journal column.
• Jim Collins and the inflection curve.

This morning was my committee meeting (I’m on the 2013 LITA National Forum Planning Committee as past-chair). I attended the EBSCO luncheon where they once again focused on why EDS is far superior to ProQuest’s Summon. Since there is no official programming at midwinter, discussion groups are plentiful and I plan to attend a few of them this afternoon and tomorrow. One that is just wrapping up is considering the issue of how mid-size academic libraries decide about “Giving up the old to provide new services: Rethinking what you are currently doing to provide new services.” It’s been a most interesting sharing of approaches including withdrawing from the federal depository program, ceasing electronic reserves and discontinuing the digitization of little used archival materials. Very interesting!

More tomorrow!