Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conferences. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Women/Gender Minorities in Print/Publishing in the Long 20th Century

Last month on July 17, 2019 I went to a one-day conference at Stanford:

Women/Gender Minorities in Print/Publishing in the Long 20th Century 

It was my first time at Stanford, and my first time taking CalTrain. The group of individuals I met at the conference were welcoming, friendly, funny, interesting, and magnetic! In fact, they sort of made me want to do a PhD in literature, they were that fun.



The plenary started off the day by introducing and discussing the Modernist Archives Publishing Project (MAPP), a new repository for harvested scans from works having to do with Hogarth Press. The project also incorporates biographies and people connections that are unearthed from consulting archival sources... linked data! This made me realize the importance of archival stakeholders doing useful work to make collections visible and usable. Move over digital collections librarians! Some English PhDs are doing some interesting work here! (Love the cross over in these worlds demonstrated here.)









The panel presentations and discussions were less like a printing/archival workshop and more like English Literature scholars telling us about engaging with texts intellectually and physically through their archival experiences (either digitally or in person). Yet I found the conference to be great for networking and seeing how scholars utilize the work us archivists and librarians do, while simultaneously connecting my two "identities" of writer and librarian. I found the panel that investigated literary representation of the library to be a great mental exercise (finally, someone I could talk about Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore with!) and I mulled over one scholar's ideas of the serif as phallus as he analyzed Vanessa Bell's feminist calligraphy. In addition to the Stanford English Department faculty and doctoral students at the conference, there was an MFA student from SJSU, a cataloger from the Folger Shakespeare Library, a publisher from Spain, and other scholars from the Bay Area. It was truly a group of relatable academics interested in feminist issues in printing, publishing, and activism, and we all experienced at least a little bit of archive porn/archive mania!




As a librarian, archives worker, poet, and artist, I was able to personally apply the food for thought the conference presented me, and I share my notes here:

I'm rebelling (--> reclaiming my own agency) against established power structures by writing on my own website, keeping my own archive, etc. 

The space in which a person reads/encounters a book affects their experience with a book --> why it is so important that I create a warm, welcoming environment in the RR [reading room] free of bias as much as possible.

 Above all this conference has cemented for me the power & importance of books (almost eternal) and that there is a place for me here, in various niches, and that I have been doing important work and have so much more I could do --> keep creative & don't get depressed/complacent. Goal: to make as much of an interesting CV/biography for myself as possible. Don't limit myself to traditional librarian trajectory -- so many ways my SCU A&SC [experience] can be interesting, a spring board/groundwork/background to future interesting work. 


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Monday, June 29, 2015

ALA Annual Conference 2015 Intro and Wrap-up

This evening I look back on my first ALA Annual Conference, which was conveniently held in my hometown, San Francisco. I did conference things for three of the six official days of the conference. Here's my breakdown and some remarks. More in-depth posts about the preservation themed workshops, panels, roundtables, and sessions I attended will follow.



Friday, June 26, 2015

• Grand Opening of the Exhibit Hall 
With classmates from SJSU's iSchool that I met at the workshop! 


Saturday, June 27, 2015

• Preservation Showdown (panel debate)
• SJSU School of Information Reception 

Monday, June 29, 2015 


This conference, over-all, was a great experience -- I got to run into many classmates, instructors and colleagues while also keeping a sort of anonymity that such a large conference affords. In terms of setting, the locality of the conference was further refreshing: I rarely get a chance to head downtown in the name of my profession, and witness such a beautiful day and people, and leave the confines of my home library behind while basking in the familiarity of San Francisco. 

Professionally, I have more avenues to chase down and an inherent desire to do so rather than in the name of rote planning. I made note of various individuals with titles such as Preservation Librarian that presented or spoke at the conference, and I joined ALCTS as I learned it is the association that encompasses the preservation of collections. The folks I met at the AMIA workshop immediately came across as knowledgable, impassioned, cool, and not snooty! AMIA is an association I look forward to joining in the future, for the fellowship of likable archivists and librarians more than information or association alone!

A conference as massive as the ALA Annual is more than the sum of its parts. It's a meeting of large scale logistics, coordination, interests, and personality. The excitement you feel when waiting for the exhibit hall's grand opening on Friday night (and the frenzy over the free food!) is unique just as the desertion of the exhibit hall and ALA Store packing up on Monday afternoon is a little bit sad -- by that time there is no promise in the days to come, just exhaustion over the busy days behind you. I look forward to attending ALA in the future, but it will never be as sunny and comfortable as 2015, the year it was in San Francisco. 

Photo from the ala_members flickr stream

* I will update this post in the future as conference proceedings and resources become available.   


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Friday, May 1, 2015

ACRL 2015 Wrap Up

Here is my ACRL wrap up!

Let me record the sessions and panels I attended and then give some brief thoughts on the conference.

This is what the end of a conference looks like

Schedule Made through my Google Calendar

Wednesday, March 25

• Opening Keynote with G. Willow Wilson
• Opening Exhibits Reception (I did the hard work of talking to vendors in preparation for my product review blog post this night)

 Thursday, March 26

• Paving a Two-Way Street: The Rewards and Challenges of Archival Projects with Community Partners
• Contributed Papers 9: Successful Student Advisory Boards: Best Practices; Unleash your library's HIPster: Transforming student library jobs into high impact practices; Design-Model-Build: Leveraging a library remodeling project to engage students and promote sustainability on campus.
• ACRL 75th Anniversary Invited Panel - New Roles for the Road Ahead (note: the "online monograph" put together for this panel is available here)
• Keynote Session - Jad Abumrad

Friday, March 27

• Invited Paper - Searching for Girls: Identity for Sale in the Age of Google
• Contributed Papers 19: They'’ve Found It. Can They Read It? Adding Academic Reading Strategies to Your IL Toolkit (the presenters set up a blog with strategies); Blurred Lines: Tying Recreational Reading to Research in an Academic Library;  Children's Books in the Digital World: The Bigger Picture for Our Graduates
• Contributed Papers 23: Seeing the Forest and the Trees: The Integrated Digital Scholarship Ecosystem Project; Seeking Sustainable Solutions to 21st Century News: A Case Study of Born-Digital Preservation; Revolutionary by Design: HathiTrust, Digital Learning and the Future of Information Provision

Saturday, March 28

• Contributed Papers 26: Making Sense: Can Makerspaces Work in Academic Libraries? [I asked a question about Makerspaces contributing to academic coursework; a really nice person gave me her business card with the url to the UTC Studio written on the back]; Library Learning Spaces: Investigating Libraries and Investing in Student Feedback; Implementing a Culture of Creativity & Making: The Rutgers University Art Library Lego Playing Station
• Contributed Papers 30: Assessing Library Internationalization Efforts and Impacts: Tools and Strategies; Looking Through Their Eyes: Improving Library Services for English as a Second Language Learners by Exploring Their Experiences and Perceptions of Academic Libraries Abroad and in the United States; You’re No Fun Anymore: The Ethics of Acquiring Electronic Devices in Light of E-Waste, Sweatshops, and Globalization
• Closing Keynote - Lawrence Lessig

Obviously, one of the best parts of a conference is that you can select what sessions and panels to attend based on your interests, job description, aspirations, goals, etc. I did that a lot, especially with the Contributed Papers 19 (more of my interest) and Contributed Papers 9 (my job duties). I also tried to tap into the pulse of the formal body of the professional association by attending the 75th Anniversary: New Roles panel. I have to admit, this panel left a very bad taste in my mouth. I actually panicked for a moment, thinking I was in the wrong place; I had chosen the wrong career. I examined my reaction later, and observed I can be inflexible in continuously applying what a "library" is to me, historically, to what it should be in the future. However, I also feel resistant to putting what libraries do in economic terms, by using the words "value added" and "return on investment," which turns libraries into another cog in the capitalism gear. I also feel resistant to the idea that we have to prove our value as librarians, but that is more of an idealogical issue for me -- I feel that libraries and librarians are inherently valuable, and if folks don't recognize that, it's a reflection of their stupidity. What other profession has to deal with remaining "relevant" and all the anxiety that brings the way we do? I just get fed up with it. And here my aggression is aimed more at academic institution administrators who may be too short sighted to see the inherent value we possess.

And, as usual, I deeply enjoyed the ACRL keynotes because they are wider and more entertaining than real, applicable panels, but they get me thinking about big picture issues, and often inspire me. I particularly took Jad Abumrad's keynote as a call to creative arms, which spoke to me as an artist/writer and a liver of life. Lawrence Lessig's keynote was also inspiring, but in a political and economic way that seemed to call for the unburdening of information from out beneath the chains of profits and capitalism. I appreciate that idealism.

Ultimately I am glad I went to this conference as it helps me navigate the development of my professional career, but next time I will remember to be more relaxed -- I stressed too hard about proving my professionalism, and it had adverse effects on my health.

**Edited to add (5/5/2015)
Today I discovered the ACRL 2015 Virtual Conference Web site!
You can view the keynotes without a login, and you can view the other presentations as screencasts using your login.

But most importantly, I also discovered the closing highlights montage, and briefly at 1:04 someone you may recognize is grabbing a beer for her coworkers from Gale in the exhibit hall!


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