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

• AMIA@ALA: Association of Moving Image Archivists Workshop for ALA 

• Grand Opening of the Exhibit Hall 

With classmates from SJSU's iSchool that I met at the workshop! 

Saturday, June 27, 2015

• Librarians Without Borders: International Outreach

• Geek Out!: The Importance of Pop Culture in Libraries 

• Preservation Metadata Interest Group

• Preservation Showdown (panel debate)

• SJSU School of Information Reception 

Monday, June 29, 2015 

• Culture under siege and our response: scholars and librarians in action

• STS Program Poster Session (ACRL Science & Technology Section)

• Library of the Future - Learning with Google's Daniel Russell

• Conversation Starter: Naked Truth: connect.create.contribute

• Conversation Starter: What do LIS Students Really Think About Their Education?

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.