Idaho Commission for Libraries

Okay,now that ALA 2008 in Anaheim, CA is over, I am sitting in my hotel room reflecting on the experience.  The orange bags have come and now they are on their way to various parts of the United States and the world!  Themes:  Words that I heard repeatedly were change, technology, balance, and health. Wish I had a tag cloud I could download from my brain to see if there were other "bold-face", large font words!  I heard lots of talk about communication, building networks, and getting others up to speed.  Many topics which we at ICFL have been discussing since I came over 3 years ago.  So in some respects I felt "ahead" of the game, however, I know we are not there yet -- as there continues to be a moving target!  If you want to see more pictures go to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28106676@N08/ 

What did I like?  There was a plethora of activities, workshops, readings, presentations to attend.  In many ways too many, as there were always several hard choices to make -- and you never knew which would be the "good" one.  Afterwards, you would always hear of the "one you should have been at" from someone who was.  Overall though most of the activities I attended were informative and providing interesting dialogue.

Meeting people and building those f2f social networks was great.  It started with folks who had attended the training in Dublin in May and from there they introduce me to others.  So by the time the conference had ended, I had met several other CE folk from other states, many of whom I will see at our forum in Bozeman in late August.  This is an example of balancing the virtual with the f2f.  Both are excellent means of communicating, but there is something about that personal touch that solidifies the connection.

 What was hard for me?  Sitting.  The chairs just don't fit my body and I continually had to either stand or take a pain reliever to keep the kink in my back from driving me crazy!

If you ever have the chance to attend ALA or PLA, you will not be disappointed.  I understand PLA will be in Portland, OR spring 2010.  Great opportunity to go -- so start planning now.  There will also be more opportunities in the future to attend virtually, if travel isn't in the budget -- take advantage of that if you can.