OCLS Day 3

This day was necessarily short because the conference ended at noon. Ronda and I met for breakfast and then went to two sessions in the Topaz Room. The first was from Mona Florea about her use of WebCT, Wiki Spaces and ePortfolios in teaching information literacy. This detailed her work at the Three Rivers Community College in Connecticut. She developed a library module to be used in teaching nursing students online. She also used blogs as a tool inside of WebCT. She also used wikis to help guide the students through group projects.

The second session was by Susan Shepley from the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology. She described how librarians were added to teams of instructional designers and technologists developing coursework for their Virtual Campus. This helped to develop a stronger relationship between the librarians and their instructional development colleagues. I then had to go back and get ready for checkout since the hotel would only grant me one extra hour. Since my flight wasn't until 5, I had several hours to make up for the pictures that I hadn't taken of Salt Lake City. While the downtown area was surrounded by spectactular mountains, it was hard to get a picture because of the buildings. I walked East for many blocks and found out that I couldn't get far enough on foot to get a really good shot.





Then I found an ad for the Roof restaurant, on the 10th floor of an office building next to the Temple. When I got there, I found out that the restaurant was only open for dinner, so I went to the Red Rock brew pub for lunch. Then I found out from the concierge that I could go to the Roof anyway and take pictures. This turned out to be true. By now I had walked for about 10 miles, so I was ready to go back and get to the airport. It turned out that the best pictures of the mountains were taken at the airport itself. I had about a half hour, so I tried the wi-fi and found out that I'd have to pay $6 for the privilege, so I passed on that. The one hour flight to Phoenix to visit my parents for the weekend was easy to take. You can go home again, but it's weird. Phoenix has changed a lot since I moved East in 1990. I'd go through intersections and remember the terrible accidents I'd seen there in the 1960's and 1970's. Still, it was good to reconnect with my family and re-discover real Mexican food.

OCLS Conference - day 2

I'll write more later, but I am absolutely delighted with the way things went in my talk - we had an audience of 20-25 people who were deeply interested in this topic, laughed at my jokes and gave me 15 minuts of great questions and suggestions. Altogether, one of the best presentations I've ever given. You can see the PowerPoint at http://faculty.quinnipiac.edu/libraries/tballard/saltlake.ppt. I told the group that I'd consider this a success if somebody went back to their library and created their own VERSO. Perhaps this will happen.

Afterwards, I joined Ronda for a workshop on Elluminate - a program that facilitates web conferencing. I had used this more than a year ago for an ACRL webcast that reprised a very successful presentation at ALA in 2006. I found it a bit bewildering at the time, so this program helped me to gain a bit more of a comfort level. Afterwards, we went to the conference buffet luncheon, which was actually pretty good.

The first afternoon session was presented by Jane Hutton from West Chester University of Pennsylvania: "Academic Libraries as Digital Gateways." She is concerned with the fact that millions of books are available online but the libraries are falling behind in providing access to this. In extreme cases, the library's opac has a record for a microfiche book title when the same book can be found online. She did some excellent research by picking 10 titles of classic books that were known to be freely available online. This access was rarely reported in university online catalogs. Sites such as the University of Pennsylvania listing and OAIster did much better, but no one site showed everything. She also mentioned an encounter between a Serials Solutions executive and a Google Books manager where the Google manager was asked about publishing a list of everything they were providing so Serials Solutions could generate marc records. They were told in no uncertain terms that Google will not provide such a report. Hey Google - here's an idea. Make your own marc records and market them to libraries - "Google book collection about the Italian Renaissance," etc. Maybe you already have enough money.

After that, we went to a session about the creation of quick tutorials for distance education students by librarians at SUNY Plattsburg. This turned out to be a popular topic, judging by the fact that I nearly had to sit on the floor. They found that these tutorials are a great investment in time because they can be reused in many ways after their initial creation. Curiously, these are visuals only - they are just starting to experiment with narrated tutorials.

We visited the poster room for the final session of the day. Highlights included a presentation by Todd Quinn from Northern State University in South Dakota who is using Web 2.0 tools in the teaching of information literacy at the library. Also, librarians from Appalachian State University have created a virtual library that resembles Second Life except for the fact that they are delivering actual useful library information. They divide the library into "Information Gardens," navigated by the use of avatars.

Ronda and I walked 5 blocks west to the Gateway center - a sort of open air mall that looks like it was designed by Dr. Seuss. Five blocks doesn't sound like much, but a block in Salt Lake is the size of entire villages elsewhere. The day's finale was a birds-of-a-feather gathering of 11 librarians at the Market Grill which was, thankfully, only one block away. Their specialty was seafood, but I went for prime rib instead, following that best stuffed mushrooms I've had in ages.

OCLS Conference in Salt Lake - Day 1

"This Valley - this lovely panorama of green, and azure, and gold - this land, fresh as it were, from the hands of God, is apparently girt on all sides by hills: the highest peaks, raised 7000 to 8000 feet above the plain of their bases, show by gulches veined with lines of snow that even in this season winter frowns upon the last smile of summer."

Sir Richard Francis Burton, 1862

Starting this blog 7 miles over Nebraska. Here's the trip so far. Merrick train station to Jamaica station. Take the Airtrain to JFK. Take off. Fly over Staten Island, New Jersey and Philadelphia. Ten thousand squares of land. The Mississippi River, The Missouri River with Omaha out my window. Then the Rocky Mountains.

I'm going here because there is a conference of distance education librarians going on today through Friday. My wife insisted that I give a speech somewhere about my project of creating a graphic user interface to the library's collection of e-reference books. An article about this will also appear in the May 15 Library Journal. I'm on something of a roll with speech proposals - going back to 2005 every proposal I've turned in has been accepted. That streak will likely end soon because I put in for a very competitive proposal in ALA. This also doesn't mean that every one of these talks was to a rapt and appreciative audience, but that's another story.

This has been a very busy week - I'm finishing my two library science classes and had a fascinating time talking with our Galway bookseller Des Kenny who was visiting the East coast. Des will be helping us maximize our time in Ireland next month, so it was a treat to get to know him in advance of that. After the conference I'm back home for a weekend in Phoenix to visit my parents. We just crossed the line over to Colorado, so I'll wait for now and be back with my first impressions of Salt Lake City.

And here they are - the mountain ranges that border the city are absolutely spectacular. I met my colleague Ronda Kolbin when I got to the Hilton, and we headed off to a nearby brew pub for a really good and reasonably-priced dinner. Everything is very clean looking with very wide streets and the people are quite friendly. After dinner we headed to the main Mormon library. I started dabbling in the subscription databases that you could only get inside the library. After that, I got back to the room and did my best to stay up until 10 to fight the minor jet lag that one gets being 2 hours off.

Technology we could do without

Normally in these pages I speak to the optimistic and visionary side of my nature, while exploring my inner curmudgeon on other blogs. However, I must now make a rare exception and speak to the darker side of technology. This has its positive aspect as well, because I can imagine that someone might read one of these entries, build a better mousetrap and get rich. Several of these are adapted from impromptu rants that came up in the course of library technology that I teach Tuesday nights at Southern Connectictut State University. This is not in any hierarchical order because all of these are so egregious that it would be impossible to pick the worst:

1. Printer cartridges. Taking out a printer cartridge on a desktop printer is a snap. Putting one back in is like reinserting a 5 pound egg into a 4 pound chicken. Couldn't there be some way to make a cartridge that just slides in?

2. Coaxial cable. I suppose in the 1980's this was the best way to get a video signal to a VCR or television set. Hello, cable company - it's the twenty-first century now. I have arthritis in my hands and working with these cables is just a pain. Make them go away.

3. Speaker cable. Nothing to it - just get out your pocket knife, run a circle around the plastic outside of the cable without slicing the copper cable or your thumb. Then hold down the red tab and slide it into the hole. Release the red tab. Fell right out? Try again. And again. Better yet - make something that just slides in - like usb connectors.

4. IPod car radio adapters. I'm sure Apple makes a lot of money with these things that work with your car cd player. Instead of just a docking device, it makes you turn on your radio and find an empty channel that they broadcast into. A company that leads the way in innovative technology in every other way has delivered the Horse and Buggy special here.

5. Windows Vista. I'm almost at a loss for words on this one - an operating system that violates the first principle of technology as defined by Harry S. Truman - "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Tabbed searching in Internet Explorer never fails to confuse me. The computer settings options are so alien that I might as well get a Mac. Nearly all of the things they have changed to make it more user friendly have had the opposite effect. My wife looked up at me one day and said "Make it stop doing this. I want this computer to act like the one in my office." I can't. It's Vista.

Lunchtime in the garden of good and evil - day 4

Began the day with an excellent session.
William H. Mulligan from Murray State University in Kentucky
spoke about opportunity, discrimination, and Irish Miners in Michigan's Copper Country.

Some of the Irish did very well there in the 19th century, but over time, their descendants began to leave the area for more appealing work. Brian Walker from Queen's University, Belfast, Northern Ireland Irish Identity and the Irish in America. He said that there were great discrepancies in the reporting over ancestry that people gave in their census data. In particular, few people reported being of Scots Irish ancestry, even though there were massive numbers of people in the 1700s. Afterwards, we had a spirited discussion with those in the audience. I pointed out that most Americans wouldn't know anything about their 19th Century ancestors, much less those before. Also, when you are going back to the 18th century, you are dealing with hundreds of ancestors, and you can pretty well assume that there is a bit of everything to pick from, including the inevitable Cherokee on your grandmother's side.





We then headed for the Tara Feis - a family-oriented Irish festival at a park near the river. We began with a series of step dancing acts from the local children. Some of the costumes here were outstanding, and the dancing was excellent. We dropped down to the river for lunch at one of the riverfront cafes - got my classic dish that I always find in the South - fried green tomatoes. Then it was back up to the grandstand for the headline act - Altan. I could have listened to this wonderful traditional band all day, but we had to leave and get ready for my presentation.








Since this was the last session on the last day, I was apprehensive that there would be any kind of audience, but not to worry. I had hoped that we could go live and look at the Great Hunger online, but the wireless network was not working, due to lingering problems after the tornado. The first session was deliver by Megan Noojin, who is actually a scholar studying the Famine, who delivered an interesting account of Britain's response to the crisis.
Paul Fox from Zayed University in Abu Dhabi spoke about Oscar Wilde and Forms of History.

The idea was that things that Wilde had written are reflected in the current situation in Northern Ireland. Then I got started with the presentation. I have a funny thing about speaking - if I am talking about something that interests me, I don't care if I'm speaking to 1 person or 200. Once we got into the Irish visuals, things went fine. The audience was appreciative and asked good questions. Mission accomplished.




On the last day, we had one last thing on our agenda before we flew out - we wanted to see the Bonaventure cemetery that was so important to the book. The people at The Book Store had a lead on a guide who specialized in taking people to Bonaventure, so we set up a Sunday morning pickup. Kathy from Classic Car Tours of Savannah ( http://www.classiccartoursofsavannah.com/) was a gem. She had gown up in Savannah in a room over Mrs. Wilkes, and she was a walking encyclopedia of Savannah and Bonaventure lore. She drove us out to Bonaventure and showed us the key places such as the Johnny Mercer plot, The Aikens' and Danny's grave. We drank martinis and poured the extra liquid over the mortal remains of Conrad Aikens' parents, as we were instructed to do in the book. Hours later, with our heads spinning, we were dropped off at Clary's for a late breakfast. We left for the airport knowing that we'd done everything we'd set out to do except eat at Paula Deen's. You always have to have one reason to go back when you love a city.

Class test

This is something I created for the library science class I'm teaching at Southern Connecticut. Took about 10 minutes:

Lunchtime in the garden of good and evil - day 3

Friday began with the kind of poor weather that had been promised for days. Perfect for attending conference sessions. The first session was a gem. The theme was family history. The first presentation was by Sophie Sweetman McConnell, an independent scholar in New York. McConnell couldn't make the conference so her paper was read by moderator Janet Nolan. She listed the details of a rich family history dating back to the 1798 uprising. The second speaker was Carole O'Malley Gaunt, who had just written a memoir that caused her quite a bit of dissatisfaction from family members. When she was a young teen, her mother died of cancer, and she became responsible for 7 brothers because that is what Irish women did. Most of the brothers became alcoholics, and all but one is now sober. You can find out more at http://hungryhillthebook.com/ . I spoke with her afterwards as she was autographing books and mentioned that I had written a memoir of my time at Clark Field in the Philippines, which has turned out to be the most popular thing I've ever put on the web.

Afterwards, I joined Donna for a walk up to Forsythe Park because that Friday was to be the kick-off for the St. Patrick's Day madness in Savannah. The opening shot was for parade officials to turn the fountains green. Just before we left the room, we heard a siren blowing steadily out the window. When we got to the lobby we were told that this was the tornado whistle, but it was okay because the All Clear had been sounded. On our way to the park, the siren rang again. Somebody drove by and yelled at us "There's a tornada a'comin!" Since we were standing on the steps of the Historic Museum, it seemed like a good idea to go indoors. The museum staff were in panic mode, and they told us - "Go to the back of the building. Now." Eventually, we were led down to the basement along with many other museum visitors. For twenty minutes, we waited and finally got the okay to go up. We guessed, correctly, that the fountains would probably remain clear for the time being, so we took the free Historic District shuttle up to the Pirate's House restaurant. This was built in the 1700s, miraculously never burned down, and was said the be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.







A session in the afternoon was one based on purely scholarly discussions of Irish literature, including one from Geraldine Higgins of Emory University about how Yeats remains an important influence in our general culture today. Eventually, I was surprised that my proposal made it to the program because it was so different from eveything else, but different worked out just fine.


Afterwards, we did some more walking. The overcast day turned out to be a blessing for photography. On sunny days, it was hard to get the contrast right between the sunlit houses and the dark branches and spanish moss hanging down from the squares. In the evening, the conference hosted a traditional music concert, chiefly for the attendees. Since Donna was not registered, I had to pay $5 for her to get in. That was one of the better deals I've ever made. The trio included a young lady, Athena Fergis, who had worked for a time as the fiddler for Riverdance on Broadway. An absolute hour of magic that more than made up for the light reception the night before.

Lunchtime in the garden of good and evil - day 2

We woke up at 7 or so as per usual and headed over to the free breakfast put out by the hotel. I'm not a big fan of these things, and this hotel's offering was a bit minimal. Our goal was to catch the first tour at the Mercer House. We were there at 10 the minute they opened. At 12.50 they were said to be the most expensive house tour in the city, but also the one we wouldn't miss, so we didn't feel bad. At 10:30, we were part of a group of 8-10. I wasn't surprised that I couldn't take pictures in the house. I was surprised that I couldn't even photograph the garden. The house was build before the civil war by the great grandfather of lyricist Johnny Mercer, although Mercers never lived in the house. After a series of owners, the house became a Shriner temple and then fell into disrepair before being rescued by Jim Williams, an art dealer who specialized in restoring fallen Savannah mansions. It became his own home and the crown jewel of his operations. Alex, the tour guide, did a great job of explaining the history behind the vast art collection.

Halfway through the tour we were in Jim Williams's study and Alex announced that we may have heard that they won't comment on the Book. Actually, Donna had read that and warned me that it would be the case. He told us that Midnight in the Garden was a major part of the history of this house, and he'd be happy to answer any questions. Apparently, this policy changed about a year ago as Jim Williams' sister gave in to pressure. The study includes several pictures from the making of the film, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey.

Afterwards, we had intended to take the free shuttle to the Pirate's house for a buffet lunch, but we decided to check in at Mrs. Wilkes Boarding House - a Savannah institution for decades that serves a family style lunch that has people lined up around the block at times. We got there just after the first seating at 11, and were first in line for the next opening. Sure enough, minutes later there were 30 people behind us. In a half hour, we were seated at a table with 8 other people and found out what the fuss was all about. The table was filled with platters of fried chicken (about the best I've ever tasted), green beans, cheese grits, cornbread, pulled pork, okra, macaroni, black eyed peas, turnips and collard greens. All you could do was take a dab of each thing and it was still an overwhelming experience. Save room for dessert - banana pudding.
Time to walk it all off.

Then back to the room to collapse before the conference begins. After making one of my famous wrong turns, we finally found the conference center and got my badge and agenda. At 6, we both attended the reception, which was a bit modest with no alcohol to be seen. Everybody there seemed to know somebody, so after about 15 minutes, I dropped Donna off at the hotel and rejoined the conference for the excellent keynote speech by Alister McReynolds. His point was that there were many subgroups among the Irish protestants in the late 18th century, and that we shouldn't just lump them all in with Orangemen. I found this very interesting, because I knew precious little about this period in Irish history - particularly about the 1798 revolt of the United Irishmen. A good beginning indeed.