When that great day comes when JetBlue flies from New York to San Antonio, I'm sure we'll get there in about 4 hours. What happened with Southwest was something like "Wagon Train." First, we had to get to Islip airport by 9 for a 10:20 flight. Security check wasn't too bad, and the flight to Nashville was just a bit over two hours. It wasn't crowded so the flight attendant had the leisure time to see me reach into my bag for a miniature vodka that I'd bought to add to their free drinks. "That's against the law, " she told me. What law? We're still trying to find out. Can't find out from Southwest Airlines because their website does not take messages. If there is such a law, I wonder who it is trying to protect? Then we had a full 3 hour layover in Nashville. After that, the packed flight did not go directly to San Antonio, but stopped in Houston. Finally, we made it to San Antonio after nearly 12 hours of travel. Met my library director who came in a few minutes later, and we were off on a cab to downtown, and eventually to Mi Tierra Mexican food, which was delicious.
If you like the pictures, the complete gallery is at http://www.pbase.com/terryballard/san_antonio
Friday, we took some time in the morning before the first meeting, and went to the Botanical gardens. They were undergoing a construction project, but there was still plenty to see. Sample houses, homesteads, a Japanese garden, a conservatory and lots of fountains. We'd hoped to go to lunch at Pat O'Briens near the Alamo, but we got caught short for time, so we ate at the park. It was a good move, because a good portion of the food was grown on the grounds, and it was served in a very striking artistic way. Next it was time to get with the program. We all registered, and Bob got to talk to one of the ALA candidates for president, Loriene Roy. She is a native American library school professor who was interested in Bob's working with the Smithsonian Indian Museum. This was a great way for him to start his library school experience, and I will certainly work to help Loriene get elected. I talked to her at the end of the conference, and she remembered everything my son had told her. I just noticed that she is also a graduate of the U of Arizona library program, like I needed any more reasons to support her.
After registration, I joined my director as we headed off to find the Innovative Users Group meeting. It was a fairly big room, and it was packed. A good sign, since some of these meetings draw a disappointing crowd. The numbers show that IUG is growing slightly, which would be good except for the fact that Innovative is signing new customers hand over fist. Anyway, the group is very solvent, well-run and still throws a great annual conference. Betsy Graham got up and affirmed that the company is doing just fine. Afterwards, it was the main event. Casey Bisson from New Hampshire gave the presentation "Designing an OPAC for Web 2.0" in which he talked about adapting the opac to the needs and expectations of users. He was particularly inspired by two books - "Ambient Findability" by Peter Morville, and "The Wisdom of Crowds," by James Surowiecki, giving a few free copies to librarians who promised to talk them up. Casey was my favorite speaker last spring at IUG, and he did not disappoint today, although this talk was a bit more theoretical than his San Francisco speech. Anyway, this is someone to watch. After the break, we heard from someone at Innovative who talked about the possibilities of using OPAC features that were paid for but lying dormant in libraries that didn't have a Casey Bisson.
After IUG let out, it was time to line up at the starting blocks as they opened the exhibits room. Usually, the best things are given out at this time, but the publishers were holding back until Sunday here. I did get a Chaucer Bobblehead doll thought from Greenwood Press. Lots of people had flashing pins and pendants, including Google. The Google guy below is so happy because he is back in his element - he owns an MLS from the University of Michigan.
The next morning we awoke at 6 to head out to the first of many free breakfasts available to librarians. This one was offered by Bowker, and they gave what I consider an excellent presentation of new products in their company. By far the most interesting to me was the news that Bowker had partnered with Choice to make the long-awaited sequel to Books for College Libraries III, except this version would be entirely electronic. The finaly selections have been made and the list of people involved in getting this out by September looks like a Cecil B. DeMille production. Many layers of editing and refereeing the editing. Syndetic Solutions is beginning to show signs of practical applications from their merger with Bowker - much use of information that Bowker has in its databases.
After breakfast, I went back to the Convention Center and got another look at the exhibits. We were particularly interested in audiobooks that could work with ipods, but the closest I ever came was the NetLibrary audiobooks that work with desktops and mp3 players, but not IPods. With 800 current titles, it's tempting, but we need to see what's out there. At lunchtime, Charles and I had Mexican food on the Riverwalk courtesy of Danielle Shaver from Serials Solutions.
We talked about their Federated Search engine, and about the possibility of adding marc records to our online catalog. She also told us about a new product in their arsenal that compiles usage reports from all databases on a level playing field and calculates the cost per click for each service. Interesting things, and the quesedilla was great.
Afterwards, we went to an excellent program sponsored by Elsevier about the future of the Information Commons approach. There were three speakers, but the standout for me was Lee Hisle from nearby Connecticut College. Like my library director, he only needs to say two words for you to realize that he is not a Connecticut native.
He talked about the learning styles of the "Millennials," or children born after 1981 with a mouse in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Since my son was born in 1982, he was particularly keen about this. Also, the director of the University of Texas Library at Austin explained that the undergraduate library had not actually gone away to make room for computers. No books were destroyed. No librarians were laid off. They just shifted around the resources. That's all. Afterwards, I crossed the river one more time to the convention center for another Elsevier program. This time, a demonstration of their Citation Tracker feature in Scopus. There were several testimonials from users from New Jersey, and one could easily see the value of this service.
There were two parties that night. The earlier one was sponsored by Ovid at a riverside restaurant. There was good food, Margaritas, and good company - lots and lots of good company. We found a bit of floor space on the patio overlooking the river. Charles met Ed Harris, the director of the Southern Connecticut State University library.
Library directors Getchell and Harris
Afterwards we walked to the Buckhorn Museum, where Thomson Scientific was throwing the best party of the conference. Lots of good food, including tamales and Quesedillas, beer, Margaritas, and the foot-tapping music of Chris Story and his band. Everybody was having such a great time that it was somewhat startling to hear that the 8 o'clock stop time really meant 8 o'clock. Aside from that quibble, this was one of the parties that we'll be talking about years later.
The next morning, we were up again at the crack of dawn - this time to catch the JSTOR breakfast. It's a good thing that Charles and I got there early, because the room was big enough for about half of the attendees. We got what may have been the last decent table space. JSTOR is doing just fine, but the big news is the inauguration of their new step-child, PORTICO. This is a system being built in cooperation with libraries and publishers to assure that no journal available online today ever goes belly up and becomes unavailable to future scholars. They are building an archive of the original images that make up every publisher's online offering, and storing them very, very carefully. Clifford Lynch spoke on an overview of the topic, followed by the current director of the project. Libraries are signed up and pay by the size of their clientele and budget. Access to an electronic journal is activated when it ceases online publication. Subscribers will get this, even if they had not subscribed to that ejournal in the first place. By the time that breakfast was over, I felt that I knew what PORTICO was all about. I went back to the exhibition hall for one more pass.
Then it was off to another packed luncheon sponsored by OVID. I'd learned my lesson from that morning by getting there 15 minutes early. This was good enough to get me a spot at the last free table. OVID is doing some interesting things these days. They said that they had completely integrated their OVID and Silver Platter databases into one virtual universe. While they were at it, they did some original research with Real Users taking a look at how they search for things and what goes wrong when something goes wrong. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the real world of confused students and researchers. They also mentioned that, like almost everybody else, they are releasing a new federated search engine. They also used the term "Drilling down," which I had not heard before this conference, but never stopped hearing once I got there. By late afternoon, I went to several sit-down presentations, simply so I could sit down, but I usually learned something worth knowing. The presentation about Lexis' redesign of its Congressional Information module looked good, but the first question out of the gate was whether this would work with RefWorks, and the answer is still no.
I went upstairs to check email and, on a lark, checked the electronic message board, which almost never has a message for me. Happy surprise - my old friend and colleague Gretchen was in San Antonio, so we managed to meet up with her for the "Night of Parties." There was an all-time record series of four vendor parties - all with some sort of food and drink. By the time we hit the last one, we were feeling pretty good. I remember the Alamo, but I can't remember much of the last walk home on the Riverwalk.
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