I'd rather be in Philadelphia - Day 3

Otherwise known as the "Morning After." One of my pet peeves is the $17 buffet breakfast at every hotel. Typically, they aren't very good and I have too much respect for money to pay that, even when the trip is covered. Instead we took the shuttle to the Convention Center and then a second shuttle to the historic district. We found a perfectly good diner on 2nd street and had a nice breakfast.










After, we headed out for one more major run at the exhibits hall. This time, I went to the presentation by Swets about their tracking services. "Rocky" kept promoting this event, so we finally gave in. What they do is to take data from Counter and Sushi and aggregate it into one seamless report delivered on a weekly basis. They said that if they managed your subscriptions, they could even give you cost per click information on databases or even specific journals. I was curious why you couldn't just tell them what everything cost and run with those numbers. We happily accepted our reward of a 1 gb flash memory stick.

Looking at the daily schedule, I saw that there would only be one time slot to attend a LITA meeting, so I chose the interest group about Internet Resources which was meeting at the Westin. On the map, it was clear that the Westin was just south of our hotel. It turned out to be a bit further south than I had envisioned, so I got in to the meeting out of breath and 15 minutes late. The meeting topics were so diverse from Internet Resources that I wondered if I had made a double play by walking in late to the wrong meeting. They had mentioned that this was part of LITA, so I knew that much. A lot of the discussion was about things like the "Death of the Marc Record" and the "Future of the online catalog." These were things of interest to me anyway, so I was happy to participate. On the way out, I was so taken by a conversation that I walked south instead of north - the sun in my eyes might have been a clue if I was paying attention. I walked over one block to get a look at Rittenhouse Square, which was full of people walking their pure bred dogs. I have a theory that dogs bring out the best in people, so it improved my mood.

Donna went to a book presentation by Random House, then met me back at the hotel for lunch. We opted for the Mexican food restaurant a block away, and it was a good choice. They had a great selection of entrees that included tamales. I walked over for another look at the exhhibits hall. At the Library Journal booth, I found the editor who had been working with me on an article about VERSO and was informed that my article was being projected for a March issue. That was great news because I am teaching another class this spring at Southern Connecticut, so my students will see their prof in print this semester.

How do you top a night with 3 receptions? The answer is a night with 4 receptions. I have missed the blogger's salon every time, so this time we made it a point to start our night there at the Loew's hotel. This was funded by OCLC, wo there was a nice cheese table and wine. I chatted with one of the hosts, asking if OCLC was organizing bloggers. Apparently, only to the extent of throwing these receptions. Also spoke with Rachel from the University of Houston who was between blogs at the time. The only famous blogger I saw was Walt Crawford. Then we crossed the street to catch the party that Innovative threw for libraries that had purchased Encore. Our installation is scheduled to arrive within the month, so we were excited to talk about that.


We met up at that reception with my library director Charles Getchell. We all crossed the street again and got in to a shuttle that took us to a convention facility by the Liberty Bell. Proquest had invited 200 of their favorite librarians for an hour of cocktails followed by a banquet. At the end, we heard the sound of drums and expected to see a fife and drum corps, but were surprised by the sight of a mummer's band at least 20 strong.

By the time that was over, I was trying to find a polite way to say that I've had enough, but I hung in there and took the shuttle to the Ritz for the Elsevier reception, which tends to be the dessert highlight of any conference. I was glad I did - not so much for the champagne, but I started talking to the man next to me at the table, Fred Stielow, and found out that we were both involved with virtual libraries. In his case, as the Dean of Libraries & Educational Materials at the American Military University, which is a major online education source for the military. I'll be talking to him later, because he is also concerned with the relationship between virtual libraries and Second Life. Getting back would have been a short walk, but it was an even shorter cab ride.