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.

I'd rather be in Philadelphia - Day 2

Saturday morning it was back to the exhibits, after a breakfast of croissant and strong coffee at the Reading Market. Actually, Donna had started her day walking the dog all the way to the steps of the Philadelphi Museum of Art, and stayed for a few minutes while Rocky wannabees ran up and posed at the top. Later, it was fun seeing the Man himself at the Swets booth. This guy actually sounded more like Rocky than he looked like him.
I went to OCLC and the Innovative booth, but both of my questions were a bit out of range for the people there, who tended to be more sales oriented than technical. At some point, I ran across our old vendor, Putnam Morgan from what had been Spalding. He was showing off a new machine that could
read and digitize microcards. Any library that still has a nightmare format like that is surely in the market for some sort of solution. The giveaways at this conference ran the full gamut from free pens to free pencils, with the occasional Halloween candy.

To be fair, there were more free books than usual. However the most troubling sign was the absence of a Google booth. They have had a presence at every ALA since San Antonio in 2006, but now they are simply absent. I'd also hoped I'd see a booth for the people who sold us the excellent LibGuides program, but no such luck. After an hour of this, we decided to take advanatage of the Convention Center's proximity to Chinatown. We started on Arch Street, but soon cut over to Race. My criterion was that the restaurant should have duck and chicken hanging in the window. There were several of these to pick from, and the one we chose did not disappoint.

Afterwards, I went to a program at the Radisson - a LITA interest group of librarians concerned with the JPG2000 format. I decided to forgo bothering with a cab and walked down. I could have made it easy, except for something they call the Ben Franklin Parkway, which cuts like an ugly scar across the city north and west of City Hall. There is no way I can go anywhere south of my hotel without crossing it. Unlike normal streets, even in New York, where you wait for the light and cross at the crosswalk, crossing the Ben is about a 17 step process. Anyway, I was a few minutes late, but a few people were later. A happy surprise was the group's chair - Peter Murray, who had worked with me at Innovative Users 10 years ago, and now is with OHIOLINK. The new format allow a lot more functionality than the traditional jpeg.

This can be used for moving images, and lends itself to features like zooming in and rotating an image. This disussion lent itself to another new format - the PDF-A, which can use jpg2k in its formatting. There was discussion, some of it over my head, about whether this could be set up to compress a file and then build it back up again to be identical to the original. There was even talk of adjusting settings to make the reconstructed file better than the original. This runs counter to the thinking of some archivists, who want a faithful copy of the original, warts and all. On the other hand, the enhanced images can test better in OCR, and who wouldn't want that?

Who wouldn't want to spend the rest of the evening attending receptions and parties? Maybe someone who was out of energy. This night's slate had 3 events - two of which were fairly close together. The first was put on by a consortium of book publishers, including Perseus Press. They had rented the Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art at Broad and Cherry. The museum was just magnificent, and they let the party-goers roam through any of the rooms as long as they did not carry their wine glasses with them. The bartender gave me a tip on the most important painting - Thomas Eakins' masterpiece the Gross Clinic, at a nearby room.

Afterwards, we walked through City Hall to the Ritz-Carlton for the reception given by tutor.com. These are always a must for the good society and for their specialty drink the "Raving Fan." There was more partying to go, so we only had one fan each. We talked to a very friendly pair of librarians from a public library near Chicago.

The final party was at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I'm embarrassed to say that in 18 years of living in the East, I've never gone in this building. With a generous wine and beer selection, 8 tables of food and a good steel drum band, this was the highlight of the evening. There are some people that one always runs in to at an ALA - one of these is Elliot Gertel from the University of Michigan. We have seen him at every ALA since Orlando, four years ago. I got Elliot's picture in front of a favorite painting, but will have to fix the image back at the shop.

I'd rather be in Philadelphia - Day 1

We started the day by going down to the convention center and getting registered. At 8:30 we caught the right wave. I was all set within 90 seconds, which included New York chitchat with the Brooklyn-born desk helper. After breakfast at Reading Market, we went to Market Street to find a camera card adapter so these live reports could include photos. Then we headed west to a couple of museums - the Rodin Museum and the Franklin Institute. Rodin was like walking into another world - or pure genius. There were statues and busts of Balzac, Hugo, George Bernard Shaw.

We still had more than an hour, so we crossed over to visit the nearby Franklin Insitute. We had taken our son there several times when he was small, so today we just went to revisit our inner child. The main exhibit on the top floor was about genetics and how it gives us our identity. I found out that if I hold out my arms, the distance from left fingtip to right is almost identical to my height. Something I never would have thought of. The best thing though was a computer simulation that took a picture of me and showed me what I would look like if I were black or Asian. I could even see what I would look like as a woman. Don't ask. The stunning image was myself as an elderly black man. Wish I looked this good in real life.

We tried to do lunch at the local Mexican food restaurant, but it was typical ALA. The restaurant was swamped with librarians. Plan B was a neighborhood restaurant on Cherry that seemed popular with locals but unknown to librarians. That was the ticket. I went back to the room to rescue my laptop and walked down to the Crowne Plaza.

Innovative gathering ALA Midwinter January 11, 2008

Introductions by current chair Nancy Fleck. Given the relatively light attendance, it seemed interesting that this intro did not include the customary stats on IUG institutional membership.
The hotel was a brief walk from the Sheraton. The sign did not say which room the meeting was in - just a listing of the meetings and their times. As I went up the escalator, it began to dawn on me that the hotel was undergoing major renovations.

New inducement for IUG service. They will begin to pay stipends for attendance at ALA. Free rooms at IUG conference. There will be an IUG session this year at PLA in Minneapolis. The jackhammers drone on and on and on. Kind of a cross between conference attendance and oral surgery. Clearinghouse is going great guns - 17 new submissions this year.IUG 2009 will be in Anaheim may 17.

Betsy Graham- Release 2007 should be available mid-March. Company doing well. Rated highly in LJ annual survey. Best service rep to site ratio. Working on Library 2.0, open source, social computing, New technology, etc. Ted Fons new director of Service. Flickr has a private and public group. later I saw her at a party and twitted her for not getting me in the private group. She explained that the private group was for people who worked at Innovative. Okay.

Eric Leckbee: .Millennium Express Lane/Circa/Print Templates in Mil Circ.
EXP Lane Used to be Millernnium Graphical Self-check. Corrals checkout, renewals and e-commerce. Going for keyboardless self check. Uses screen touch, bar code and mag scanners. Also RFID.

Functionality mimics what they would see in Amazon.
Wireless circ machine is now called Circa - uses a handheld. RFID scans one shelf at a time. Will be able to do batch checkouts. Will use these to create v irtual shelf lists.
Print templaces. Customizable hold and transit slips.

ArticleReach - Sandy Westall talked about a new consortial product for a defined set of libraries to share articles - a complimentary product to InReach. New England Expess has loaded this in addition to InReach. ArticleReach Direct - a group of major libraries the does not have InReach. Will go active in the spring. A librarian from Michigan State talked aout the implementation. There is a union catalog for the journal holdings of the participating libraries. Said that the default search for patrons was changed from keyword to journal title, to try and dissuade them from searching article titles. There is the capabilty to add non-III libraries, but so far that has not been done.

Using this in tandem with WebBridge, a form can be reached from a citation and it will fill out all of the details about the publication and article request and search the union catalog for that item and set up the transaction. If the user goes in with a new request, they must fill out their own data. The request gets passed through to the library's ILL vendor - in this case, Illyad.

Afterwards, I met Donna and used to shuttle to get to the Convention Center for the opening of exhibits. As we got upstairs and made our way into the mob, we were curious where the ceremony was taking place. Turns out that we were right on top of it. Usually we tend to tune out these things, but this was different due to the factthat Loriene Roy is president now. As the board members were called up, we noticed a troupe of mummers who were there to open the event. At the end of the speeches, they marched into the hall and we followed. We headed for Greenwood to check out the newest bobblehead, but it turns out that the Dickens bobeheads were seriously delayed. Sounds like they won't be seen until the Anaheim conference. The food selection was extraordinary, with a room full of Philly cheese steak makings, but we had reservations for the White Dog, so I could only admire.

Previously, Donna said she felt bad because we wouldn't have an opportunity to speak with Loriene, and I said "You wait. We'll run across her. Sure enough, walking the aisles, we found her walking by herself. Loriene has taken a special interest in our son Bob, so we had a great talk.

Later in the evening we took a cab to far-west Philadelphia for dinner at the delightful White Dog, and then finished off the night with a reception.

I'd rather be in Philadelphia

Since the distance from Merrick to downtown Philadelphia is only about Foe
miles, we opted to leave late morning - set out after New York rush hour and get there before Philadelphia rush hour. For the most part it worked. The weather was good, traffic was moving. When we got off the Jersey Turnpike, we stopped to take advantage of the cheapest gas in America - under $3. I'm not sure why New Jersey cannot just build one road from the Turnpike to the Ben Franklin bridge to save the driver from changing highways four times in 10 miles, but this does not seem to have occurred to them. Add to that the fact that I caught every single NJ traffic light on red and I was fairly frazzled by the time I hit Philadelphia. Finding the hotel wasn't too bad.
The room was decent enough and on the 4th floor, which was a blessing given that our dog Yuji was with us. Hotel rooms these days are a wonder. Most of us out on the streets of America have long since switched to LCD flat screen televisions, but I haven't yet stayed at a hotel that provided one. Maybe in my lifetime hotels will catch up. Yuji made us very nervous because he loves going places but hates being left in a hotel room. He gets panicky and lets his distress be kinown far and wide. This time, when we left for lunch, he was good as gold. Good omen to begin the trip. We headed for the Convention Center (just a 5 blcok walk), found the Registration Desk and found the traffic to be uncannily light. It was that way because it would not open until the next morning.

' Making the most of it, we walked next door to the Reading Market and had a fabulous lunch of a Philly Cheese steak with the works. Donna had a babganoush plate, which was also a treat. The Market it hard to walk through because there are so many wonderful things to eat that it's overwhelming.

That night in my hotel room I was troubled. What to name this series of blogs? Something from Rocky? Nothing was working. We were watching Keith Olbermann's Countdowm and, synchronistically, he mentioned that W.C. Fields asked that his tombstone read: "On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. That's it! Thanks, Keith. Here we go..

Heading for Philadelphia

The badges have arrived and it's time to get ready for the 2.5 hour drive from Long Island to Philadelphia. I'm armed with questions for the technical helpers from OCLC and Innovative Interfaces. We've lined up the party invitations - enough to more than cover Saturday and Sunday nights. For some reason, the vendors are more generous with parties at Midwinter. We still haven't been invited to the real blue chip party (if it exists) put on by Google. I'll never be known again as a young Turk, so that invitation may never arrive.

Donna is just attending as an exhibits-only. When she did that in San Antonio two years ago, it didn't hurt because the best programs were put on by vendors, and none of them cared what kind of badge she had.

We're never quite sure what to make of Philadelphia. It looks very similar to our own city, and we love their Chinatown, but it's a bit more normal than New York. One thing for sure - we always eat well there.