I had the privilege of attending one ALA conference so far (Chicago 2008), and it was the highlight of my library conference experience so far. I went with 2 gals from school while we were in our last year of the MLS degree, and we had a blast! It was the year of Neil Gaiman...so how could you NOT have a blast?! As the picture suggests (and that's not me :D), the line for Gaiman was super long, snaking its way out and around the exhibit hall. There were meetups with twitter friends and the LSW group met one night at Giordano's. The sessions I attended were very good as well. Many big names covering all the hot topics - it was a librarian's utopia! Much of what I enjoyed though, was the being able to network with other librarians - sharing ideas of what's working and what's not.
I have also had the opportunity to attend my State's library conference for about 4 straight years. I am especially excited about the upcoming conference in November because ... I'm presenting! I will be presenting with one of my favorite colleagues, Erin of tad_overdue. We are both super excited, and it's my first chance to give back to my profession with a bit of what has worked for us tech-wise in the classroom.
As for further conferences, I just picked up on The Digital Media and Learning Conference. It looks like it will be a very beneficial conference...and I plan to follow via Twitter. Additionally, there's Computers in Libraries that I would love to one day attend. I see librarians online that attend one conference here...another conference there... turn around and there at another one somewhere else 2 months later. I wonder where the funding comes from and the leniency of employers. I so very much wish that I could attend every conference of my liking... but I'm pretty sure that would be frowned upon. Where's the balance? So readers, if you're out there, how have you handled conferences in the past?
Stay tuned for CPD 23 Thing 16 ... I'm almost caught up!
Posts
