Category Archives: conference reports

Internet Librarian 2010, Day One, part 1.

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I’ve been in Northern California since Friday afternoon. Today is the first dry day. Rained all weekend, destroying all plans to skate with my friends Dale or Gary, but it was fun hanging with Dale anyway. Much good food was eaten and skateboarding discussed. Had a great trip to the Museum of Modern Art, in San Francisco. Very enjoyable.

Drove back down to Monterey on  Sunday afternoon, in the rain. It isn’t really that far, but the drive is always sorta tiring. Took the less-scenic route in order to avoid highway 17, and the severe stress it always inflicts on me.

The keynote at the conference was interesting, as have been the sessions so far. I’ll write about them later tonight. Just had my usual first day lunch (and usually second and third) of fried calamari. Good stuff. Hoping for some dry weather tonight, so I can venture to the little skatepark nearby. However, I suspect the moisture will accumulate. That seems to be the way it works here, in which case I’ll probably read part 2 of On the Road and get a nice milk shake via room service.

Have Board, Will Travel #1

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Trusty sled - ready to roll. Will the weather be kind this year?

Nearly every year I attend the Internet Librarian conference, in Monterey, California. I go out a few days early and do some skateboarding and chill-time with friends out there.

First stop (after jumping from DFW-Los Angeles-Monterey, Californa and renting a car) will be Mill Valley, California, home of my good friend Dale and his neighbor Sammy Hagar (a.k.a. the Red Rocker). Will Sammy make an appearance? Only time will tell. Weather permiting, Dale and I will sample the skateparkish delights of that fine region. Sunday I’ll head down to Mountain View, California and Rengstorff Park, for freestyle skateboarding with the great Gary Holl and Wally  Sueyoshi.

Monday, October 25, is the beginning of the Internet Librarian conference. Besides being a great conference to attend, there is a small skatepark about a mile from the hotel. Now, evenings in Monterey can get rather damp when the fog rolls in, quickly coating the skatepark’s smooth surfaces in disaster-bringing moisture. But if it is dry outside, I usually try to get out and skate in the evening. I also try to do at least a couple of dine-arounds with fellow conferencers, and maybe watch the World Series if it’s on (it was a few years ago).

Day 2, quick entry

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Had some good sessions on Tuesday. Probably the most useful dealt with building video tutorials for online applications. I think we have need of something like this, and it should be fairly easy to produce. Need to look into this.

Also, last night my wife and I used iChat on our Macbooks to have a video chat. Really cool. Worked great — everyone should get a Mac of some kind.

Internet Librarian 2008, Day 1

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The conference has been good so far. Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs, gave the keynote. Interesting speech. I’ve been aware of that book for a while, but since it deals with cell phones a lot and I generally am not a big cell phone guy, I haven’t read it. Actually, while I have a cell phone I like, I only use it rarely, and in society at large I hate cell phones, considering them a plague that I wish would be eradicated. There — now that we are clear on that — let’s continue. I may want to read the book. It sounds like it has some fascinating examples of technology-enabled cooperative behavior. 

While all the sessions I attended today were OK, only one really stood out for me. The topic was “Mashing up and remixing the library website“, and was given by two librarians from the University of Houston. They have created, essentially, a custom content management system. I believe it is based on Cold Fusion software. Anyway, you know how in iGoogle you can create new web page parts and move them around your page? Well, they have created something like that for the library website. The other librarians can create pages using this system, and everyone is happy. At least with regard to the website. Really neat, and beyond my technical skills. BUT, some of the technologies they use might be adapted to our website, which is cool. 

As always, while I’m taking notes in one document, I have another open for recording ideas that tend to come to me while I’m in these sessions. Sometimes they’re ideas for personal projects, sometimes work, sometimes both. That is really why I enjoy coming here. It gets my creativity flowing.

Looking forward to the sessions on Tuesday.

Self Portrait

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IMG_4724

Originally uploaded by bibliosk8er

Here I am in Monterey. I’ve been letting my beard grow out, and it’s coming in quite nicely. I’ll report on the conference later tonight. No point in trying to do it in even close to real time. I’m up against real blogging fanatics here — they can type really fast.