Final Thoughts on MLA 2006
MLA 2006 was great for me. I met a lot of new people and reconnected with old friends. I would like to thank my three volunteer bloggers, Rachel, Jennifer O. and I. Martinez for contributing to this blog. MLA is a big event and this blog covered so many more things with the four of us writing then it could have if it was just me. Check out Jennifer's post "Transformation Begins with a Single Step..." on the Krafty MLA 2006 Blog.
I learned a lot this year. Starting with, I NEED a laptop. It was pure torture getting to Phoenix on Thursday (to take a Friday CE class) and then waiting until Saturday 5:30 to use the Internet in the "Internet Cafe" when the exhibit center opened. You don't even want to know the amount of spam I had to delete.
Most of the presentations and classes I attended were on demonstrating the value of the library, benchmarking, and return on investment. There were quite a few "AH HA" moments for me and I hope to use what I learned to make my hospital library better and stronger.
I do wish MLA conferences had more techie speakers and programs.
Take a look at the Internet Librarian 2005 Program:
Social Computing & the Info Pro, Google-brary: The Status Quo of Tomorrow’s MEGALIBRARY
Google: Catalyst for Digitization?
Competing with Google: Library Strategies.
Some of the workshops at Internet Librarian 2005:
Creating Online Tutorials in Less Than 30 Minutes
Organizational Weblogs: Opportunities, Strategies, Tools
Implementing Federated Searching and OpenURL-based Linking Services
Searchers Academy, and Technology Planning for Libraries: Avoiding Technolust & Technobust
While I think all of the programs, lectures, and workshops at MLA were helpful and interesting, I feel that MLA (the conference and the organization) is constantly playing catch up with the rest of the library profession regarding new technology. Do I think MLA should program similar to the Internet Librarian Confernce? No, but we need more of a technology infusion in our profession, organization, and our conferences.
MLA has the Medical Informatics Section, however it seems I hear less from them (and they are a part of MLA) than I do from LITA (which is a part from ALA).
What are your thoughts on the conference? Was there anything you thought that was spectacular or was there anything you felt lacking?
3 Comments:
Thanks so much for providing a space for Bloggers during MLA 2006! I had a great time at the conference and meet lots of wonderful people. This was an excellent networking opportunity, and I really enjoyed seeing all the interesting ways health science librarians are educating and assisting clinical professionals, familes, and the healthcare communities.
One thing that concerned me about the association was the advertising efforts of MLA. On Sunday morning, during the debut of the Health Sciences Librarian Infomercial, which is available on CD-ROM, it was stated that MLA spent advertising monies in several journals, including 2 library journals, U.S. News & World Report, Prevention Magazine, and the AARP magazine. Given that the average age of a typical reader for some of these publications is 40+, it would seem that MLA is trying to recruit individuals who are looking for transitional careers in medical librarianship.
The print advertising efforts should be commended. However, it concerns me if MLA wants to attract new/upcoming librarians - I'm not sure how many would read the publications above.
I had a great time at MLA. It's funny that you think they're constantly catching up with the library profession with regards to technology. If that's true, then my library is REALLY behind the times. No blogs, no IM , no chat reference, no obvious email reference. And no, I'm not in a hospital library. This is an academic institution! So maybe the techie thing is relative.
One thing I wish was done better is providing guidance for the colleague connection. I was paired up with a more experienced librarian, but it would have been nice if she would have included me more. I saw her twice for very brief periods and that's it. No words of wisdom, no come have lunch with us. None of that. Bummer.
What personally concerns me about librarian recruitment efforts in any kind of library is the availability of jobs. Yes, I can recommend my profession based on my own personal experience. But if someone wants a job without moving across the country, what then do I say?
I think perhaps our profession (medical librarians) as a whole is playing technology catch up somewhat to other library professions. There are some medical librarians out there doing neat techie things but I don't hears as much about it as I do from other library professions...I don't know why.
I feel your technology pain. I have no library blog, no control over my intranet web site design, no IM, no chat ref, and no real email ref. Our hospital is not wireless, there is no pda/tablet pc initiative, and we don't even have an adequate online training room for the hospital. Perhaps the medical librarians seem to behind in technology because our institutions are struggling to keep up...just a thought.
I am sorry your colleague connection didn't go as well as you had hoped for. I would let MLA know your thoughts on that, perhaps they need to have a set of expectations that they need to give the mentors.
You raise an interesting point about recruitment and finding a job. I might have blog about that in a future post.
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