I was fortunate enough to attend ALA’s 2007 Annual Conference in Washington D.C. last week as a student volunteer. If you have never been to an ALA conference, as future librarians, you should definitely consider joining ALA and attend at least one conference in your career. It is a great way to stay current, learn about new trends, and connect with other librarians.  The best way to describe the conference is overwhelming.

When you register you are given two catalogues. One is a 222 page program guide that provides an overview of the conference, tips on getting around the host city as well as a detailed listing of all of the information sections on a day by day basis. The second book is a 136 page exhibit guide which provides a listing of all the authors speaking at the conference, a section on new library related products being demonstrated at the show and a map and a detailed exhibitor listing. 

These are not the only items in the conference bag you receive when you register. Also included are a ton of flyers and a few smaller guides that summarize the larger catalog;   including one titled “Into the Stacks: the Official Easy-to-Use Guide to the Exhibits”, that was published by ALA and co-sponsored by American Libraries Magazine. This book should not be confused with the other exhibit guide, which I assume is un-official, given that they were being handed-out on the street outside of the convention center. Both are very similar in size and content, however, this guide is published by Library Journal magazine a Reed Elsevier company publication.  

While at the conference I was able to attend several programs on a variety of different topics. There are programs on just about every area of librarianship and virtually ever library related topic you can think of. Given the focus of out class I was particularly interested in the use of technology in libraries.  One of my key take aways from the conference is that librarians a keenly interested in learning how integrate technologies into their libraries. 

Social networking technologies are HOT, and a major topic of discussion at this years conference. This point was driven home when I attended a program sponsored by YALSA titled “Using Technology to Market to Young Adults” the key speaker was our very own Michael Stephens. The program began at 8:30am on Sunday morning and was standing room only, counting the chairs and doing a little math I would estimate that there were over 400 people in the audience.  At the same time as this section was another program underway titled “10 Cool Technologies that Can Impact the Public Relations Plan @ Your Library”. This program featured Steven Abram and he talked about library 2.0 technologies.  I would highly recommend taking a look at his programs notes which are available at http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/prforum/prforum.htm.

A program titled “Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks in Libraries” that discussed the rapidly growing phenomenon of social networking technologies. See http://www.hiddenpeanuts.com/archives/2007/06/24/ala-2007-harnessing-the-hive-social-networks-libraries/  for a summary of the program. I was also able to attend a portion of the program titled “To iPods & Beyond” where I learned about Pandora  and MOG  for more info see: the Yalsa blog for more information: http://blogs.ala.org/yalsa.php?title=toipodsandbeyond_1&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

These are just a few of the very interesting and informative programs that were offered at the conference.  There were also programs on Tagging, blogging, Video Games as a Service, and the Top Technology Trends (a podcast is available on the LITA blog:  http://litablog.org/category/top-technology-trends/.

Technology is here to stay. As one speaker at the conference pointed out there are more libraries in the USA then there are McDonald. Although there are some great examples of social software technologies be used in libraries across the country it would seem to me that there is a tremendous opportunities for more libraries to adopt and integrate these technologies as a way to better market their services and better serve their patrons.  I would encourage all librarians to learn more about these technologies and not be afraid to bring innovation into your library, you patrons will appreciate it.