Day 2 in Philly

Yesterday I was back to the Convention Center at the crack of dawn for a workshop called Engaging Customers in an Online Environment. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Yelp and more... all the ways that HUGE library systems connect with their patrons. Not that these aren't tools that can be useful in Freedom (hello, blog!) but the perspective was from multi-branch library systems with many, many employees. Still, I came away with a determination to stay on top of what we have in place already - website, Facebook page, blog, e-newsletter. Not sure I'll be tweeting anytime soon though.

Next up: Reaching for the Future: You've Got to Take the Risk to Get the Reward. How are libraries innovating to show our relevancy? Creativity, innovation - I thought this would be a great session but I was wrong. The first 15 minutes was an infomercial on the presenters' creativity conference coming up in  Colorado. How the conference was born, why did they choose Telluride, etc. Who cares? The space was much too small for the number of people there and when we were to break into small groups to create a new product (what will the purpose be, what materials will we need, what procedures to use...) I could see that my time would be better spent talking to vendors in the Exhibition Hall. I gave up my seat to one of the 20+ people who stood near the doors, not even allowed to sit on the floor because of fire regulations.

I made it a point to talk to three vendors of library automation systems since the one we use for circulation and cataloging has many significant flaws and is no longer being developed by the company. I found two systems that might work well for our small library and I will be spending more time learning about their pros and cons in the next few weeks.

Then it was time for lunch. Amy Friedman, librarian in Hudson, NH, organized a gathering of NH librarians at PLA and 10 of us went to lunch at a great Dim Sum restaurant nearby. We talked about our PLA experience thus far and enjoyed a delicious meal.

My afternoon was devoted to programming. My first session was Engaging Teens on a Shoestring Budget. A four person panel shared what they are doing to serve teens in their libraries. Unfortunately again, the libraries presenting were huge, not standalone libraries but library systems serving many thousands of people. So although there were certainly ideas I can modify for Freedom, much of what was discussed had no relevancy for us. Putting together program kits with materials and instructions to put on the same program in multiple branches, a whole presentation on QR codes (scan-able codes for smartphones) and creating a recognizable brand (this was more about marketing that programming), one library system's success in creating an online tutoring service. Interesting, but not a whole lot to take back to Freedom. One presenter did share particulars on actual teen programs that went over well.

My final session was Program-Palooza: 60 Programs in 60 Minutes where the presenter shared programs that her library branches had put on for participants of all ages. She shared all 61 ideas in 45 minutes so in the final 15 minutes, librarians from the audience shared their hit programming ideas. This was even more useful than the official presentation because the librarians mentioned only their greatest successes when at the mike.

After this, I made my weary way back to my hotel room to rest a few minutes before dinner with my daughter Ellie who is a senior at nearby Bryn Mawr College. A definite highlight of my day!