Collection Development for My Random Life.

This week I am in Oregon visiting my folks. I will also be attending the 2010 OnlineNW conference tomorrow. Last year I presented at the conference about the Western Writers Series Digital Collection at Boise State. I also tried to do some live blogging. Well, the presentation went okay but the blogging was near impossible due to the craptacular computer I had checked out from the University (thanks OIT). This year should be better since I will be using my own snazzy netbook.  So look for some updates tomorrow regarding the programs, speakers, and my impressions of Online NW.

Here the sessions that seem of interest to me right now (look at the whole program here):

Beyond Usability to User Experience
Usability alone can’t assure a useful and valuable solution that people will adopt and enjoy. The practices of experience research, strategy, and design provide a more holistic approach to delivering great experiences that provide real value both to the users and to the organization….

Building User Services with OCLC’s WorldCat Local
…They will also describe the challenges of supporting library services based upon a network-level software solution and of implementing a WorldCat Local-based system while simultaneously making other major changes in public services…

Web traffic and campus trends: a multiinstitution analysis
Ordinarily, it is difficult to generalize operational research conducted at one library to the environment of another. Different survey instruments, user populations, and sampling techniques make direct comparisons difficult. Despite these clear differences, libraries continue to use this literature to plan new services. There is a clear need to establish a baseline for comparison…

Using technology to reach more students in tough times: an analysis on five semesters of data connecting students with the Information literacy skills they need to complete their assignments
…A statistical analysis of the results of approximately 48,000 instances of 150 IL related quiz questions that have been mapped to IL related concepts will be presented. Through the analysis, a picture of the types of IL competencies WSU students’ struggles with, and those they demonstrate proficiency with will be drawn…

Sounds like fun, no?

Check out this post on www.l1brar1an.com

Here be some pics from my roadtrip and attendance at the 2008 Pacific Northwest Library Association conference. Clickty-click here!

I am going to be at the 2008 PNLA conference this week, which is going to be held in Post Falls, Idaho. The theme of the conference is “Libraries go Wild!: Beyond the Expected!” — with that in mind I am planning on camping the night before the conference and also on the way back so I definitely will come to the conference from the wild. I am hoping to make a grand entrance into the pre-conference session on Weds. about those pesky millenials/digital natives (poor kids, GenX is sounding better and better), anyway… I hope to stumble into the session  smelling like smoke, having tree sap in my hair,  while gnawing a  raccoon leg, and dressed like a Canadian fur trapper.

I am actually excited to see the conference because I had a heavy hand in selecting all the programs. I am also facilitating a panel on how libraries are using LibraryThing. It should be a grand old time if not crazily stressful.  Maybe I will just run off into the woods and somebody can make a movie about it and have Eddie Vedder do the soundtrack….

I’ll try to post pictures.