Aaron the Librarian

In case you’re wondering where I am, or what I do, all day at conferences, it’s all wine and ambrosia for me. Details in the calendar below:

Good luck keeping up

Another November, another conference on the way…
I’ll update with more Governance Events as I learn about them.

Another May, another conference on the way…
I’ll update with more Governance Events as I learn about them.

What would you want to talk about at an ALA Membership Meeting at Midwinter 09?  The question was asked on the Council list, and I immediately thought of you.  Some suggestions were included - but what would *you* want to discuss?

Membership meetings are where the Membership gets together to “formally” tell the Council and the Association where to go (yes, occasionally “like that” but not usually)

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The Committee on Membership Meetings, chaired by Stefanie Warlick, is trying to come up with a topic for the Membership Meetings at Annual Conference that will both draw members and be informative.  They’d like to get suggestions from members of Council.

Please suggest a topic of interest to you or a new slant on one of the topics they’re already considering:

1. “Value of ALA membership” - I think a major campaign is needed by ALA on this, but I’m not sure it will draw people who are at the conference; they’re more likely to know the value.

2. “ALA/library profession response to economic downturn” - this might be combined with advocacy; something like: “Grassroots Advocacy: How to Promote Libraries in Hard Times”

3. “E-Participation Update”: E-participation was what we did last year, but by annual the Task Force Report will be being debated.  Having it again may be helpful, but this wouldn’t be my first choice.

4. “Socially Responsible Investing: Can We Afford It in Hard Times?”

5. “Is ALA Too Liberal?” Although SRRT and other groups might prefer it to be “Is ALA Too Liberal or Too Conservative?” This would bring bigger crowds, I suspect.  We did something like it a couple of years ago relative to the War on Iraq.

6. “Core Competencies of Librarianship: What do library school graduates really need to know?” Just passed by the Executive Board, developed by the Presidential Task Force on Library Education. Must be approved by Council, but may be a done deal by Annual.

The meetings will also feature a “Talk to the Leaders” segment, and resolutions take precedence for the last half of the meeting.

So I’m doing stats today (pulling reports instead of uploading data) and I find that while the huge table of usage I can pull is quite the nice data set, it could really use some functionality (maybe it’s there and I missed it) to improve the reporting

Suggestions for functionality:

Reports by month are very handy, I love ‘em; but it would be great to be able to get semesterly reports, fiscal and/or academic year reports, top 10 (20, 25,50,100) or most used databases, bottom 10 (20, 25,50,100) or least used databases, trend analysis by database, percentage of total usage within reporting period, etc. with one click.

Also there has to be a way to “normalize” some of these database names on the fly.  I have “Academic Search Complete”, “Academic Search Complete Publications”, and “Academic Search Complete — Publications” used in different months.  Couldn’t these all be merged into one database (maybe with an option to break them out in a “database details” popout chart?

These are just what I’m running up against today, I’m sure I’ll have more suggestions later.  Just wait until I have the time to dig into the ERMS at the Journal title level - then we’ll have some fun

Anyone have other ways to mash their data?
What reports work well for you to help understand your use patterns and usage data?

Myself and some others have noticed a dearth of presentations on Virtual Reference over the past few years.  I wonder why?  Too much “nuts & bolts” or “how I dun it gud” presentations on the topic in previous years?

Would a more philosophical presentation/discussion raise interest?
Is virtual reference a brain-dead obvious service these days?

Here’s a list of possible themes/questions which I wonder about / think might be good for discussion points:

Themes:
Co-browsing — requirement/superfluous?
Typos — acceptable/omgwtfbbq no way?
Follow ups — email/chat/phone/f2f appointment?
Reference Knowledgebase — use chats to fill/make stuff up/guess what users might want or need?

Questions:

“What are the basic requirements for “Virtual Reference”?
IM?
Avatars?
Reference Blogging?
Meebo Widgets on every page?

Brainstorm with me!

Feel free to comment on Friendfeed if you prefer, though some new commentary on the blog would make me feel good, too

ALA Ribbons

Originally uploaded by AaronTheLibrarian

These are the 17 honestly-come-by ALA 2008 ribbons I found and wore like a badge of honor (or should I say suffering?) along with all 5 of the ALA2008 Surfboard designs

Yes, I’m a bad boy; I was only supposed to have 1 surfboard. But I was also an ALA Ambassador & wanted to be able to easily show people the design choices while I was at the Ambassador desk in the ALA Pavilion… honest!

Dude!

Originally uploaded by cindiann

Here’s a close up of maybe 1/4th of my conference ribbons — centered on my fave ribbon, no less
These ribbons were few and far between… and I was specifically hunted down to be handed this one *blush*

Thanks @cindi for taking the pic!

Aaron Dobbs

Originally uploaded by cindiann

Just a little blurry & slightly out of focus — This is my favorite picture of me from ALA Annual.
Plus, that is the most appropriate t-shirt for me /evar/

Thanks @cindi!

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.