Conference

Carleen Huxley — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 01:36:11 +0000

So, I just attended my first “real” conference this past weekend in Oklahoma City. It was titled “Digital Information and Knowledge Management: New Opportunities for Research Libraries.” If I had paid a little more attention to the title, then maybe I would have realized that the attendence was going to consist mostly of research and university librarians and been a little more prepared for the fact that I was the only student, the only public librarian and perhaps a little out of my league. In any event, it was ultimately a great experience. Some of the topics presented weren’t entirely innovative. Many expressed the need to shed traditions, to be willing to take more risks with new ideas and technology, to anticipate change better so as to be more proactive and better prepared for the future and of course, the one we talk constantly about in class, collaboration between librarians and faculty. Some of the audience members were a little frustrated with the last one since many of them have found faculty to be very unresponsive to the idea of working along side their university librarian. Although they seem enthusiastic about the idea at first, when it comes down to it, they don’t have the time nor the energy to put into collaboration and seem to feel that library matters should be taken care of by the librarian. Funds are also a problem, especially when it comes to digitizing collections. There has been a movement in recent years to form official standards for digitized collections and while most librarians would obviously like to abide by these standards, those who are responsible for funding the projects tend to be more interested in the “cheaper version.”
Charles T. Cullen, President of The Newberry Library in Chicago had a very interesting talk titled “Is there a Digital Purgatory”. The analogy he used in his title was actually influenced by a speaker at the IFLA conference last year, who refered to a Kingdom of Virtuality and a Library of Babel . To be honest, I didn’t entirely see what this analogy had to do with his talk, but he had some very interesting points anyway. For example, he really feels that librarians should be cautious about digitizing special collections since they will often turn out to be rather fragmented versions of the print collections. He sited an example, a personal experience he had when he was helping to organize a set of letters written by Justice John Marshall to Thomas Jefferson. In one case there was only portions of a letter, so Cullen was unable to decipher when it was actually written. He did, however, notice that the paper the letter was written on had a watermark of a date. This is a perfect example of how crucial information can be lost through the digitization process. Cullen also mentioned something that I think many librarians have already noticed about digital collections, and that is the search and find capabilities still need a little work.
Dennis Dillon, of the University of Texas, took a very candid look at how Google is affecting libraries and user habits. He was wonderfully blunt when he said “Nobody will prefer a librarian over the internet, just because they are apparently better trained to interpret Google results” and expressed a need for librarians to be realistic about their strengths and weaknesses, not to mention making more of an effort to stay on top of things.
The conference was held at the Embassy Suites Hotel. They aren’t kidding about the suites. You do get a suite in your room, in addition to a microwave, fridge and two t.v.’s. TWO! Dad drove down with me so he could use the historical library to do some of his geneology research. After the conference was finished on the first day, we drove down to Bricktown and watched a movie (Million Dollar Baby- highly recommend). Then we went back to the room, and watched another movie. Can you tell I am t.v. deprived at the moment?

Carleen and Mike » 2005 » March » 09

Conference