All Sessions

Diversity has become an increasingly important issue within our profession and association. The five associations of ethnic librarians (AILA, APALA, BCALA, CALA and REFORMA), the GLBTRT, and ASCLA’s LSSPS, serve as important forums for the advancement of diversity and service to diverse users. The Town Hall will provide an opportunity to hear from these seven member groups, to discuss their current efforts towards achieving a more diverse profession and to identify new opportunities for collaboration and support across the profession. The Diversity Town Hall is open to all conference attendees.

An unconference is a participant-guided experience that harnesses the unstructured conversations people usually have between conference sessions into the conference itself. Unlike most conferences where talking heads and group leaders decide what is important, unconferences are organized by the crowd. Unconferences are about sharing the knowledge and passion we have for our profession and taking what we learn into the world to make a difference. Everyone has something to share. Everyone has something to learn. We can all change the world.

Meeting of Big Heads

Did you attend this Interest Group meeting? Take our post-conference survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/alctsevents2012

Meeting of Big Heads

Did you attend this Interest Group meeting? Take our post-conference survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/alctsevents2012

The Chapter Leaders Forum, presented by the ALA Chapter Relations Committee at each ALA Midwinter and Annual, provides a great opportunity for Chapter Leaders (especially incoming leaders) to meet and discuss a full agenda on topics to help prepare them to lead an association. Topics have included Membership Development and Retention, New Revenue Ideas, Social Media, and Advocacy. This event requires advance registration and includes lunch.

ALTAFF’s popular Nuts & Bolts is jam-packed to inspire Trustees, Friends, and Foundations. Coffee begins at 9:30 a.m. followed by topics including engaging volunteers for you library and Friends group, advocacy, social media, and inspiring success stories. Lunch on your own. The afternoon session begins with David Levinson, author of “Everyone Helps, Everyone Wins.” Deborah Stone from ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom will talk about current hot topics followed by the popular roundtable discussions. Please RSVP to altaff@ala.org if you plan to attend.

Please join us for two very interesting presentations on FRBR and its impact on cataloging and catalogs.

Jennifer Bowen, Assistant Dean for Information Management Services at the University of Rochester River Campus Libraries and Chair of the eXtensible Catalog Organization

The eXtensible Catalog (XC) is free, open source software that provides a production system for converting MARC, Dublin Core, and potentially other metadata schemas for use in a FRBR-based discovery environment. XC’s software development and accompanying user research show how the FRBR model directly supports the needs of users and has taught us important lessons about implementing FRBR in a production environment. These lessons can also help guide us as we examine the feasibility of incorporating the FRBR model into the creation of linked data for libraries. .

Scott Piepenburg, Cataloging Coordinator/Metadata Librarian University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

Scott will present on the basics behind FRBR and it impacts cataloging and an ILS. He will discuss how FRBR is related to Ranganathan’s theory of cataloging and how an ILS can use the information. The presentation will offer theoretical and concrete examples of FRBR principles in practice and how they apply to real-like objects. It concludes with a discussion and example of how an ILS may, or may not, be designed around FRBR principles.

Did you attend this Interest Group meeting? Take our post-conference survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/alctsevents2012

NISO/BISG Update

Speaker session on Intellectual Freedom issues of the day.

"Reimagining the library catalog: changing user needs, changing functionality"

Do we need to change our perspective on what the catalog should be doing based on changes in the education and economic environment? What is needed, what could be changed, and what would be worth retaining, taking economic realities and educational goals into consideration? It has been argued that catalogs are not giving users what they need nor taking into account how they search. There is an objection to cataloging favoring the 1% using the library for research at the expense of the 99%. If cataloging practice is biased toward scholarly research, and we are able to change the bias, will this change the overall quality of education? If the bias is changed in favor of non-scholarly uses, how does the Library of Congress respond? What are the identifiable changes in scholarly discovery in the web environment that could change our perspectives on cataloging support of research?

Did you attend this forum? Take our post-conference survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/alctsevents2012

Provides an opportunity for Education Librarians to gather and discuss relevant issues.

Authors of the book, Conversations with Catalogers in the 21st Century, written by cataloging librarians, educators and information systems experts, express their views topics such as:

Cataloging concerns regarding RDA and AACR2 at various cataloging agencies.

New cataloging workflows and bibliographic/authority record structures that may offer more effective and efficient data access.

History and future of cataloging and metadata and the need for higher education, on-the-job training, and staffing recruitment.

Did you attend this Interest Group meeting? Take our post-conference survey at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/alctsevents2012

Do you belong in RUSA? Come learn more about this the Reference and User Services Association--a division of ALA. We represent librarians, library staff and leaders in readers' advisory, collection development, genealogy, reference services, adult services, business reference, archives, interlibrary loan and resource sharing, reference technologies and more. Current members looking for ways to get involved with the division are also welcome to attend.

What is the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)? How can this ALA division help you? Learn more in this mixer-style orientation, where you can get an overview of the division, its activities and what YALSA has to offer you. New members and those considering membership will learn more about the benefits, and established members are welcome to attend this great networking opportunity!

What is the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)? How can this ALA division help you? Learn more in this mixer-style orientation, where you can get an overview of the division, its activities and what YALSA has to offer you. New members and those considering membership will learn more about the benefits, and established members are welcome to attend this great networking opportunity!

Are you ready to get involved with BCALA? BCALA leaders will discuss the mission, vision, constitution and by-laws, organization structure, and opportunities to get involved.

Find out what's going in ALCTS and meet ALCTS members and leaders

Writers and publishers discuss writing for boys

Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket, Why We Broke Up) – Little, Brown
Michael Grant (Gone, The Magnificent 12) - Harper
Jon Scieszka (Guys Read) - Harper
Andrew Smith (The Marbury Lens) - Macmillian

Learn what's new with Dewey, including DDC 23 WebDewey 2.0 and Abridged 15, and share ideas and notes with your colleagues.