Skip to main content

NASIG 2015 - Day 3

The conference overload was starting to happen on Friday, but I soldiered on.

At breakfast I talked to someone from a regional library council. Her background is in special libraries, but in her current position she works with a ton of teeny tiny public libraries, so I was excited to find someone with some common ground.

As for the opening speaker, I was pleasantly surprised. The head honcho at Alexander Street Press talked about the future of open access publishing and the reception was mixed. First, he was surprised that librarians didn't think all scholarly publishing was going to be open access in the next decade. Then when he described how publishers were going to stay in business, basically by providing services that either make it easier for researchers to publish or to find what they're looking for in bare bones open access text, the crowd seemed ready to revolt and scream that that wasn't really open access. Maybe because I'm not in academia I'm not so up in arms about this, but I couldn't really understand what all the fuss was about. What he was saying made a lot of sense.

My concurrent morning session was about USUS a really helpful website for understanding and reporting issues with COUNTER reports. As expected, it was really hard not to get bogged down in the details, but I do feel more confident about using the site now.

For lunch we had a small vendor fair with snacks scattered around. Unfortunately the only two vendors there that were really relevant to me were a vendor I really don't like much (so didn't want to talk to them) and a vendor who has the best salesperson ever, but she did not come to this conference, so I wasn't that interested in talking to them, either. I of course nabbed some swag, though.

My first afternoon session was about free tools available to manage the electronic resources life cycle. I yet again feel guilty for not really understanding Access, but I wrote down the name of some other resources they listed and I think I may give Trello a try.

The second session kind of confused me. I thought it was supposed to be about the crazy amount of unwritten duties that go into being an electronic resources librarian, but it sounded like your typical "Here's how we done good" presentation. Maybe it was helpful for others, but the projects they talked about had nothing that I could apply to my library.

Saturday was a day where I really wasn't  interested in any of the conference offerings, so I didn't partake. But I'm still sticking around because I signed up for a post conference workshop on Sunday.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ebooks & Libraries

For a long time I've been frustrated with the way ebook publishers have been approaching library lending, but my rage has been overruling my sense and I haven't been able to get many coherent thoughts into print. Luckily Bobbi Newman pretty much hit the nail on the head with her " 9 Reasons Why Publishers Should Stop Acting Like Libraries Are the Enemy and Start Thanking Them ". I could go through each of her reasons and expound on why each one makes so much sense and explains a piece of where my frustration is coming from, but I'm going to focus on the points that have been bugging me the most. First from the consumer side, I know I'm not alone in the group of people who don't like to buy books until they're pretty sure they're going to love them. I simply read too much for buying every book I read to make any sort of financial sense. Often that means borrowing the first book in a series or by a new author to see if I want to spend money on th...
1 comment
Read more

Reflections of a New Community College Librarian

After months of searching I finally found found a job and I have to say that I'm really surprised with both where I landed and how much I'm loving it. After focusing primarily on the public library reference jobs that were similar to my most recent position, I stumbled onto a couple openings at nearby community colleges. When I'd first graduated from library school I heard somewhere that people who worked in community college libraries claimed they were this magical land where public meets academic, where you don't have to deal with spoiled rich kids and people are looking for things more stimulating than the latest James Patterson novel. But I went to library school so I could become a public librarian and I loved the public library job I eventually got, so I never really thought about that statement. While I loved my public library job, one of things I discovered I loved most about it was teaching public computer classes. Eventually it clicked with me that academi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dystopian Series for Teens

Talking about dystopian novels last time, this week I'm back with more, this time with teenage protagonists. It's interesting how the adult novels tend to focus on the society at large and then you start to identify with the main character. These novels for teens start with the hero's story and then progress to illuminate how their story affects the larger world. Also because I happened to find so many, I'm sticking with only series. The Giver Trilogy by Lois Lowry - a loose trilogy following three teens through a world where each community limits the lives of their people in different ways. The Giver (1993) - 12-year-old Jonas is assigned the occupation of "Receiver of Memory". It is his job to take on the memories of their community before it was wiped clean of the strong emotions of love and hate and things like colors. As he begins to learn more about the way life used to be, he finds it harder to stay in the community. My seventh grade English teacher ...
Post a Comment
Read more