The Battledecks event at the CLA/CSLA conference in Sacramento was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who came and supported (and hopefully enjoyed) the event, our amazing crew of judges, slidemakers, our gorgeous Vanna White, and of course the competitors. I also wanted to give quick background on Battledecks in libraryland and give some credit where it’s due. First of all, we all need to give a big THANK YOU to Janie Hermann who brought battledecks to library conferences in the first place at Internet Librarian in Monterey. She has been one of the great people that I have had the opportunity to know in librarianship. If you get a chance to meet her, everyone let her know how awesome she is. Also, I want to thank *Tiffany Mair for being so instrumental in helping open the lines of communication between all the folks that made this possible at CLA. The folks at InfoPeople for all of their support, Stacey Aldrich for pushing it forward and making it happen, and Holly Macriss for her overall level of awesome!! I learned a whole lot from this event and next year’s will be better and hopefully bigger!
Anyway…. The real reason you are here. The videos and Slides of Battledecks!
And… the Slides (note, 11 not 10 slides per deck. I forgot that I was sent some extra slides two days before the competition and snuck them in)
Here is a list of things I forgot to do this year that I will do next year… Start planning it earlier, triple and quadruple check the slides, use a high resolution conference logo, have better introductions for the competitors/judges/vanna white, remember to sync my iPhone music to play correct battledecks music by Ed Hermann, include a photo of the Battledecks Trophy in the intro slides, what else would you like to see?
*Tiffany Mair is awesome and graduating with her MLIS soon. She’s a big deal so hire her!
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Having grown up in the greater Sacramento Region, I thought I’d give some of you out-of-towners, some tips and pointers about what to do, where to go, and all of that. Sort of like a mini tour guide. I hope you have a great time in Sacramento. I know I’m going to enjoy being back in my hometown!
Restaurants/Bars
Sacramento is home to some of my favorite restaurants and bars and the list just keeps getting longer and longer. Here is a my short list of delicious food options and some recommended menu items.
Tapa the World
Tapas the World has some of the best tapas I have ever had. I wholeheartedly recommend that you do two things while here. The first is that you must absolutely try the olives. The bright green ones melt in your mouth like butter except they are far more delicious. The second thing you need to do is be adventurous and let the waiter know that they should surprise with 3-4 of their favorite tapas. I have done this everytime I have been here (I go here a lot) and it has yet to fail me. Most tapas are under 10$ anyway so you won’t have to worry about huge bills at the end.
Kru
This is probably my favorite Sushi restaurant in the entire world right now. The sushi is fresh, the restaurant is clean, and the servers are great. What else can I ask for?
Two things to try, the Sweet Potato Beer and the preserved wasabi root. The sweet potato beer is incredible! I’m not sure how to describe it, but it’s a dark beer with a taste like a wheat and if I never drank another beer in my life… The preserved wasabi root is a variation on that traditional wasabi paste you get everywhere. But this has a fresher and cleaner flavor to it and I now can’t believe anyone ever served wasabi as a paste from a tube.
Fannie Annes
Three words… Peanut. Butter. Burger. It’s actually called a jiffy burger and the ingredients are: Peanut Butter, Hamburger Pattie, Bacon, Cheese, and of course a bun. This is not a meal for the faint of heart and if you know anything about healthy eating this is not a meal for the unhealthy heart. I’m pretty sure this burger will kill you if the deliciousness doesn’t!!
Places to See
Train Museum
Located in Old Sacramento, the California State Railroad Museum is a complex of historic facilities and unique attractions. Widely regarded as North America’s most popular railroad museum, there is something here for everyone! Throughout the year, experience lavishly restored trains, engaging exhibits, and unique special events.
Old Sac
From the website – The unique 28-acre National Historic Landmark District and State Historic Park is located along the beautiful Sacramento River. Bustling with activity, the district is alive with shopping, dining, entertainment, historical attractions and world-renowned museums set within the time of the California Gold Rush and the Transcontinental Railroad.
Capital Building
Catch a quick glance of the Governator! The Capital Building has been the home of the California Legislature since 1869, the State Capitol underwent a major renovation that restored much of the building’s original look. You can tour the restored historic offices of the Secretary of State, Treasurer, and Governor of the State of California. The building features exhibits and tours – and while the website says that you can “possibly an opportunity to watch the legislators debate a bill or cast a vote.” We all know the sad truth behind that one. I won’t comment here.
Second Saturday
Second Saturday in Sacramento is a fiasco to say the least. But it is also a great time if you know a few of the great places to go. Originally this night was a celebration of all of the great art and cultural activities that take place in Sacramento. For the most part (or at least the early part of the night) this is exactly what this is. However, as the night progresses the bars stay open longer and more and more people crowd the streets in what is becoming one of the great gatherings of people in California. Most of them are young and drinking heavily so if that’s not your scene, check out the galleries and restaurants early and watch the insanity from a quiet place.
However, if you are into the night life, this will be a fantastic night of good times for you. While it is the LGBT district of Sacramento I highly recommend the K and 21st intersection. The bars are great, the dress code is relaxed, and the people are a lot of fun!
A few of the New Libraries to See
There are quite a few new libraries around the Sacramento area and I would encourage you to take a tour of them when you get a chance. But I’m sure you will hear about them from the Sacramento Public Library folks. So, instead I will send you further out to explore the new Lincoln Public Library at Twelve Bridges and the new Martha Riley Library in Roseville. Both are fantastic in their own ways.
However, if you do want to stay in the Sacramento Area and see some new libraries and don’t hear from Sacramento Public Libraries, I guess I should mention them. So be sure to visit their new LEED-certified branches: Robbie Waters Pocket-Greenhaven, North Natomas, and Valley-Hi. But really… All of the Sacramento Public Libraries are great and I’ve been to most of them.
Special Events At the Conference
Reggae night
On Friday night you should check out the Reggae night at the Capital Garage that Tiffany Mair is putting together. This is an off-the-books event and should just be a whole lot of fun!
Unconference
The unconference at the Pasadena CLA was my favorite part of the whole conference. This is a loosely organized area where people can meet and talk about shared interests and ideas. Last year they met with new librarians and talked about finding jobs, social media, and many other topics. If there is something that you want to talk about you can even organize a meeting of like-minded folks and have your own conference session!
CYRM Banquet
The California Young Reader Medal is one of my favorite awards of all time. The books are chosen by librarians and children so they are always fantastic read-a-louds. When I was a school librarian (best job ever!) these were always my go-to read-a-louds and the kids always loved them. I can’t say enough wonderful things about CYRM so I won’t even try, but check them out.
Battledecks
Of course I would be remiss if I didn’t give a little shout out to my own event at CLA/CSLA. This of course is Battledecks. If you’re not sure what it is, the title links to my other blog entry that fully describes the whole event. It’s the same time as CYRM and both events will be EPIC so whatever you attend you won’t miss out!
I’m excited to see you all there, so go ahead and add me on twitter and/or just about any other social network. My screenname is always pcsweeney and you can find me anywhere that way. Find me and tell me about what you are excited about at CLA! If you’re not online, lets sit and have a drink and talk libraries for a while. See you there!
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UnconferencingI woke up on Wednesday morning at Internet Librarian to a text from Nate Hill who said that he was organizing a road trip down the gorgeous California Coast with Toby Greenwalt, Loida Garcia-Foibo, and Andrea Davis. It was early, but there was no way I could say no.
This trip turned out to be a lot of work actually as we talked about all kinds of library stuff. As Toby said “We can’t help but librarianing.” So, while this video that Loida made doesn’t capture all the ideas we came up with for the next Internet Librarian it does capture a really great aspect of the trip. BTW, if it did capture everything awesome on that trip, it would be hours long. 🙂
Librarians on a boatInternet librarian started for many people on Saturday at the Monterey Conference Center in California. For me though, it started on my sailboat in San Mateo on Friday afternoon. In fact, I never even went to a preconference workshop, which is too bad because I really wanted to attend the WordPress workshop. Luckily it was blogged by Polly Alida and you can read it here if you want. I don’t think I really regret not going to any workshop because my “preconference” was pretty awesome anyway.
Friday
I have been inviting some of the librarians I’ve met at conferences and around my area to my boat for a day of sailing in the California Bay for a couple of months and Andrea, Lisa, and Nate took me up on it. Unfortunately, this was the one time my engine didn’t work. That was fine, there was no wind and it was raining anyway. So we sat on my boat having drinks made by my roommate bartender and her cousin (also serves as my crew) and I listened while the smart folks on my boat talked about all kinds of library related things until it was time for dinner in the yacht club where they continued to come up with all kinds of library awesome.
It would be difficult to explain some of the great ideas that came up on the boat and I won’t really try but it was a great creative thinking experience free from the constraints of library system’s rules and regulations. It was amazing to listen to these intensely smart folks talk about libraries on my boat. My big realization was that we need to do more to create these kinds of freeform opportunities for librarians to gather and socialize and just brainstorm possible innovations.
At the end of the night, most of us passed out on the boat listening to the rain on the deck and the wind in the rigging. I hope everyone had as great of a time as I did. Next year, “librarians on a boat” will be bigger and better. You’ll be invited, so don’t miss out!
Saturday
Unfortunately, on Saturday I had to work but that was fine because I love my library! So I drove my motorcycle through the rain to Monterey right after work in the dark and after finally finding my hotel and warming up, I found myself in the lobby bar of the Portola Plaza with even more library awesome! How is that possible? I have no idea. But once again a whole lot of smart library folks were blowing my mind with creative ideas. Some of these ubersmarties were Stephan Abram, Roy Tennent, Marshall Breeding, Lisa Carlucci Thomas, and Nina McPhail, who just sat around with some good drinks and once again said the kinds of things that need to be said about libraries. So, once again I just sat and listened and had my brains blown out with awesome bombs until I had to finally sleep.
Sunday
This was a tourist day for me and I went on an amazing drive with Lisa and Nina down highway one in the rain and checked out the pacific coast. If you’re reading this and you’re at the conference, I really suggest you take a couple of hours and make the drive south to Big Sur and see some of the gorgeous coastline in our great state.
Afterwards, my roommate (And bartender from my boat), who had heard about my conference good times, came down to see how the librarians party. We went out to eat with so many great folks and stayed out way too late (of course). Once again, being that we are librarians, there were many great discussions about libraries and librarianship in general and I heard some heated and intense debates between fantastic library folks on issues that I never even thought existed! I now have so many new things to think and lots of new motivations to get out and do something about some of the things I’m concerned about.
I simply could not have learned more (or had more fun) by attending the preconference. Instead, having my own little “preconference” where I sat and listened to the brilliant people in libraries say amazing things I was able to hear some ideas from people that could not have occurred in a structured or more restrictive environment. And… Of course it was awesome!
The unabashed mounting fervor surrounding ALA midwinter is about to crash down on Boston like an Avalanche. I’m not going to lie, I’m one of the conference fanboys, but I feel like this conference is already off to a kind of insane beginning. As I’m watching the twitter feed it seems to be exploding with just about every kind of activity that makes these overly large conferences such a good time. I’m going to share with you some of this craziness in case you’re missing it.
1) Librarian Tattoos
Inspired by Andy Woodworth’s campaign for a Ben And Jerry’s Library Flavored Ice Cream, there has been a call for all librarians to get tattoos at ALAMW. Or, as the creator of this campaign (Justin Hoenke also from 8bitlibrary.com) has called the campaign – “Project Brand Yourself.” Yes, this is as crazy as it seems. Librarians are going to descend on Boston area Tattoo parlors and get branded with the library logo. Now, I’m a big library fan and I would love to just go and watch librarians get branded with the library logo, and I even want a tattoo, but I’m not sure this is going to be my first. If you get one, let me know when and where so I can watch or at least post a photo. I support this project and support everyone who gets a tattoo. Go get’em!
2) The Socials
By following the twitter hashtag #alamw10 I’ve decided that librarians drink the highest amount of alcohol per capita vs. just about any other profession anywhere. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at the socials and happy hour events going on at ala. It’s going to be hard on my liver.
3) The Twitter Feed itself
Already, the hashtag #alamw10 is on fire with content and information. I’m excited to see how this plays out over the course of the conference. It’s possible, that like #CLA09, the feed will die out once the conference begins but with the number of power tweeters attending this conference I’m not sure that will be the case. If you’re new to Twitter or just need some good folks to follow for this conference, I’d like to recommend a couple to you (there are far too many to list them all, these are just a few);
And of course the Official Tweet of ALA Midwinter @alamw
4) Bloggers
With the high number of power tweeters comes a high volume of power bloggers. What’s nice about these folks is that they almost all have a Twitter account and you can find them via the conference hashtag. One exception, of course, is Annoyed Librarian, but nobody likes her anyway. But, in case you’re not a twitterer I’ll give you some of my favorite bloggers just in case. Here they are (in no particular order);
5) The Conference
Of course, let’s not forget the reason we are all here in the first place. This conference is huge. Perhaps this conference is not as big as ALA annual but it is still very large. ALA reports an average attendance of 11-12 thousand librarians. While this conference is mostly a business meeting, there will be some really great institutes, meetings, discussion groups, and other events covering everything from web 2.0 to such staples as Library Management. With so much going on it’s hard to decide what to do first. But everything you need to plan your ALA conference is available online via Twitter, Facebook events, Organization Blogs and websites, and at ala.org through their event planner, and ALA Connect. Take some time and check them out.
6) ALA Secrets…
For those of you who want to know what really happens at ALA midwinter, or those of you with secrets to share I’d like to introduce you to alasecrets.com. You can submit you own secrets, trysts, misdeeds, and misfortunes at the conference anonymously for the rest of us to live vicariously through. This twitterfeed is absolutely entertaining and so are many librarian’s reactions to it! I love that it causes such a stir that it was hacked and brought down at the last conference. I hope that everyone can be cool and have a good time checking out what’s really up with librarians (even if we’re lying about it).
Internet Librarian is a conference I have been wanting to go to for a couple of years now but I’ve always been committed to other conferences throughout the year that took up large amounts of my conference going budget. This year though, I have a new job as a branch manager that pays well enough and offers some financial assistance to attend various conferences thus allowing me to attend the ones I typically go to AND Internet Librarian! Needless to say, I’m pretty much a librarian geek and conferences really get me all excited. So what am I doing to prepare?
Well, one of the first things I’m doing is twitter stalking other folks that are going to the conference. Hopefully, they’ll stalk me back and we can get a kind of secondary cyber conference going. So every couple of hours or so I’ve been checking in to twitter to follow other folks who are going. I’m hoping that I can find out about some of the other sessions even though I didn’t attend those and maybe go to some tweetups around Monterey and geek out with other librarians. So if you’re a twittering librarian feel free to let me know you’re attending so I know to follow you!
FYI- The hashtag for Internet Librarian is #il2009 and I only recently figured out that it WASN’T #ili2009. That hashtag was for the international version of this conference in London.
A Sweet conference commuter!Because I live in San Jose and I’ve worked in Monterey while living in San Jose, I’m fairly familiar with the commute between the two cities. Also… I’m cheap. So instead of paying the money for a hotel room for the conference I’m going to be commuting. This commute will be fun though because I’m going to be driving my motorcycle and the drive along highway 1 is spectacular and the weather in Monterey is always perfect. So in preparation I’ve gotten a tune up on my bike, new tires, oiled my chain, etc… (it probably would have been cheaper to just get a hotel and drive my car) and now I’m all ready to make some beautifully scenic morning and night drives along the California coast.
Flip Camera I’m also going to buy a digital video camera of some kind. I’m thinking of getting a Flip because of the great reviews and the price. Hopefully, I’m finally going to be able to add some new video to my youtube channel, Facebook, and this blog site. If there is a wireless connection at the conference site I might be able to upload multiple videos throughout the day. So if you’re one of the people like me who’s tired of all this reading, hopefully, you’ll be able to just watch the video instead.
Lastly, of course, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to attend. Unfortunately, it looks like I am going to have to miss Saturday’s Library Camp and Sunday’s Gaming and Gadget Petting Zoo (Boo!) but so far I am going to be following these tracks.
Monday:
Track B: “Social Media, Leveraging Web 2.0”
B101: iGoogling With the Library: Customized Omnipresent Homepages
B102: Creating Connections & Social Reference in Libraries
B103: Micro Interactions, Conversations, & Customers: Sweet Tweet Strategies
Julie Strange
B104: 2.0 Too: Web Services for Underfunded Libraries
B105: Evaluating, Recommending, & Justifying 2.0 Tools
Marydee Ojala
B106: Sneaking the Social Web Into Your Library & Going Beyond 23 Things
Tuesday:
Breakfast at the Marriot for “Meeting the End-User’s Expectations”
Track C: Mobile Trends & Practices
C201/C202: Dreaming, Designing, & Using Mobile Library Platforms
Matt Benzing
R. Toby Greenwalt
C203: Putting Your Library on a Mobile Phone
C204: Mobile Marketing
C205: When Students Go Mobile
Kristine Ferry
Wednesday
Track C: Cultivating Innovation & Change
C301: Every Library Should Have a Sandbox to Play In
C302: Persuasion, Influence & Innovative Ideas
Nicole Hennig
C303: Pecha Kucha: Innovative Practices
Nicole Hennig
Steven Harris
Steven Harris
Amy Affelt
C304: Retooling Technical Services for the Digital Environment
Doris Small Helfer
Brad Eden
Overall I think I think I’m going to have a great time! There are so many other tracks that would be fantastic to see but I think I just need to stick to what I have and go with it. If you’re a dork (like me) and are interested I will be blogging for PLA on their site, twittering, and I will be posting videos here from my youtube channel. If anyone has any other suggestions for good times at Internet Librarian, I’m always game to change my plans, meet some good folks, and have a good time! And, of course… Don’t forget to check out Compagno’s for the biggest and best sandwiches of ALL TIME!!
The Battledecks event at the CLA/CSLA conference in Sacramento was a huge success! Thanks to everyone who came and supported (and hopefully enjoyed) the event, our amazing crew of judges, slidemakers, our gorgeous Vanna White, and of course the competitors. I also wanted to give quick background on Battledecks in libraryland and give some credit where it’s due. First of all, we all need to give a big THANK YOU to Janie Hermann who brought battledecks to library conferences in the first place at Internet Librarian in Monterey. She has been one of the great people that I have had the opportunity to know in librarianship. If you get a chance to meet her, everyone let her know how awesome she is. Also, I want to thank *Tiffany Mair for being so instrumental in helping open the lines of communication between all the folks that made this possible at CLA. The folks at InfoPeople for all of their support, Stacey Aldrich for pushing it forward and making it happen, and Holly Macriss for her overall level of awesome!! I learned a whole lot from this event and next year’s will be better and hopefully bigger!
PC Sweeney 