ACRL Philadelphia: Current Event

If you hung around after the sessions of the day ended, you'd find that the Convention Center and the Reading terminal would turn off most of their lights. Presumably, this was for the laudable purpose of saving energy, which even at that level might still take a million hamsters in a million wheels to produce. Ironically, Philadelphia was the residence of Benjamin Franklin, known for his experiments with electricity and whose face adorns the nearby power plant.


"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Now Hear This

Library conferences are not lavish affairs, though certainly sufficient. They could be much worse. Think of a conference so cheap that the single microphone is made of cardboard. This is just as well, for such a conference could only supply electricity through a small hamster running in a wheel.


"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Testing (4)

Asking a question of a speaker extends ownership of the talk to the questioner and concentrates the learning experience. Questions that are irrelevant or trivial or very long--as others have said, people stop looking at their watches and start looking at their calendars--can make, if not the speaker, then some of the audience impatient or testy.





"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Testing (3)

Speakers are chosen by merit, but in the matter of the question/answer session, it's a free-for-all. What if there were an award for the best question, for the one that tested highest? While it wouldn't guarantee the raised quality of a question, it surely couldn't hurt. It might be an incentive to ask thoughtful questions (and within a fixed time limit).

As to who would be the judge, maybe that could be the speaker or the audience, through applause.





"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Testing (2)

Sometimes it seems that speakers are chosen for the degree of incomprehensibility that they can bring to a topic, which may be recondite to begin with (e.g., knot topology). The understanding of most of the audience is tested and found wanting.




"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Testing (1)

Before a talk, to determine the efficacy of a microphone, a technician often says "Testing." I wish the tester were more creative. For a library conference, such as ACRL, that person should pronounce the words "Dewey" or "LC," and if more needs to come, start through the schedules.

If poetry were favored, there's Shakespeare's "Give every man thy ear but few thy voice." Me, I'd vote for a recital of Milton: "High on a throne of royal state."



"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Well, Shut My Mouth

     During the question-and-answer session following a speaker, why do some questioners go into an expansive essay mode? Maybe a captive audience brings this out, or they're intoxicated by the speaker's charisma.

     It is unfortunate that such persons are not limited, Twitter-like, to 140 characters--or to the terseness that decades past characterized telegrams ("Hello [stop]. I liked your talk [stop]. I have a question [stop]. [Etc.]") Instead, they appear to think that they are being paid by the word.



"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Filler

The room for the 8 a.m. speaker was of optimistic dimensions, but the size of the audience didn't live up to them. Even if it was about circus performance, an invited paper was insufficient motivation to get people out of bed or from their breakfasts. Then again, it is arguable if before or after the talk more of the audience were befogged.






"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Bird Calls

Some poster proposals are not accepted because they show the library as technologically backward. For example, if one were sent suggesting the use of carrier pigeons to fly e-mails between library workstations.





"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set." 

ACRL Philadelphia: Sucker

In my first visit to a Philadelphia restaurant I ordered a soft drink, which came with a straw. When I put my mouth on the straw I was chagrinned to taste paper. The wrapping had been removed except for the top two inches. Presumably this was a compromise to please both a customer's sanitary finickiness and desire for convenience--this was a restaurant where you didn't even have to tear off the covering of a straw, for the waiter was tough enough to do it. After this experience I looked exactingly before sucking on a straw, and indeed found this custom repeated in other restaurants. Maybe it is native to the East Coast.

"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set." 

ACRL Philadelphia: Keynote vs. Keynote

The two keynotes bookending the last day were a contrast in content and dress. The first speaker, Jaron Lanier, was a t-shirt/jeans kind of guy who spoke about technology. He reflected his subculture. The last speaker,  dapper and dandiacal Clinton Kelly, spoke on fashion. (I found his subject removed from librarianship and of small interest, but going by the number of questioners he attracted, whoa! was he popular.)

The more philosophical might find the two different speakers symbolic of the split betwixt the mind and the body.



"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."

ACRL Philadelphia: Slay That Again

 The first keynote speaker bore the handle of Tiffany Shlain. To a person self-conscious about having slurred speech, her surname is a godsend.
 





"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set." 

ACRL Philadelphia: Not(e)

During talks species of audience attendees were divisible among:

(1) Those who took no notes. Self-confident in their memory, they were, in appearance, unencumbered by pen and pad or laptop that would get in their way of listening to the speaker.

(2) Those who took notes. Writing in a manner that ranged from surreptitious to ostentatious, and industrious to a fault, these individuals didn't trust to memory.

(3) Those who had pen and pad or laptop for display alone. Maybe they forgot the implements were there, or heard nothing worth recording.

"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set." 

ACRL Philadelphia: Tuna and La Scala

Across the street from the conference was a food market, full of crowds and bustle. During a break between meetings I discovered that in one case displaying fish was a type with the sign "porgy" that fortuitously lay next to another, "sea bass." There they were: Porgy and Bass.






"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set." 

ACRL Philadelphia: Why There

What a coincidence. The conference for librarians was next-door to a former railroad terminal named Reading.







"One in an ACRL Philadelphia series. Collect the whole set."