Dr. Evil stole my mojo! - Day 5 at SLA2007
Owww.
The last day of conference for me was very nice and very interesting ... but I could not bear to take notes. It was just painful. Not that I didn't get a lot out of the sessions ... okay, maybe I didn't get a lot out of the sessions. But I got some things.
News Research 101 - 7 am(?!!!?!)
It was, so some extent, a perfectly titled class - it covered a lot of what I've heard at other conferences on how to market the news library within an organization, how to use computer-aided reporting tools to contribute to complicated investigative pieces and initiative possibly new stories (or new angles on stories). The meat of those presentations came in how those particular procedures and tools were used at specific libraries and for specific stories. The most interesting presentation for me was on taking the tracking/billing forms, using a web-form/online tool to enter them with added fields for more information and basically creating a KnowledgeBase of active and inactive questions (which would allow multiple researchers to work on the same problem while not going over the same areas [thus saving time and money]).
Closing General Session with Scott Adams - 9 - 10:30 am
Not a huge Dilbert fan, especially after finding User Friendly, so I skipped. Found a wonderful diner nearby (Sam's #3 on 15th and Curtis if you're in downtown Denver) and tried to follow along with muted CNN (you would think that the graphics would help, but not so much). Heard later that Mr. Adams was pretty funny, but I really appreciated my French/Texas toast.
Social Networking Systems - 11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Interesting session. Unfortunately, I missed most of what G. Kim Dority had to say about using LinkedIn but she did give a handout with a list of resources, such as columns she's written on the subject that I look forward to catching up on. Regina Avila of the Denver Post gave a very intriguing presentation on using sites like MySpace and Facebook to search for potential contacts/subjects of news stories. And Joe Murphy, also at the Denver Post, talked about multiple identities online and the efforts towards identity systems (one login to rule them all), such as OpenID. Joe's an IT guy who hasn't done many presentations, but he did a pretty good job - at the outset of his presentation, I would say that he had mashed up the presenting styles of Jessamyn West (used HTML instead of a PP-type app/slide show) and Larry Lessig (dark background, easy-to-read typeface with simple animation, and only a few words per "slide" for the first half of the presentation). Tres cool, it was.
I should mention that I have been thinking about some of the things presented in this session, before I arrived and now definitely after I heard it. There may be future posts about this ...Archiving Systems - 1:30 - 3 pm A very nice presentation by 2 news librarians at U.S. News and World Report, on how they manage to convert their new CMS system to also archive and do other things ... but I was mentally checking out at that point. I'm sorry I don't have more to say about this.
Later that day: I went to a baseball game. It was a lark, mostly because of the company but I also enjoyed the game -- and the hot dog -- and the garlic fries. Mmmm, garlic fries. Oh, and Cracker Jack, too!
At the News Division Suite later, there were worries about midwestern storms (and high winds in Denver) delaying flights, and I spoke at length to one of the candidates for President of SLA. Gabbed and gushed with the folk until I tottled off to bed.
It was a very good conference. Next year is in Seattle! Woo hoo!! I may need to take a week and a half off for that one ...