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2008 MLA, Day 2
November 20, 2008 03:46 PM | Professional Organizations, MLA2008Michael Scott, Assistant Director
Though the day isn't over (but the sessions almost are!) I thought I'd share a few thoughts about Day 2 at MLA. The morning started off with a great session by the author Will Weaver and the value of children's literature and publishing. Will recently made the switch to writing for young people and in particular has targeted his writing to young men. Being a "car" guy, his latest books "Saturday Night Dirt" really reaches out to those young guys who are interested in cars and what he calls "technical literacy" -- they can fix anything. It certainly was motivating to me. Though not a car guy, I certainly grew up around "gear heads" and getting them to read anything is certainly no small feat! Check out his stock car that he takes out to schools: http://www.motornovels.com/
Keeping with the technical services/cataloging theme, I attended the session "Rethinking Tech Services: A Workflow Analysis." Library staff from Macalester College, Minnesota State University (Mankato), and Dakota County discussed how they had done major overhauls to their technical services (i.e. cataloging, serials, acquisitions) functions. If I could take anything away from their presentations (which were all different) it was to continually ask "Why are we doing the things we do and do we need to continue doing them?" They all found ways to add efficiency to their processes, eliminate unneccessary work, and have staff buy-in as well.
Finally, I had the opportunity to see the work being done at Rochester Public Library on developing a staff wiki. Brian Lind from RPL presented "Creating a Jimmy Choo Staff Wiki on a Shoestring Budget." Great presentation and certainly a good solution for RPL to organize all the information their staff needs to access quickly. Certainly makes a wiki worth consideration!
Day 2 was a great day at MLA and I'm looking forward to the MLA Business meeting and the Awards Banquet later this evening.
