Some Observations from My Conference

I’ve been at this conference for seven hours now. Some of my thoughts are as follows:

• When hosting a COMPUTERS in Libraries conference, the hosting hotel really ought to make sure that its wireless network is robust enough to handle 1500 librarians all trying to get online at once. I keep getting bumped off the network, and that’s an easy way to make Bryce a very disgruntled boy.
• Some librarians seem to me to be a little too set on “bucking the stereotype” when it comes to librarians. I mean, I’m all for not having your hair in a bun and wearing glasses and shushing people left and right, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many piercings in a group of librarians before. (Now, what I think would be tres cool is if there were some here who combined those–a dyed bun, perhaps, with glasses featuring skulls, and enough piercings to set off a metal detector from space.)
• When hosting a lunch to tell people about your new product, try to organize things well enough so that the people you’re trying to wine and dine don’t end up feeling like they’re being herded like cattle.
• When the program states a panel will teach you something new about searching, be more skeptical. Different web sites doth not new search approaches make.
• The freebies at a Computers in Libraries conference exhibit hall aren’t nearly as cool as the freebies at an ALA exhibit hall. Sad, but true. I wanted lasers. Was that too much to ask?

In any case, “coffee break” is over–time to head back to a panel.