A Newsletter for New England Library Association Members
Vol. 2, No. 4: May, 2006

In this issue:

NELA Conference Planning

by Susan Raskin Abrams

Vermont in the fall

Peak Performance, this year's Annual Conference, will be held October 22-24 at the Sheraton Burlington Hotel and Conference Center in Burlington VT. And what a great conference we have for you! The locale is gorgeous and the time of year is great. As chair of the conference committee, let me encourage you to attend.


Some highlights of this year's conference:

A lot of work is put into making the annual conference exciting for you. The conference committee includes about 30 hardy souls representing all types of libraries and positions in those libraries. Several of these committee members are NELA section and committee heads; others comprise a diverse group of librarians and paralibrarians from all over New England, ensuring that each NELA member is well represented and can benefit from the superb choices offered at NELA. You can be assured that there will be something for everyone.

The wonder of the NELA Conference Committee is that it meets only four times for each conference! The first meeting is held in January and the last one is held in June. Not everyone on the committee is able to attend all the meetings but, thanks to email, each person's voice is heard. Because the committee is large, the work is disbursed, and most members can focus on the planning and arrangements for only two or three programs. At the first meeting, program ideas flow, and preliminary decisions are made. Then it's time for members to follow through – finding speakers, choosing program titles, and preparing a presentation for the second meeting.

At this second meeting, the committee goes through a first tentative schedule, day by day. Some programs are moved in the schedule to mitigate speaker conflicts, or to allow conference attendees with a particular interest or background to attend as many programs as possible. Out of this discussion, we discover some programs in need of better definition, and others that can be dropped. Inevitably, there are more program ideas than available slots. In addition to this program creation process, the conference chair presents the conference theme and brochure graphics.

Sheraton BurlingtonBy the May meeting, our third – and typically the first at the conference site – all program information has been sent to the conference manager. At this meeting, committee members put on their writer's hats and concentrate on the descriptions for the conference brochure, with 50 words or less the goal. (This can be, for some, the hardest work they contribute!) There's a reason that committee members are encouraged to trek to the conference site for this meeting: members can "walk the floor" to get an idea of how the schedule will flow.

The final meeting is held at Conference Manager Mary Ann Rupert's house in New Hampshire. This is a "tie up loose ends" meeting. We get to see the brochure, finalize the schedule, and try to clean off our to-do lists. We have a "potluck" lunch to hang out with one another, schmooze the small stuff, uncover what we may have overlooked, and discover what we need to remember.

I can't overlook an important preparatory event to these four committee meetings. Every year, in December, the conference manager, NELA president, and Conference Chair / NELA vice-president take a road trip to the conference site. During this visit, auxilliary events are often arranged. This last December, Mary Ann Rupert, Janice Wilbur, and I toured the Sheraton Burlington, and arranged for a Lake Champlain dinner/sunset cruise for the Saturday night preceding the conference, on the Spirit of Ethan Allen, and for our conference reception to be held at the Echo at the Leahy Center for Lake Champlain (a fresh water aquarium) on Monday night.

OK. There's a behind-the-scenes look at the planning for a NELA Conference. A boring committee this is not. I look forward to seeing you at this year's conference in Burlington and, who knows, maybe on next year's conference committee!

 

Susan Raskin Abrams

Susan Raskin Abrams has been Supervisor of Children's Services at the Newton Free Library since 1984. A Simmons graduate, she has been active in the Massachusetts Library Association, serving on MLA's program committee and also on its executive board as Jordan-Miller Storytelling Chair. Twice Board Chair of NERTCL (New England Roundtable of Children's Librarians), Susan has also ably served on the NELA board and conference committee, and is currently Vice President / President-elect of NELA. In addition, she has been involved in a variety of regional and consortium activities.


Printer-friendly view of preceding article

In this issue:

Library 2.0

by Cheryl Bryan

Library 2.0 is a model for library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way in which services are delivered to library users. Sarah Houghton (Librarian In Black) defines Library 2.0 this way:

Library 2.0 simply means making your library's space (virtual and physical) more interactive, collaborative, and driven by community needs. Examples of where to start include blogs, gaming nights for teens, and collaborative photo sites. The basic drive is to get people back into the library by making the library relevant to what they want and need in their daily lives…to make the library a destination and not an afterthought.

This redirection will be especially evident in electronic offerings such as OPAC configuration, online library services, and an increased flow of information from the user back to the library. With Library 2.0, library services are constantly updated and reevaluated to best serve library users. Library 2.0 also attempts to harness the library user in the design and implementation of library services by encouraging feedback and participation.

The concept of Library 2.0 borrows from that of Web 2.0, (the interactive, hot spot web) and follows some of the same philosophies underpinning that concept. Proponents of this concept expect that ultimately the Library 2.0 model for service will replace outdated, one-directional service offerings that have characterized libraries for centuries.

Additional resources:

Cheryl Bryan, a past president of NELA, is Assistant Regional Administrator for Consulting and Continuing Education, Southeastern Massachusetts Library System. cbryan+NELAsecure+semls.org

Printer-friendly view of preceding article

In this issue:

NELA Calendar

NELA maintains a calendar of events – both events sponsored by NELA and its sections, and non-NELA events that we think might be of interest to our members.

In each month's issue of New England Libraries, we will publish a month view of this calendar (see below). This is a live calendar. As events are added, you will see them appear. Also, the initial month displayed will be the current month. (This is true of all issues, even those originally published in previous months.) To view a different month's calendar, use the small calendar navigation at the left.

Our calendar is powered by Trumba (www.trumba.com). If you are familiar with Trumba calendars, you probably know that you can interact with individual events: add them to your Outlook calendar, have email reminders sent, etc. If you're not familiar with these features, we encourage you to take a tour of the Trumba site.

This calendar is also available on the NELA web site, in the left margin of NELA's home page (www.nelib.org) and on a separate calendar page (www.nelib.org/calendar) showing several views.

So, to review:

For additions or corrections, please contact NELA's publications manager (publicationsmanager@nelib.org).

Printer-friendly view of preceding article