Conferences

Librarians show off their moves

Anonymous Patron — Mon, 12 May 2008 12:25:22 -0500

Here's an Article in the Cape Cod Times about the Book Cart Drill Team competition at the Mass. Library Association annual conference in Falmouth.

The stereotypes that pester librarians — that they wear their hair in a bun, don tennis shoes, wear frugal sweaters and go around "shushing" everyone all the time — were shattered immediately when the ladies from Plymouth came out dressed as Rockettes wearing little black dresses and fishnet stockings.

The One Big Library Unconference: Friday 27 June Toronto

Blake — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:32:31 -0500

The One Big Library Unconference: The One Big Library Unconference is a one-day gathering of librarians, technologists and other interested people, talking about the present and future of libraries. It's organized and sponsored by York University Libraries and the YUL Emerging Technologies Interest Group. Friday 27 June 2008, 9:00 am to 5:00 pm

ALA Visitors Follow in the Footsteps of Philip Marlowe thru Raymond Chandler's Downtown and Hollywood

Blake — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:55:45 -0500

WHAT: Private ALA edition of Esotouric's "Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place" bus tour, departing from Anaheim Convention Center
WHEN: Tuesday July 1, noon-7pm
COST: $125/person including fixed price luncheon at Musso & Frank Grill
GOODIES: City Lights Books is giving Esotouric 10 copies of their acclaimed anthology "Another City: Writing From Los Angeles" to raffle off among the 50 tour passengers.
MORE INFO: visit http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767

In July Esotouric, the eclectic bus adventure company whose tours reveal L.A.'s secret history, presents a special ALA edition of a tour dedicated to the city's greatest detective novelist, Raymond Chandler, and his personal relationship to the mean streets of Hollywood and Downtown LA, where he lived, worked and set his stories.

RAYMOND CHANDLER'S LOS ANGELES: IN A LONELY PLACE delves deep into a lost city that exists in shadowy parallels to contemporary LA. Bungalows. Crime. Hollywood. Blondes. Vets. Smog. Death. This was Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, which resonated from deft and melancholy fits of his writer’s bow.

ALA attendees are invited to join Esotouric on an exploration of the city that shaped Chandler's fiction, and that in turn shaped his hard-boiled times, in an afternoon's exploration of downtown, Hollywood and surrounding environs: Musso & Frank Grill, Union Station, the Hotel Van Nuys, Paramount Studio’s gates, and much, much more.

Through published work, private correspondence, screenplays and film adaptations, the tour traces Chandler’s search for meaning and his anti-hero Philip Marlowe’s struggle to not be pigeonholed or give anything less than all he has, which lead them both down the rabbit hole of isolation, depression, and drink. As the bus rolls from point to point, your guide Richard Schave draw the lines between Chandler's life and his fiction, offering insight into his peculiar marriage to the much-older Cissy, the enigmatic redhead who appears in many forms in his short stories and novels.

The tour includes a visit to Musso & Frank Grill, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood, for a fixed price luncheon in the "new room" where, in its former incarnation as Stanley Rose's Bookshop, Chandler wrote "The Big Sleep."

Reservations are being taken now for this unique opportunity to explore noir Los Angeles with door-to-door service from Anaheim. Email toursATesotoricDOTcom for more info, visit http://www.esotouric.com or call 323-223-2767

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule (new tours starred):
Sat May 3 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place
Sat May 10 - Blood & Dumplings San Gabriel Valley crime bus tour
Sat May 17- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Sat May 31 – BookExpo Edition: Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowki's LA
*Sat June 7- Visionary Hollywood
Sat June 14- Vroman's - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's SoCal Nightmare
Sat June 21 - The Real Black Dahlia
Sat June 28 – Amoeba Music - Where the Action Was rock history tour with guest star Ruthann Friedman
Tues July 1 – American Library Association Edition: Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles
*Sat July 12 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The New Chinatowns
Sat July 26 - Pasadena Confidential
Sat Aug 9- Vroman's Bookstore – Haunts of A Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowki's LA
Sat Oct 11- Vroman's Bookstore - Raymond Chandler's LA

Meeting Nancy Pearl

birdie — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:39:50 -0500

Nancy Pearl sat in my booth at PLA (in Minneapolis) for a half-hour, and it was a great, but brief, opportunity to meet her after having interviewed her (by e-mail) for a story here in LISNews in August of 2005.

Aside from her encyclopedic knowledge of books and reading, Nancy is just a great, down to earth person whom would anyone would want to have for a best friend/aunt/neighbor. She is truly devoted to getting the word out on reading, and although her schedule rivals many world leaders, she has a wonderful inner calm and relaxed manner. For that matter, she should be a world leader.

She was accessible to everyone, even the devotee who insisted she sign her action-figure doll with a sharpie. In the half-hour she was in the booth, she must have had person to person talks with at least 20 people, signed a dozen autographs, took a dozen photos and still had time to talk with me about travel, husbands, and of course what I've been reading, Vilhelm Moberg's saga of the Swedes voyage to America published in the 1950's, The Emigrants. Not exactly on Oprah's list, but she'd read it.

Thanks to all of you who came by with the magic words "birdie sent me". Enjoy your cards! If you're interested in seeing more pictures of Nancy and the In My Book booth, check out my flickr page.

21st Century Library Design

Anonymous Patron — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 19:13:53 -0500

Rick Roche sent over A Link to the PLA program titled 21st Century Design on which I reported over @PLABlog.org. He says it was full of good and challenging ideas for how libraries utilize space to provide new and better services. "This was a very thought provoking program. I know I want us to get neon signs. I have to think about some of the rest of this."

Call In Your Report From The PLA Conference

Blake — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 06:26:56 -0500

For those attending PLA 2008 National Conference, steps have been taken to allow conference participants to contribute reflections for consideration by LISTen. To leave your thoughts just call 646-495-9201 and enter the extension 12761. It would help immensely with such if you identified who you are and what library/vendor/agency/entity you work for as we will discard any anonymous messages. As long as we actually get some reflections left at that voicemail box, LISTen will try to air a montage of the best in the episode directly following the conference.

The telephone number above is a temporary one and will disappear at 5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time on March 29th. Voicemails will be accepted all throughout the conference.

Library Camp Kansas was a huge success!

Talking Books Librarian — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 13:07:16 -0500

Yes, Library Camp Kansas was a huge success. For links to more blogs, photos, etc., check out http://talkingbookslibrarian.blogspot.com/.

Hope to see you all there next year!

-Talking Books Librarian
http://talkingbookslibrarian.blogspot.com/

Going to Minneapolis for PLA 2008 National?

StephenK — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:25:58 -0500

The telephone number above is a temporary one and will disappear at 5:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time on March 29th. Voicemails will be accepted all throughout the conference.

BOBCATSSS 2009 Portugal January 2009: Challenges for the New Information Professional

Anonymous Patron — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:33:07 -0600

BOBCATSSS 2009 @ Porto, Portugal, 28—30 January 2009, Challenges for the New Information Professional
* Interdisciplinarity of Information Science
* Information Professional and Information Management
* The current impact of the new technologies in the life of the
Information Professional
* The rise and fall of physical libraries
* Information Literacy
* eLibraries & eArchives
* Librarian 2.0
BOBCATSSS is an annual symposium organised by students at a number of universities in Europe. It takes place under the auspieces of EUCLID (European Association for Library and Information Education and Research) and deals with themes from library and information science. The BOBCATSSS 2009 symposium is organised by students from the University of Tampere, Finland and the University of Porto, Portugal.

More information here: www.bobcatsss2009.org

code4lib conference

Blake — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 09:28:20 -0600

The code4lib Conference was born in a chatroom discussion in November 2005. code4lib members quickly coalesced around the idea, and Jeremy Frumkin stepped forward to host it at Oregon State University. It was such a success that attendees immediately set about organizing the next one, which was held at the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, hosted by the Georgia Public Library Service. In 2008 we'll be back in Oregon, this time Portland, again made possible by Mr. Frumkin and the rest of the crew at OSU.