ACRL Oregon/Washington 2006
Just got back from the 2006 ACRL Oregon/Washington conference held at the Menucha Conference Center outside of Corbett, OR. What a great site for a conference, and the conference itself was very good.
The keynote address was by Dr. Anthony Bernier a professor in the San Jose State Library school, he spoke on the emerging landscape of youth literacy, which was quite good. Not sure how someone would track all of the information he presented that youth are creating today, but nonetheless it is something to keep in mind.
The first afternoon finished up with a presentation on Library 2.0, from Jessamyn West, owner of Librarian.net, Jennifer had some great ideas and a lot of energy so it did not seem like another Web 2.0 presentation, and then Rachel Bridgewater finished up the afternoon.
I got in a great run on Friday morning in the dark and the fog, and had a wonderful breakfast. I have to say the food at the retreat center was really, really good. In the morning we had two presenters, one was a professor from Wester Oregon who used blogs in his classes, wish my Philosophy class did that; and then we got an update on how IM librarian service was running at U of O with Trillian. Good to see we are on the same path as them, offering the same type of service. There use of podcasts for the oral history of the Willamette River might be interesting to Mary.
Oregon State University demonstrated how they use the Wikipedia in a way I had not thought of before. Instead of bashing it for no authority, they show it as the development of a field and knowledge on a topic. They have the students use it in the exporatory phase of their research and it really makes sense. A possible rework for next year's gameplan program.