2005 Conference - Day 1: pt.1
It's the first day of the conference, proper, and there are a few more people here. In fact, we don't get the same seats we had yesterday. Gen and I have ended up in the back, but that's fine, because I'm closer to a wall outlet for my computer so I don't have to run on battery all day. Works for me.
The worship is very good. It's given by a member of the Religion faculty and he tells us how important it is that we remember that we're already citizens of heaven and not to give that up for any of the Devil's inducements.
And of course, as preachers do, he goes a little long. And then the college president, who says he's recovered enough of his health to get out, welcomes us to Union and tells us that, even as a college president, he's been a great fan of libraries. He also cites a couple of examples of how some schools and libraries are moving more and more towards being fully electronic and getting rid of their books. He says it's interesting how higher education seems to be fighting against progress just as much as they claim to be embracing it. We're really going to have to rethink how we approach our responsibilities as librarians in the next few years.
Then we get the Keynote Address from George Summers. George is almost
literally the Dean of Adventist librarians. And may, in fact, be the first one to get his Doctorate degree in the field. We're not sure because we're not sure when Janith Lewis from Oakwood finished her degree. But he has some fascinating stories to tell about his career. One of the things that really struck me is how he encouraged so many of his staff to go to library school. This essentially created a whole generation of Adventist librarians, the ones that are carrying ASDAL forward today. He said that raiding other institutions for librarians just diluted the pool and didn't help those other institutions. Some very good thinking, there.
And yes, he went long, and we're about a half hour behind schedule, but his stories are worth the delay. We've got alot of time for lunch, we'll recover.
After his presentation, Larry Onsager, from Andrews University, gives a response. Larry used to work for George, and has collected greetings from other people who have worked with him or known him through the years. There's also some cake in the hallway afterwards! Very nice. (and thanks to Steve Sowder for the cake photo).
I've ended up helping to fix some of the problems we had
yesterday with the video projector. Turns out they were solved by reading the posted instructions. Who knew? So everything works for our next presenter.
The next two presentations are pretty interesting from a Technical Services point of view. Mike Showalter is here from Serials Solutions and tells us how well their product works, and alerts us to problems that creep in when Google picks up errors from the bib records they're putting online. So we're going to have to be careful in our cataloging. Suddenly the consequences of switching a couple of numbers in an ISSN are much greater than they were before.
Then Sallie Alger and Steve Sowder tell us about Andrews' experience with the new MelCat consortial catalog. Sure, MARC is a standard for catalogs, but apparently there are many ways if implementing those standards. Especially when it comes to holdings. And those all have to be worked out when you want to share data. It does provide job security for catalogers, but we'd just as soon avoid those problems by making everyone conform to us, I think. I had a little experience with this at Columbia Union College when we integrated our library catalog with 3 other libraries. There were several meetings of the catalogers from these institutions, and we finally made it work. And much more smoothly than I feared.
Now we just have to figure out what to do for lunch. Do we go to Valentino's or The Parthenon, or just give in and go back to the college cafeteria. It would be a pity to be here and not partake of the wonderful food opportunities in the area. But it's tough without a car. And when the people who do have cars are in meetings, it's even tougher.
The worship is very good. It's given by a member of the Religion faculty and he tells us how important it is that we remember that we're already citizens of heaven and not to give that up for any of the Devil's inducements.
And of course, as preachers do, he goes a little long. And then the college president, who says he's recovered enough of his health to get out, welcomes us to Union and tells us that, even as a college president, he's been a great fan of libraries. He also cites a couple of examples of how some schools and libraries are moving more and more towards being fully electronic and getting rid of their books. He says it's interesting how higher education seems to be fighting against progress just as much as they claim to be embracing it. We're really going to have to rethink how we approach our responsibilities as librarians in the next few years.
Then we get the Keynote Address from George Summers. George is almost
literally the Dean of Adventist librarians. And may, in fact, be the first one to get his Doctorate degree in the field. We're not sure because we're not sure when Janith Lewis from Oakwood finished her degree. But he has some fascinating stories to tell about his career. One of the things that really struck me is how he encouraged so many of his staff to go to library school. This essentially created a whole generation of Adventist librarians, the ones that are carrying ASDAL forward today. He said that raiding other institutions for librarians just diluted the pool and didn't help those other institutions. Some very good thinking, there.And yes, he went long, and we're about a half hour behind schedule, but his stories are worth the delay. We've got alot of time for lunch, we'll recover.
After his presentation, Larry Onsager, from Andrews University, gives a response. Larry used to work for George, and has collected greetings from other people who have worked with him or known him through the years. There's also some cake in the hallway afterwards! Very nice. (and thanks to Steve Sowder for the cake photo).I've ended up helping to fix some of the problems we had
yesterday with the video projector. Turns out they were solved by reading the posted instructions. Who knew? So everything works for our next presenter.The next two presentations are pretty interesting from a Technical Services point of view. Mike Showalter is here from Serials Solutions and tells us how well their product works, and alerts us to problems that creep in when Google picks up errors from the bib records they're putting online. So we're going to have to be careful in our cataloging. Suddenly the consequences of switching a couple of numbers in an ISSN are much greater than they were before.
Then Sallie Alger and Steve Sowder tell us about Andrews' experience with the new MelCat consortial catalog. Sure, MARC is a standard for catalogs, but apparently there are many ways if implementing those standards. Especially when it comes to holdings. And those all have to be worked out when you want to share data. It does provide job security for catalogers, but we'd just as soon avoid those problems by making everyone conform to us, I think. I had a little experience with this at Columbia Union College when we integrated our library catalog with 3 other libraries. There were several meetings of the catalogers from these institutions, and we finally made it work. And much more smoothly than I feared.
Now we just have to figure out what to do for lunch. Do we go to Valentino's or The Parthenon, or just give in and go back to the college cafeteria. It would be a pity to be here and not partake of the wonderful food opportunities in the area. But it's tough without a car. And when the people who do have cars are in meetings, it's even tougher.
posted by Stan | 12:42 PM
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