ASDAL Web Coordinator

ASDAL 2006 - Day 3

2006-07-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

After the long day yesterday, I wasn't sure how many people would make it to the meetings today, but we have a really good turnout, which is fortunate because our worship is given by Dr. Ruth WillamsMorris of Southern's School of Education & Psychology. She's always good.

Then we have an all-morning presentation from Tina Mason of Solinet on disaster preparedness. Recovering from a disaster doesn't start after the disaster happens. If you're only starting there, you're way too late. Planning is the key. And people have to know what the plan is, and be able to implement it quickly in order to save as many materials as possible when horrible things happen. It's easy to forget about planning and about the details of a plan, but we need to change that thinking.

After lunch, we go straight into our Breakout Sessions. This is usually my favorite session. It's fun to get together with fellow Technical Services people and talk about how we do our jobs and share information. And we try to only gripe a little! Somehow, I am often asked to chair our group, and I don't know why that is, but I'm fine with it. I think I'm getting better at keeping the conversation flowing. In fact, we have so much conversation, they have to send someone to get us and tell us to stop talking because it's time to come back together for the next session. These things never seem to be long enough.

Marge Seifert has a presentation about how she's done her bibliographic instruction sessions here at Southern, and how they've changed as different technologies, such as wireless and the availability of laptop computers for instruction, have become available. She has time for only a quick demonstration of the SynchronEyes software that we use to control the student laptops from the instructor's computer. Unfortunately, I've been using the computer that she normally uses as the instructor to do the recording of these sessions. She needs it for the presentation because it's the only one that works with the student laptops. So this means I need to quickly download and install the Audacity recording software onto the other library laptop. Then I discover that the mic input on that laptop doesn't seem to work. All I'm getting is loud static. Fortunately I have my own personal laptop with me as well (which I'm using to write these blogs), so I have to download and install on that now. So I miss about half of Marge's presentation. I'll try and get the slides from her and put them up on the website, at least. Because it's a good presentation.

Then after a quick break, we give our Breakout Session reports. One of the good things about being Chair of a group is that you can appoint someone else to give the report! But that's fine, I'm scheduled to give two reports in the Business Session that follows immediately after these reports. What always interests me about these reports is how serious the discussion is in the Directors and Public Services groups. They usually come up with recommendations for the group, whereas our group usually just shares information, tips, and has a good time. But I suppose each group does what's best for its membership.

My reports at the Business Session for the Website and SDA Classification Advisory Committee are basically that I have to do some more work this next year. Some interesting things have been happing with the website, including the completely on-line registration form for this conference and the implementation of a PayPal payment option so that we could pay by credit card instead of only by check. Yes, there were a few problems, but we'll keep working on ways to solve them. The SDA Classification Committee hasn't actually done that much work this past year, but during this next year we need to find a new editor for the schedules and try to get a new edition published. Should be fun.

We finally get out of the Business Session with a bit of time to spare before we all have to be over at the Presidential Dining Room for the annual Banquet. I, of course, have to head over right away with many of the other Southern staff to help get things set up. Such is the case for those who host, I guess. Fortunately, our staff has been very good about pitching in and getting things done, so things have run pretty smoothly.

The food service staff out-does themselves with our food. It is very good. And then we have a concert on the hammer dulcimer from a local girl that one of our staff managed to find. She's very good, and plays a nice selection of tunes. That instrument takes alot of talent to play, and she's got it. I just love the sound of it, too. Then the Resolutions Committee gives its report. They do a very good job for only having had 2 days to work on it. Bruce may have a very definite talent in this area.

Finally, time to get back home and to bed so we can get up for the last day of the conference. Sorry, no pictures today. I seem to have been a bit distracted.

ASDAL 2006 - Day 2, The Tour

2006-06-22T09:19:00.000-04:00

Well, we're up bright and early for the tour day. Hopefully everyone else will be, too! And hopefully nothing will go horribly wrong.

We're in for a shock, though. The bus that we arranged for with Southern doesn't show up until nearly the time when we're supposed to leave. Well, it's a short trip, we should still make it. Bruce does an interesting worship on the bus, and Frank gives us an outline of the day and some local history of the sites we are passing on our way to the Railroad Library.

The Kalmbach Memorial Library is very interesting. It's a special library, dedicated to the collection of periodicals and books and catalogs relating to railroads and model railroads. They have a very nice collection and do a brisk reference business. It's amazing, the kinds of questions they are able to answer there. If someone is looking for the actual specfications of a particular piece of rolling stock, they have the specs. They even have a fair number of instruction sheets for various model railroad kits.

Unfortunately, we can't stay long, because our tickets for the Tennessee Valley Railroad are for 9:00, and we have to get to the station so we don't miss our train. When the train shows up (it was running a couple of minutes late, too), they have two cars attached to the diesel engine (they were working on the steam engine today, wouldn't you know), a closed, air-conditioned car, and one with windows you can open. Of course, I have to have the open windows. There's something about riding in a train, rolling over the tracks, that's really quite fun and relaxing. And if you can have the window rolled down, so much the better! The ride is only 3 miles, but we get to cross a few bridges, and go through a tunnel. Great fun. And at the end, we have time to watch them turn the engine around on a turntable. Really quite fascinating, watching that huge, heavy thing spin around in front of us, and heading off on another track. I can highly recommend this trip.

Then we're back on the bus and heading into town to visit the Chattanooga Hamilton Bicentennial Library, the main public library downtown. They are engaged in a project to digitize a large local history photo collection. And the fun part of this is the process of identifying buildings and people in the photographs. They aren't always labelled, or labelled correctly, so the staff have to use some detective skills to accurately identify both the objects in the picture, and the time period when the picture was taken. Of course, they are underfunded and probably understaffed, but the staff is amazingly dedicated to their task, and I think this is going to be a huge contribution for local history research. Hopefully every community will be able to do something like this!

After the presentation, we have a chance to ride Chattanooga's electric shuttle buses through the downtown area to find a place to eat. We have to skip the first bus that comes past us, because it's full. Apparently, since it's lunchtime, downtown office workers use these busses to get to eating establishments as well! How odd. But we finally make it to the Mellow Mushroom, and have some very nice sandwiches and pizza. I don't know where everyone else went, but I can only hope that their lunches were at least half as good as ours was.

After lunch, we hop back on the electric shuttle and ride down to the Chattanooga Ducks to take a ride through town and out on the Tennessee River. I've always loved riding the ducks, ever since summer camp at Little Grassy Lake in Southern Illinois. I just think they look cool, and it's great to be able to drive straight from the road into water and keep going. We ride up the Tennessee for a bit, and take a close look at Maclellan Island, a bird and wildlife sanctuary adminstered by the Audubon Society. While we're on the river, the driver invites passengers to take a turn at the wheel. So a couple of people from our group take a turn, including Ralph, Linda, and even me! It was great fun. While I was steering, the driver asked if I liked donuts. Well, sure, of course! So he says to crank the wheel all the way over and we'll do one. That was fun. And educational, as it turns out. I learned many things about Chattanooga's history and the Tennessee River that I never knew before. These drivers may be a bit crazy, but they know their stuff.

And now for more history. We're off to the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame & Museum. The first tow truck was invented here in Chattanooga, and they've put together a nice museum of the history of towing and a hall of fame for those in the business who have distinguished themselves over the years. It's great looking at all the old towtrucks and seeing how the technology started and how it has changed over the years.

Then it's on to one of Chattanooga's premier destinations (or at least one of the most widely-advertised after Rock City and Ruby Falls), the Incline Railway. basically a funicular railway that rides a mile up the side of Lookout Mountain. I've been to the station at the top several times, but for some reason, I've never actually ridden the railway until now. It's quite a ride. And it gets pretty steep up at the top. I highly recommend taking the ride.

After we get back down from Lookout Mountain, we head across to Signal Mountain for supper at the Pastaria, a very nice Italian restaurant. I haven't eaten here before, either, but I'm definitely coming back. The food is fantastic, and their waitstaff manage to keep up with our group and make sure we're all well-fed.

Well, that was alot of places to hit in one day, but fortunately, they were all pretty close together, and I think it worked out well. I know I had a good time, and I'll sleep well tonight!

ASDAL 2006 - Day 1, pt.4

2006-06-20T20:43:00.000-04:00

I don't know how this always happens, but I get 3 entries in for the morning sessions, and then just one to cover the entire afternoon. Oh well, that's just how it goes, I guess.

I managed to scarf some lunch and then headed back to the meeting room because I needed to be ready for my presentation. Tony was before me, and I am sure that he had a good presentation, but I honestly didn't catch much of it. Too preoccupied with mine, I guess. He did have a good point about collection development that I do remember, though. He said you should go to faculty members, ask them what books they have on their office shelves that they are always turning to, and make sure you have those books in the library collection. Brilliant. I hadn't thought about that, but that's absolutely what you want in your collection. Great way to build it.

Then it's finally my turn to present. I'm not exactly sure what made me want to present this year, but I guess I just had a feeling that it was finally my turn, or something. I had been to several presentations on podcasting and blogging in the last year, so I was interested in sharing a little bit of what I'd learned. I think these are good technologies to embrace, and that's where a goodly portion of our patrons are wanting to get their information these days. They want it delivered to them, they don't want to have to go get it themselves, necessarily. Whatever we can do to make it easier for our base to get the information they need, the better, I think.

But of course, as Dan noted in the Q&A section, unless we're able to publicize these resources, what good are they? If you make a podcast and no one listens, are you still doing a good job? Probably not. Frank's presentation Friday should give us some ideas on how to publicize these new resources to our communities. Should be interesting. He's done some great things for us here at Southern, and I think ASDAL will be interested to hear about it.

Then it was the first Business Session. And the most important thing that happened is that I wasn't elected to the Nominating or Resolutions Committees. Yes, it would be a great honor to serve ASDAL in any way I could, but I've been on those committees before, and I have no great urge to serve again. But I'm sure the people that were elected will do fine work.

Tomorrow is the trip, and it looks like it'll be a good one. There's a fair amount of stuff here in Chattanooga that I haven't done, but isn't that always the way? You live near interesting things, but never visit them unless you're taking out-of-town guests to see them. Oh well, we have guests, so we're going to go see some good stuff!

ASDAL 2006 - Day 1, pt.3

2006-06-20T11:30:00.000-04:00

Two more presentations this morning. First up is a trio of librarians from Southern to tell us the history and future of our Library Liaison program. It started with just Loranne talking to faculty to get some input on the book and periodical orders. It has evolved to involve everyone on the library staff working with all the departments on campus. Anything we can do to involve the faculty in building our collection and to get them to think of the library more when they plan their curriculum and programs is a good thing. As always, more must be done in this area, but I think we had a good start and we're working on making it better.

Next up is Steve Sowder telling us that we need to work on the infrastructure of our web pages. Style sheets are going to be a much better way of getting our web pages up. Separating style from content will enable you to update and maintain your site more easily, plus it'll probably make your pages load faster, and that's always good news for your users. Again, looks like I need to spend some more time on the ASDAL web page. I've got to learn this stuff and start using it. It just all takes time, doesn't it? But it has to be done.

Pardon the short blogging this time, there's alot going on, I'm thinking about my presentation coming up this afternoon, and I'm getting kind of hungry. Seems like a long time since breakfast. I'll be back after lunch. Promise.

ASDAL 2006 - Day 1, pt.2

2006-06-20T09:01:00.000-04:00

Keith Clouten leads off the presentations today. He's been active in ASDAL since the start, I think, and has served in nearly all of the available offices. So he's well qualified to speak about the history and his hopes for the future of ASDAL. He has retired from active librarianship, but is spending his time travelling and helping out other libraries around the world. So we were lucky to get him, I think.

I first met Keith at the 1993 conference at (then) Canadian Union College, the first ASDAL conference outside of the US. It's amazing how much has changed since then. We were impressed by the fact that they had an online catalog, but we still had to go to their library to use it. And we did. Lee and I were trying to find some call numbers for some Adventist materials, so we took advantage of our opportunity to check the call numbers that had been assigned by the guy who invented the SDA Classification Schedules. Now, of course, I can just bring it up on my desktop, and I don't have to travel to Canada. It's kind of a pity, since the scenery around there, and especially in Banff, was spectacular. I must go back sometime.

But I'm getting distracted from Keith's presentation. It's actually about change, and how the demographics are shifting from a US-centric church to a more broadly-based world church. There are many more universities and university library springing up all over the world, and the internet is enabling them all to be connected. It's time for ASDAL to take advange of this broadening base.

Ah, I have also been given a charge by Keith. He is relating a dream he has of the future, where ASDAL has helped provide information services to all SDA libraries. And apparently I have designed the portal to all of those resources just before I retired. That's probably what did me in, I'm guessing. But it sounds like a good idea. Multi-language capable, unified databases and catalogs, and several other functionalities built in. I'll have to give it some thought.

The challenge is to grow, to help libraries develop all over the world, and at home. We have alot to give, and much to share. We're doing some, we can always do more.

ASDAL 2006 - Day 1, pt.1

2006-06-20T08:51:00.000-04:00

Yes, since you asked, we had a very nice ice cream social last night. Marge and Carol and their husbands made home-made ice cream, and we had many toppings. Can't beat home-made ice cream, I say. We also had a chance to look at the posters, and I actually had a couple of ideas to add to my presentation. I hope Loma Linda won't mind.

After a (too short) night's rest, we're back for the first day of the regular conference. Ruth, Linda and Genevieve all welcome us, then turn it over to the illustrious President of Southern Adventist University, Dr. Gordon Bietz, for our morning devotional. He encouraged us to continue passing on knowledge to the next generation, because memory is important for growth.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get my timing right, so all the photos I took are not good. So sorry, no picture of Gordon for you this morning.

ASDAL 2006 - ARS, pt.4

2006-06-19T15:57:00.000-04:00

The two presentations in the afternoon are follow-ups from last year's conference. And some projects that have been in the works for many years. Marsha Rasmussen reports on the Ellen G. White Estate Research Center that they've started up at Southwestern Adventist University. She has a slideshow that gives us a virtual tour of the facility, and it's pretty impressive. It's kind of small, but it looks good. I especially liked the etched-glass representation of the Christ of the Narrow Way painting. It looked very impressive. I'm going to have to get down there and see it sometime.

They also face the usual problems of limited space and budget, but I'm glad they're moving ahead. They are also moving ahead with some interesting programs aimed at kids to get them interested in Ellen White and denominational history. I'm glad they're doing something like that, and it sounds like they have some interesting plans for expanding this ministry.

Then Michael Campbell presents what has been happening with the SDA periodicals digitization projects. There are more titles available, but the existing ones aren't quite complete yet, so there may be some way we can work together to fill in those gaps. Poor Michael, he says he's running on no sleep. Sounds like he's had quite the adventure getting here. I'll have to get that story sometime. Maybe when he's more rested.

Fred Bischoff is here from the Adventist Pioneer Library project. They're about to come out with a new edition, and they've got some nice new additions. Unfortunately, Fred has brought his Mac, and I can't make it work with our data projector. We don't have the right adapters anywhere, and it won't recognize his S-Video output for some reason. Oh well. We didn't have alot of time, anyway.

Then we still have time for our ever-popular Business Session, as Jim puts it. With elections out of the way, there is some interesting discussion of how collections are coming along, what is getting cataloged these days, and how we can share this information with each other. Watch the Adventist Resources Section page of the ASDAL web page for some new sections and updates. So I have some work to do, it seems.

The group will get to go on a tour of Southern's Heritage Room and some archives, but I get to run back over to the library to grab some quick supper and help set up for this evening's poster sessions and ice cream social. Should be great fun.

ASDAL 2006 - ARS, pt.3

2006-06-19T11:14:00.000-04:00

Bill Sumners is the Director and Archivist for the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives in Nashville, TN. He's here to speak to us about the ways his archives communicates with users and potential users. With the whole outside world, actually. It's good to get these views from institutions outside our small circle of institutions.

He says you have to start with the people that are your main core of users. Let them know what you have, so they can make good use of those materials. They aren't going to come into your library if they don't know that there is something there that they can use. The web is a really good way to start. Give good information about what is included in your collection, what your institution can and cannot do for users, your mission, and contact information. Sure, it sounds basic, but that's only because it is basic. Hopefully we all have that sort of information on our websites.

Key things, he says, are 1) Make it look good, 2) Make sure it's easy to navigate, 3) Make sure it's uncluttered, 4) Keep it up to date, 5) Make sure it will download quickly to as many users as possible, 6) Include contact info, 7) Include links to related sites, 8) Solicit feedback and amend your site accordingly. OK, maybe I didn't get all of the points, but these are basic Best Practices. If our web sites don't follow these principles, maybe it's time to look at our websites again.

We're about giving access, not as much protecting the collection. At least not as much as we used to be, at least not to the detriment of making the collection useful. Our collections are of little value if they are never used. If the collections do get used more, you've been successful.

Well, now it's time for lunch, so I'm going to see if I have time to grab something quick and get back so other people can set up. Yes, I'm the AV guy again.

ASDAL 2006 - ARS, pt.2

2006-06-19T09:21:00.000-04:00

Dr. Jud Lake was up next. He had a good presentation on categorizing, analyzing and dealing with web sites, books, and other information critical of the SDA church and Ellen White. A very good overview, I thought, of the various independent ministries, where they came from, and what sort of information they put out. I know that some of our libraries try to collect all of this information, and some of us try not to collect some of the more controversial works. But we all need to be aware that this information is out there. And the most important way to deal with the people who write these things and the people who might have questions after reading these things Jud says, is with love. Point them to Jesus and the Cross, and he believes that all of the SDA beliefs and Ellen White writings will stand up to that test.

I thought this followed on very well from Dr. Blanco's opening devotional. And, it give us some practical advice as librarians. We need to be familiar with the information that is out there so we can point people the the right resources when they need them. And it doesn't hurt if we've collected these resources in our libraries, either! I may have some purchases to make after the conference is over.

Next, a break, and then a look at how the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives works. Should be interesting.

ASDAL 2006 - ARS, pt.1

2006-06-19T09:06:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my blog entries for the 2006 Conference. Sure, I should've started with the School Librarians Section meetings, but those were on Sunday, and I was too busy getting my presentation for Tuesday ready. Hopefully the extra time will be worth it. We'll see.

The Adventist Resources Section started out with a very good devotional by Dr. Jack Blanco, former Dean of the School of Religion here at Southern. He reminded us that the most important thing is our relationship to God. If that isn't right, then our study of the Bible won't be right, our service won't be right, and our relationships won't be right. We need to re-dedicate ourselves every day to God to keep this relationship going. We closed with a kneeling silent prayer, where we were to open our hearts to God (which should really happen every day), then Dr. Blanco closed with prayer. A very good start to a conference, I think.

If I can get his permission, I'll post the audio on the ASDAL web page, since I'm trying something new this year, recording the presentations on the computer as MP3s. We'll see if it works. Watch this post for updates!

Next up, Jud Lake on "Those Irritating Web Sites" from various independent ministries.

Computers in Libraries, 2006

2006-03-31T10:07:00.000-05:00

Just got back from the 2006 Computers In Libraries conference. This is always an excellent conference. I started going to it several years ago mostly because it was a good professional conference that I only had to travel down into D.C. to attend, but in recent years, I've been attending because I think there are presentations there that show us the future of the library.

This year, the big theme was "Libraries 2.0." I got the impression that it means that we need to make our online presence more interactive, and be more responsive to patrons who visit our brick and morter installations. Most of the ILS vendors are getting on the bandwagon to varying degrees, but I saw a presentation by Andrew Pace of the North Carolina State University Libraries that showed the new interface for their catalog. They licensed technology from Endeca, the same people that provide the front-end for the Barnes & Noble and Walmart web storefronts. They've done amazing things with the search capabilities and with the parsing of the MARC data to make narrowing and broadening your search much easier.

This followed a presentation by Roy Tennant on The Future of Catalogs. Roy said basically that catalogs were very good at keeping track of your collection, and helping you find items that either you know are in your collection or are known to exist and you hope they are in your collection, but are not always as user-friendly as they perhaps could be when you are searching for materials on a particular subject.

But I think the most important thing I learned this time is that we have to make a fundamental shift in our perception. The library web site must be perceived as a destination, not an originating point for patron searching. We should do our best to provide them with the information they're looking for, but we can't expect them to always start with our website to find that information. They're probably starting with a search engine. We're just going to have to be better at making the information and links that we have available and findable to searchers. I also learned that they want that information available to them on whatever device they happen to be using to search for that information - desktop PC, laptop, Mac, PDA or cellphone. We have to be able to deliver content in a variety of formats simultaneously.

This is a really good conference, and I think more Adventist librarians should be attending. Usually it's just people from CUC and Southern (and I'm not sure how Southern got started, but I'm keeping up the tradition), but I'd like to see more of us there next year!

I must admit, I also go for the good food in the area. I'm a bit worried though, because next year the conference is back at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City, and I won't be able to go to the same great eateries. I hope they've built some more in that area in the last 7 years.

Hope to see you there, and we'll do lunch!

Conference Registration

2006-03-16T17:20:00.000-05:00

We're trying something new this year with the registration for the Annual Conference. We're going Online! And taking credit card payments as well as checks. Lee and I have wanted to do something like this for awhile, but we were never able to figure out a way to make it happen. There are several organizations out there on the web that are more than happy to take registrations for conferences and other things for you, but they all want you to pay them a fair amount of money both up-front and on a regular basis. I'm sure that they are very good companies, and that they are easy to work with, but we never felt that ASDAL wanted to spend the kind of money they were asking. If our conference was regularly being attended by several hundred people, then maybe. But for now, we had to come up with something different.

I think it was Ruth that suggested PayPal. They are well-known, secure, and most of all, they don't require start-up fees or monthly payments. At least not at the basic level that we would need. But I wasn't sure that we would be able to get the amount of information through them that we would need for planning a conference. What kind of room would people like? Who would their roommate be? That sort of thing. So we had to find a way to get that information on our own but still let people use PayPal to pay with their credit cards.

I had a form that I had used before for submitting proposals for poster sessions or conference presentations as well as a form for registering for the conference that didn't really do anything apart from adding up the amount of money a registrant would have to pay. So with a great deal of help from Ron, the systems person here at McKee Library, I was able to merge the forms in a way that would send both us and the registrant an e-mail detailing the information they were submitting. It's not a pretty e-mail, as you will be able to see when you register, but it does convey the basic information. And we were able to figure out a way to pass a variable cost on to PayPal. That's basically what's been taking us so long to get the registration process started this year.

So I apologize to everyone for taking so long, but it is up now on the conference website (http://www.asdal.org/conf/2006/), so we invite you to send in your registration and come and see us here at Southern this summer!

One final note, I'm posting this after the form went "live," and after I announced it on the SDA-Librarian discussion list, and our first registrant is Cynthia Helms! So congratulations Cynthia.

It's been awhile

2006-03-10T10:40:00.000-05:00

I know, it's been awhile since I entered anything in this blog. I've been meaning to keep it up, but the longer you go, the harder it is to get back into it. Sorry about that.

Anyways, the last day of the conference was very good. It was billed as a "post-conference", so attendance was down a bit from the regular conference, nevertheless, those of us who were left had a very good time. Chris Blake did a very good presentation on Conflict Resolution, Annette Melgosa showed us a video and led a discussion on "Communicating Across Cultures", and after lunch Gilbert shared his thoughts on Servant Leadership. He always has the best pictures for his PowerPoint slides. Then it was finally time for Genevieve to be part of the panel discussion on Effectively Communicating with Administrators. She'd been a bit worried about this, but was able to share some interesting stories and insights on how she dealt with Southern's administrators. Carolyn led out, and Ralph Köhler and Annette contributed as well. After the break, Linda Mack and Bruce McClay shared some thoughts on Communicating with Faculty & Students, and Paulette Johnson taught us how to think Beyond the Grapevine. All good presentations.

For supper, Paul & Marge Seifert took us out to the local "must-visit" restaurant, Valentino's. Man, what a place. All-you-can-eat Italian buffet. I'm lucky I don't live in Lincoln, I'd be eating there too much. It was crowded, but the food was very good.

Sabbath, we went to first church, and then took ourselves to the Henry Doorly Zoo over in Omaha. The weather was extremely warm, but the zoo was great fun. Oddly enough, the desert exhibit turned out to be a good place to go for a break from the heat! We went on our own, and not with the rest of the ASDAL people on their tour because we were leaving straight from there to drive back to Collegedale.

But I have to give it to Sabrina and her staff, this was a very good conference. I just hope we can do as well when you all come to visit us at Southern this year!

2005 Conference – Day 3: pt.3

2005-07-19T14:10:00.000-04:00

The annual banquet is usually quite fun. If it happens at the end of the conference, it is a good time to relax and socialize with other attendees, be entertained, and listen to the report of the Resolutions Committee. Even if it’s at the beginning of a conference, and there are no Resolutions yet, it’s still a good time to get together and eat some good food. So I’m looking forward to this.

Well, the table decorations are very nice, and the menu looks tasty. Chloe has very nicely put a fairly large number of peanut candies on each table, and has provided each of us with a new 2005 nickel, with the larger profile of Jefferson on the front and a buffalo on the back. Again, it has something to do with Lewis & Clark. I told you they were big in this part of the country.

As it turns out, the food is even better than the menu makes it sound. We find out that the cafeteria staff has been working short-handed, and that the people who usually take care of the catering responsibilities are gone this week, but you wouldn’t know it from the service we’ve gotten all week or the food that we are served tonight. It’s been very good, and tonight it’s even better than usual. I even go back for seconds (after everyone else has been through at least once, of course).

Then it’s time for the entertainment. This year, Sabrina brought in Pippa White, who does a one-woman show dramatizing writings by early pioneers in Nebraskan history called “Far As the Eye Can See.” Sabrina had been to see her show and had been very impressed. Pippa does a condensed version for us, but it is still very impressive. She does quite an amazing job bringing these peoples’ stories to life. She keeps apologizing for skipping stories, even though we tell her that we really don’t have any time constraints. Sure we have other things to get to tonight, but I’m not sure that we wouldn’t mind seeing the whole performance. It’s very good.

After Pippa is done, we still have some business to complete. Bruce holds an auction for two books. I’m skeptical that this will work. I’m a little worried that as a group we’re too cheap to raise a decent amount of money But I needn’t have worried. We acquit ourselves well as a group and end up raising $225 for the Hilts Scholarship. George Summers and Warren Johns go home with the books. So good for them, and good for us. I suppose I really need to give a goodly-sized donation to the scholarship fund. I did get the scholarship for my second year in library school, and even though it didn’t pay for all my costs, it was a great help.

Then it’s time for the readings of the Resolutions. I’m always a bit worried about this, because, as I’ve mentioned, sometimes it feels, at least to me, that we’re making fun of people who are only showing their individuality. I may actually be too sensitive about these things. But this years’ resolutions are done very well and quite tastefully. They’re fun, yet friendly. So good time is had by all. Which pretty much sums up the banquet, I think.

All that’s left to do is tell the organizers how much we’ve enjoyed the conference, and say goodbye to the people that have to get up early in the morning and catch shuttles to airports. Some of us are staying around for the post-conference, but for the most part, the conference is pretty much over tonight. Well, it was a good one.

2005 Conference – Day 3: pt.2

2005-07-19T14:07:00.000-04:00

I try to get back from lunch a little early so I can help if Ruth Swan needs any help getting her PowerPoint presentation up and running. Fortunately, it all looks good. We’re beginning to figure out the technology here in this room, and the Ortner Center staff are very helpful. So she’s good to go.

It’s an interesting presentation on the concept of the Information Commons. At Southern, we’re working on branding the McKee Library as “The Knowledge Commons,” but I think this is slightly different. The Information Commons seems to be more about putting out computers for students to use. We’re trying to promote more of a learning thing than a doing thing. Still, we could use some more new computers.

After Ruth’s presentation, we go into our traditional Breakout Sessions. I’ve been asked to lead the Technical Services session, and to come up with an agenda. I haven’t put one down on paper, but I have a few ideas I’d like to talk to the other catalogers and acquisitions people about, and I’m sure they have questions, too. It turns out to be a rather productive session in that regard. I think we all have questions about how we can do our jobs better. We talk about maybe setting up a list-serv just for the tech services people, and maybe that will help. We’ll just have to use it.

At the very end, I ask Sallie Alger to present our report, which sort of comes as a surprise to her. I should’ve given someone more warning, or take notes myself. Gotta start planning ahead. But she managed to jot down the basic points of our discussion and presents a nice report when the time comes.

We do end up meeting through most of the break, and could’ve gone much longer, I’m sure. Unfortunately, we’re in part of the room that’s used for the meetings, so we kind of have to break it up eventually so they can get back to the sessions. The library directors, on the other hand, are in a separate room, and don’t break up until it’s nearly time to give their report. So not much of a break for them. Ah well, I’m sure they have very important things to discuss. And most of the actions that come out of breakout sessions come from the directors’ session.

When we’re done with the reports, it’s back into Business Session. There are still a few other committees and sections that need to report. Doesn’t look like we’ll get a report from the School Libraries section, though, since they’re meeting today at the same time we are. So none of the people that come for the regular session will get to the School sessions, and the school librarians miss out on all of our presentations. We’re going to try and avoid that situation if we can next year at Southern. Hopefully we can work things out.

At the end of the Business Session, while the new business is being taken care of, one of the people from the School Librarians section comes into the back of the room, and it looks like he wants to talk to either Genevieve or me. Gen had to get up front in a minute or two and invite everyone to Southern next year for the 2006 Annual Conference, so I go to find out who he is and what he wants. He turns out to be Tom Fowler, from Broadview Academy outside of Chicago, Illinois. This is, of course, my alma mater, so I’m happy to talk to him. Turns out he is retired, but he and his wife are working in the library there at the academy on a volunteer basis. He thinks it’s been awhile since any sort of serious collection development and weeding was done there, and remembers that while he was at another school, the folks from ANGEL came and helped them weed and buy books. He’s hoping the same thing can happen again at BVA. So we’ll have to put him together with Katye Hunt and hope for the best. Hey, if alumni can’t help out their school, in at least a small way, then what’s the point, right?

And now it’s time to go and get changed and ready for the annual banquet. More on that in the next posting!

2005 Conference – Day 3: pt.1

2005-07-19T14:05:00.000-04:00

Well, since we didn’t get back in the middle of the night from the tour yesterday, it we’re not too tired in the morning, but it’s still tough getting up and around. But we manage it, and even get some breakfast to fortify us for the long morning of meetings ahead!

The devotional today is from Union’s Band Director, Rudy Dennis, who tells us a story about his journey to this year’s GC session. He had some car trouble and was helped out by an Elvis impersonator. Well, why not, I say. If Elvis can’t help you out of a jam, then he might as well be dead.

Then Bruce McClay presents a short talk, which may be the first presentation on the actual topic of our conference. The presentations so far have all been good, mind you, but haven’t always been aimed as obviously at the stated theme of our conference as this one. Which is kind of a shame, because it’s something we need to think about more in our roles as librarians. We are providing a ministry of a type to our students and faculty, and we need to be more aware of that.

Then we have a panel discussion on the faculty status of librarians at SDA colleges. At one time, ASDAL had a standing committee to look at this topic, but they basically reported their findings and disbanded themselves. But the time may have come to advocate more seriously for keeping faculty status for librarians. Schools are always looking for places to cut spending, and if they don’t’ have to pay librarians as much, that will make them happy, I’m sure. So watch the ASDAL web page for documents and web links on this topic.

After a break, we’re back into a Business Session. This is when I finally get to give my reports as Web Coordinator and Chair of the SDA Classification Advisory Committee. I should really start writing my reports down and figuring out what I’m going to say before I get up in front of everyone. I tend to forget some points I want to make. But I do remember to mention this blog, so maybe some people will come and read it. Hello, readers! I don’t have much to report about the SDA Classification schedules, though. Marilyn just hasn’t had time to work on them since becoming chair of Loma Linda’s Heritage Room. Plus she wants to give the editorship to someone else at some point, so I have a bad feeling it’ll be me. It’s not that I’m worried about the work that keeping the schedule up to date will take, I just have misgivings about the amount of power I would have to assign classification numbers. I always think it should be someone much wiser and more experienced than I am, but I don’t know. Maybe the people at LC who do this have the same misgivings, but just get on with it. Of course, there’s a lot more of them than there are of me, so each new number they give out probably has to go through a few committees. I guess I’ll just have to do my best if asked.

And really, if you want to know more about what happened at the Business Session, read the Minutes that Marge took. That’s why she takes them. I’ll put them up on the page at some point after she cleans them up and gives them to me. So check back in a bit. In the mean time, it’s time for lunch, and I’ve got take-out Greek Pizza and chocolate-dipped baclava waiting for me in the room!

2005 Conference - Day 2: The Tour!

2005-07-14T12:37:00.000-04:00

I always enjoy the tour day at ASDAL. Not only do we get to get off campus and see some interesting things, it's also good for getting to know the other librarians that are here in a way that you just can't do sitting in meetings all day long.

And this tour day looked very interesting. Gen and I get to the bus in plenty of time, but we are intercepted by Chloe who needs some help bringing the lunches from the cafeteria to the bus. And since we all love lunch, we're only too happy to help.

Our first stop is 45 minutes down the road in Nebraska City at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Trail & Visitors Center. So there's a bit of napping happening on the bus early in the morning. When we get to the Center, I'm impressed right away by the design of the building, which looks like an arrow pointing the way to the West (I assume it's pointing West), and by the keelboat model out front that you can actually board. As we go inside, they also have a full-sized canoe, or "pirogue," which we can also board. Sort of gives a good feel for the realities of the voyage. Must have been alot of work to move those huge, heavy boats up the Missouri River. The museum seems to be aimed more at children, but it's fun for us too. We are given a piece of paper which we can get stamped at the various displays, and then we'll get a replica of the Jefferson Freedom Medal embossed when we finish. It's a fun thing, and gives you a sense of accomplishment to actually get all of the holes punched.

Then we're off to the Arbor Day Farm & Arbor Lodge to see some trees. OK, so it's much more than that. They grow & harvest apples, make apple cider, and promote growing trees all over the world. They're even going to give us our own trees when we leave that we can plant. After the initial introduction and tour, we get our lunch, but many of us augment it with cold apple cider slushies and slices of hot apple pie from their food shop.

The Morton mansion on the other side of the street is open for tours, so Gen and I (and many other tour members) go there next. Morton was the guy that actually started Arbor Day (it was his son started Morton Salt), and apparently was responsible for bringing many more varieties of trees to the Nebraska and Great Plains area. He even served as Secretary of Agriculture for awhile. The mansion is incredible. It started as a four-room house, and it just kept expanding and grew much bigger, taller and more ornate. He even put a one-lane bowling alley in the basement! It's fun touring these older houses.

Then we go back across the street to see at least part of the interpretive trail and the collection of movie scenes featuring trees. We don't see the full film, but enough to see that they did some nice editing. There's one section in particular that I liked, they showed Alfalfa from the Little Rascals singing a song about a tree, and managed to intercut scenes from one or two other movies that used the same song. The effect was very interesting.

We have just enough time left to go on the paved trail and see the treehouse. The trail has some nice educational signs and things on it, and the treehouse is more of a platform on a tree than a house. But it's fun to go up in it, anyway. Just as we're finishing the tour, we see a wild turkey playing around in the dirt near a new construction area. That was certainly interesting. At least he's safe from being hunted, there.

Then we board the bus and head off to Peru State College to see their library. It's an interesting building with an interesting history. Originally a church, then a gym, and now a library, it's very interesting how they've used that space. The main floor has a nice, open feeling, owing mostly to the fact that the floor can't take the load of too many books. But they've turned a problem into an opportunity and created some nice reading and learning spaces on that floor. They've also made a nice Nebraska reading room in a balcony area. I liked the chairs in the window the most.

We get back on the bus for a short trip over to Brownsville so we can board the boat for our evening dinner cruise on the Missouri River. But we're about a half hour early, so we head into town to see what's open. We find an actual health store that has all kinds of dietary supplements, vitamins, some health foods and books on health. Not sure how a town this small supports a store like this, but it's interesting to see out here. We buy some smoked almonds just because we find it hard to resist smoked almonds. And we'd like to support the store, at least a little.

Then it's back to the river. The thing that strikes me right away is how fast this river flows. Someone told us earlier that it's about 9 miles or knots or whatever an hour, but you don't realize how fast that is until you see it. It's quite fast. The boat is not exactly the Southern Belle (but that may just be a growing Tennessee bias on my part, which is scary to think about), but it's a fun cruise. The food is good, and I probably take more than my share. But I did go through line nearly last and don't have seconds until everyone else does. So I don't feel too guilty. We eat on the downstairs deck, but after we're done, we go upstairs to enjoy the rest of the voyage in the open air. It's very nice. Conversation, piano music, and the occasionally singing makes for a good time.

Sabrina hands out our trees on the bus ride back. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with mine, but I'll find something. Just hope I don't kill it. Maybe I can keep it on my desk in a pot for awhile. It's a white pine, so I probably won't be able to do that for long.

After we get back (and not too late for once), Gen still has a meeting. This time to work on the panel presentation she has to be a part of on Friday. But Black Adder is on BBC America, so everything is good for me!

2005 Conference - Day 1: pt.3

2005-07-14T10:49:00.000-04:00

Bruce McClay got the first business session of the conference going in fine time. This is the most anticipated and dreaded business session of the conference (at least from my point of view). Anticipated because we get on with the business of the organization, and because we get to hear who the new officers are, but dreaded because we also elect the two most dreaded (again, my opinion) committees of ASDAL: the Nominating and Resolutions committees. I've been on both at one time or another, and they're both hard work, and difficult to do well. I'm always concerned that I'm either making fun of people or trying to get them to do things they don't want to do. I may just have some issues I have to deal with on my own.

Most of this session was involved with announcements and reports from the ASDAL President, ASDAL Action editor, and then the election of the committees. It was good to hear the names of the new officers, because I think, despite being prevailed upon by last year's Nominating Committee, I think they actually want to do the jobs they were elected to. I know I wanted to stay on the SDA Classification Advisory Committee, at least. Now I just have to get the new list up on the web page.

Then comes the dreaded nominating of names for the other two committees. We eventually find 8 people who can't beg off nominated for the Nominating Committee, and none of the names are mine. So I move that nominations cease. Everyone else who is happy that they were passed over seconds the motion. We finally get five people elected, after a run-off for the last two positions, and it looks like a good group. Most of them are library directors, though, so it'll be tough for them to find time, I think. But they should have no problems approaching people to do some work. That's what they do every day, after all.

And finally, the Resolutions Committee. Everyone looks forward to the report from this committee, because it's usually quite humorous. However, very few people actually seem to enjoy writing the humor. It takes alot of time and hard work to write comedy, so it basically uses up the rest of your free time at the conference. Thus it is avoided, if possible. I hope the people this year do well, I really do, but better them than me!

Then we break for supper. I've been looking forward to this all afternoon, because we're going out for Greek food at The Parthenon. Gen's mother was here at Union earlier this year and got to eat there and recommended it highly. She brought us a take-out menu, and we've been studying it intently for a couple of months now. We thought we were going to have to eat there every day to get a taste of everything, but we may have to settle for this one visit. So we're going to get everything we can out of this visit.

We're able to talk three more people into joining us, and at least one of them has a car, so we can all get there. And I must say once we get there, it was completely worth the effort. The service was quick and helpful, and the food was fantastic. We ordered some different things so we could share the food, and an extra Greek pizza so we could take it away with us and have it for another meal later. Yes, I'm full from this meal, but I'm already looking forward to another meal. Must be the sign of truly good food. Lucky I don't work here, because I'd be over at this place alot. I'd have to walk there just so I can get some exercise and maybe burn off the calories I'd be ingesting there.

We have to rush to get back, though, because Gen has yet another committee meeting which threatens to go late into the night. So I'll have to figure out a way to entertain myself for the evening. Fortunately we have a TV and broadband internet access. I'll be fine.

2005 Conference - Day 1: pt.2

2005-07-13T07:48:00.000-04:00

Yes, well, we're a bit late getting back from lunch, but not too bad. There was plenty of time for everyone, but that did mean we ended up going downstairs and not off to a restaurant somewhere. But we did talk Ralph into driving us to The Parthenon for supper. Should be good!

The first presentation is from Shannon Behrhorst of the Nebraska Library Commission. They're doing a very interesting project, getting public libraries across the state to digitize their collections of rare and historical materials that have to do with Nebraska history. It's the Nebraska Memories project. They've bought 50 user licenses for CONTENTdm and hosted it at their main office so libraries don't have to host it themselves. Then the local libraries can scan and create their own collections. I'm just wondering if this model can be adapted somehow to the SDA resources that we were talking about yesterday. Well, I suppose any problem can be solved if we had enough money and time.

Then Sabrina and Laurie give us an interesting presentation of a study they did of students' use of Questia.com. It was an exercise to see how students were relating to a new model of information delivery. And the conclusion is that maybe students still like face-to-face interaction. But change is inevitable, and we're just going to have to manage that change if we want to give our patrons the best service that we can.

Now, finally, the moment we've all been waiting for. The Group Picture. And I think we managed to get everyone that is here in the picture this time. There usually seems to be someone that has to be off doing other things, but since we've gone straight from a meeting to posing, I think we're OK. I didn't bring my camera down to get the picture, so I get the photographer to promise to send me the digital version for the web page, so check back there in a bit.

Then there's the Business Meeting, but more on that later!

2005 Conference - Day 1: pt.1

2005-07-12T12:42:00.000-04:00

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.

ARS - pt.2: The Afternoon Hours

2005-07-11T22:06:00.000-04:00

After some technical glitches, we're ready to begin the afternoon's portion of the ARS pre-conference. Somehow the wall connection for the video projector wasn't putting a signal through from the computer. So they cabled the computer straight to the projector. So, it worked. Just looked a little odd with that cord hanging down from the ceiling like that. Oh well.

But first, Jim Ford brought us up to date on the work that a committee had been doing on writing some standards for the creation of digital collections in Adventist libraries. Yes, like most readings of standards, it could be a bit dull for some people, but quite necessary to doing business. Hope it helps us. Then Michael Campbell showed his PowerPoint slides and led a discussion of what has been done in the world of Adventist digital libraries, and what can and should be done. There's some interesting things being done by the General Conference Archives and the Adventist Pioneer Library people. The next edition of Words of the Pioneers should be interesting. And not just because it contains some works by one of my ancestors, Roswell Fenner Cottrell! So, I'm looking forward to that.

Then Malcolm Russell greeted us on behalf of the administration of Union College. He's the Academic Dean. The President couldn't make it because of some health issue, and Russell is leaving tomorrow for some other meetings he has to attend. So I'm not sure who's going to be left to give the conference its official "welcome to our college" greeting tomorrow. I guess we'll find out. And another thing to look forward to when we host next year. Speakers falling through at the last minute. It'll probably be a nightmare.

After a break, the ARS business session, where I managed, once again, to not be nominated to serve on the ARS Steering Committee. This may have something to do with the fact that Southern is doing very little in the field of collecting Adventist materials seriously. Sure, we buy the SDA books, and accept donations, and do our best to build a decent collection, we're just not out there searching garage sales and E-Bay for deals on old Millerite pamphlets. Something else for us to look into after we finish installing our new Ex Libris system and get caught up with our work. Well, reasonably caught up, anyway.

Chloe Foutz then leads us on a tour of the Union College Heritage Room, and shows us many of the treasures they've been able to collect through the years. That's some amazing stuff, there. The bulk of the really interesting things seem to be effectively displayed, which is nice. I don't know what they're going to do with the stuff that sitting back in storage, but I think every Adventist library has that problem. Lots of interesting, potentially valuable things that no one has time to deal with properly. Well, one day when our institutions have enough money to properly fund their libraries and we can have all the librarians and storage & display space that we need, right? Right.

After supper, there's a nice reception in the Conference Center area with some absolutely killer cookies. I may have eaten too many, but I really don't care. They were very, very good. And we had a chance to see some Poster Session displays. Lots of librarians doing interesting things. Well, lots of librarians from Andrews, anyway. Again, something we didn't feel like we had time to prepare with our implementation project at Southern. But if it will help me later in my faculty evaluation, I think I might have to come up with something for next year!

Tomorrow, the Conference gets started in earnest. And hopefully the rest of the participants will have arrived safely. Should be fun.

ARS - pt. 1

2005-07-11T11:38:00.000-04:00

The best part of any ASDAL conference is meeting everyone else who has come to the conference. And most of them usually show up for the Adventist Resources Section pre-conference. So it can be difficult sometimes for the person responsible for the ARS program to drag everyone away from the registration area and into the meetings.

The meetings this morning have been pretty good. Rich Carlson, the Union College Chaplain did the worship and shared some interesting stories of staffing the information desk at the recent General Conference Session. People who had lost things at the 2000 session in Toronto wondering if those things had been found and were available now at the lost and found desk, that sort of thing.

Then Jim Ford gives us some bad news. Merlin Burt, our first presenter, has to be back in Michigan to be with his family. His mother-in-law is possibly about to pass away, so we prayed for his family before we started. Then Jim managed to give Merlin's presentation from his notes. And we got to meet the new director of Southwestern's EGWhite Research Center, Mary Ann Hadley, who shared some stories and insights of how that center was set up. Gave us something to think about as we're in the process of seeing if we need to start one at Southern.

We also get to meet the new Library Director at Southwestern, who adds some more details to the story. Apparently we're going to have plan very carefully for staffing and funding issues if we ever want to get something like that off the ground.

Tony Zbaraschuk is now telling us what sort of resources we need to consider when building our own SDA resources collection. And it's not only informative, but also surprisingly entertaining.

So we're off to a good start.

Here we are in Nebraska!

2005-07-10T22:39:00.000-04:00

So, we've made the long trip from Collegedale to Lincoln. And the biggest thing I've discovered is that Lewis & Clark are huge out this way. We stopped at the St. Louis Arch this morning (Sunday), and the museum below the arch has much to say about westward expansion in general, and Lewis & Clark in particular. And the bookstore is full of books and videos about those two. Later this week, we're going to a museum celebrating the tour of the Corps of Discovery. Should be fun.

But the best thing about the trip was meeting up with my parents in St. Louis. They had been out there for the last weekend of the General Conference session, and hadn't left yet. They had been planning to take off early on Sunday morning, but my Dad decided that they had time, so they stuck around and we were able to meet up with them at the Arch. My sister and her husband were also there, but my parents didn't tell them my wife and I were coming. So they were quite surprised. We hadn't seen them since our wedding, so it was good to catch up.

The Arch itself is quite magnificent, and well worth the trip. We took the time to see the documentary film about the design and construction of the Arch before we went up to the observation deck. The story is most amazing. I think it gave us a greater appreciation for the Arch when we finally did go up it. My wife said it was the most suspense-filled movie she had seen in quite some time.

So after the Arch, we piled back in the van, and rode the rest of the way to Lincoln. We have a room in the Ortner Center on the campus of Union College. Apparently it used to be the old men's residence, but they've done some fixing up and possibly adding-on, and it's now the campus Welcome and Conference center. And I must say, they've done a wonderful job. The room is very nice, and we're just around the corner from the meeting area and the eating area. So we're in pretty good shape for this conference, I think.

OK, more thoughts and pictures as the 2005 ASDAL Annual Conference continues!