Library Conference?!? Sounds exciting! Part 1

(This post has been driving me crazy so I'm just going to finish it and post it...sorry that it's not polished.)

I feel like I've spent the last month at library conventions. When I tell people how much fun they are I get funny looks. "Uh, yeah Emily, hanging out with a bunch of librarians. That sounds great..."

Y'all just don't know what you're missing.

American Theological Library Association Philadelphia, PA
ATLA is an organization in transition. When people hear "theological" they think "Christian," but the Association of Christian Librarians is a different organization. There are a lot of evangelical Christian libraries in ATLA but so is Jewish Theological Seminary and secular institutions like Yale and Harvard.

The ATLA conference is wonderful. It's tiny (about 350 librarians) and everyone is really nice. The programs at Annual offer a lot of good (and relevant) information.

I arrived in Philly on Wednesday after a lovely train trip. The conference was at the Doubletree on Broad Street. One of the best things about the conference is that I have my own room. Pure bliss!

The actual program part starts Thursday morning. I slept through the plenary so my first meeting was "Professional Ethics for Theological Librarians." Most librarians subscribe to the American Library Association Code of Ethics, but ATLA has discussed having its own code for several years. This is difficult since ATLA is full of people on opposite sides of the political spectrum. The guy who ran the program is starting a wiki to which I will contribute.

I went to the Reading Market for lunch and then wandered around the city. That night we had a diversity dinner at one of the best restaurants I've ever been to--Alma de Cuba. (ATLA isn't very ethnically diverse so there were only about 15 of us.) If you are ever in Philly...you must eat there.

I worked a bit more the next day. Missed the plenary again (whoops...but I did work out instead) so my first program was the diversity roundtable title "Present and Future racial Diversity Issues of Theological Librarians." As mentioned above, ATLA is not very diverse. Of course, neither is librarianship in general. This year the group discussed cultural, religious and racial diversity in our collections (Which books on liberation theology must your library have) and talked about doing annotated biographies. I think I also volunteered for the committee to turn us into an Interest Group. Can't remember though...I'm sure someone will let me know.

Next I went to "Collection Development of the controversial Issues in World Christianity -- Maintaining Balance in Light of the Religious or Academic Tradition We Serve." There's not much that's controversial in my library. I had a book called Sex Priest on display for awhile and no one said anything. I was really there to hear how other people deal with controversial books. Apparently some prolific Catholic theologian is now on the wrong side of the Vatican and some requests were made to remove all of his writings from Catholic seminary libraries. None of the librarians at the meeting complied. Awesome...

Then we had denominational meetings (went to Anglican/Episcopal) and I walked around the city in the evening. Found two used bookstores and bought books I don't need but felt compelled to own.

Saturday was at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary just outside Philadelphia. First session was "Dealing with Challenging Patrons" presented by the Public Services Interest Group (I'm a member of the PSIG Board). A large part of a public service librarian's job concerns customer service. You never want a patron to leave the library unhappy. My notes say the folowing
1. When the patron leaves ask "Did you find what you need?"
2. Challenging patrons --> Can you make that person your friend?
3. Your goals as a librarian don't match the patrons goals (this is the familiar 'librarians like to search; patrons like to find')
4.The patron is not always right but they can be wrong with dignity.

This stuff sounds pretty basic but it's difficult when your dealing with actual human beings who have a paper due in 3 hours and they just started writing. Trust me.

Next I went to "Building the New Community" about Web/Library 2.0. I hoping to do a short training on it for NYATLA sometime in Spring 2008.

Then an introduction to a new peer reviewed journal, developed by ATLA, called Theological Librarianship. Finally the conference ended with a reception and banquet.

I know that this is a rather lame writeup but I've been working on this post for weeks and just wanted to finish it. Now I have to do the one for ALA...