SLA Conference

For anyone who hasn't heard (or read, I guess), lbenkert got to go to attend the Special Libraries Association conference in DC. I'm flaming jealous because I got my first taste of conferences back at midwinter in Denver, and they're so cool. Anyone who hasn't been to one needs to find one and go--you will meet so many people, it's worth it just for the networking. Then there are the talks, the presentations, the freebies from booths, the emails about new things being offered to libraries...

My mother-in-law (a school librarian) is attending one today or tomorrow that is aimed at new technologies, and she's going to bring back the schedule for me so I can see what they're talking about. I forget the name of this conference, but in the past they've talked about Twitter, blogs, RSS, etc.

But anyways, Lee Ann tipped me off to the conference handouts for those with library tech backgrounds:

http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2009/Conference/handouts/index.cfm

What I found most interesting was the "Needs Assessment Questionnaire" listed for Sunday; a lot of the same questions I started with when trying to decide the best changes for the project site assessment in terms of the Content, Context, and Users. Some of you might remember that I actually started these interviews some time back (see Chapter 10 and my job); I think my real life has jumbled my approach to this class in that I read through the book pretty quick the first week so I could tackle some issues at work.

I pretty well had a handle on the diverse needs of my users (everyone from the general public to the researchers that post to the site). Using the new material made available this week, I more closely examined the content available and the context. My new impressions are that I may need to talk to my supervisor about possible jargon problems and the purpose of our content. The issues I'm now looking at are tat while the site is supposed to serve as a reference for both researchers and the general public, there is very little presented in the way of explaining the conferences referenced or much of the highly academic and specialized vocabulary.