On Thursday, I went down to Toronto for the OLA Conference. I find conferences can be a real hit or miss proposition, but in this case, it was a valuable and enjoyable day.
How and Why to Bring Users Into the Service and Web Design Process (#316): I started off with this session. I knew I’d chosen the right session when I noticed Beth Jefferson was in the audience. 
The session was Patricia Eastman from Toronto Public Library and two of their usability consultants. I found this to be quite a good session covering a lot of things we need to think about for our upcoming website redesign.
IM a Librarian: the Meebo, Skype-Unyte Solution (#412): We still have not been able to get our heads around offering IM reference service. For us, it’s not a technology problem, it’s a staffing problem. I keep hoping to find a technology solution which will solve the staffing problem which is why I attended Dan Sich from University of Waterloo’s session. Sadly, I came away with no easy answers. However, I still did come away with some ideas and things to check out. I’d never thought about Skype for reference purposes. And I’d never heard of Unyte for screencasting which looks like it could come in handy. Also need to check out hab.la as an alternative to meebo me.
Wayfinding 2.0 (#5): After lunch, I checked out Dave Mitchell from London Public Library’s poster session on using Google Maps to build interactive library building maps. I did not realize this was possible and Dave has all kinds of great ideas how to use this tech. For example, one of the things he’s doing is a layer that shows how strong the wifi signals are at different places in the library!
Open Source: Helping Windsor Public Library Move Forward (#612): My final session for the day was with Jean Foster and Marc Pillon from Windsor Public Library. I actually misread the session title. Naturally, when I saw the words “Windsor” and “Open Source” in the title, I assumed it was a session with Art Rhyno (or one of his cohorts) from University of Windsor. Of course, there is a connection. WPL’s decision to use OS software so heavily was influenced by Art. It’s pretty inspiring to see a public library so committed to open source, though.
OLITA Meeting and Award Reception: Ultimately, this was the reason I was at the conference. You may recall that we won this award a couple of years ago for our new books rss implementation. This year, I was happy to be asked to be on the award committee. There were several great entries but we were pleased to choose the OurOntario.ca portal as the award winner. The reception was quite enjoyable, got to chat more with Dave Mitchell and Beth Jefferson and to congratulate Art Rhyno (et al) on winning the award.
