ALA Annual 2018: My Schedule, Our Notes

#ALAAC2018

I haven’t been to an Annual ALA Conference yet, so it’ll be interesting to see how my attention can hold up to meeting so many people and hearing so many ideas. I’ve been to a number of smaller conferences, but nothing on this scale.

Building from the Critical ALA Annual 2018 list of “sessions of possible interest to critical library workers” made by Eamon Tewell and others, here’s a schedule of where I intend to be while in NOLA. I’ll do my best to update this throughout the week, so we can try to meet up if you’d like. Messaging me on Mastodon or Twitter would be great ways to get in touch.

I’ll do my best to always have an In the Library with the Lead Pipe button on my backpack or lanyard to make it easier to spot me. Please feel free to chat about the journal’s submission or open peer review processes, talk about ideas you have, or anything else. I’ll bring a few buttons with the journal logo’s to give away as well.

I’ll probably also bring a small number of earplugs. So if you plan to go out dancing or if you see me out somewhere loud, ask and I might have some for you & your ears.

Group Note-taking > Live Tweeting

There’s a growing practice of shared note-taking at unconferences and conferences, like at CLAPS2016 and at the #critlib Unconference 2017 in Baltimore. Let’s keep that going and try using more privacy-respecting platforms this time around.

If you’re interested in helping take group notes—which seem like a more hospitable format than live tweeting for many of us—I’m planning to make publicly-editable Etherpad notes hosted at RiseUp. It’ll be like shared Google Docs, only on a platform that helps avoid Google’s many privacy-destroying tentacles.

My plan is to:

• [x] make a pad for each session I'll attend @done
• [x] give each pad a 1 year lifespan (which anyone can do as they create a pad) @done
• [x] link to those pads here @done
• ultimately move our collectively-written notes somewhere else to be determined, such as my site or maybe something like a Sandstorm.io instance for library workers and/or other folks interested in #critlib-type things.¹

If you can think of a better process or make other pads/notes that you want added to shared list, let me know on Mastodon or Twitter!

Lastly, please: if there’s a microphone, always use the microphone.

My Schedule

Thursday

I’m flying in today—and I wish I could be listening to KEXP’s breakdown of Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back while in flight. Hopefully they record it or at least spell out the playlist somewhere. Fear of a Black Planet was much more formative for me but I’d love to learn anything I could about the Bomb Squad’s production process for any of their albums.

I might be down to meet up for vegetarian/vegan food, coffee, or other stuff this evening. Let me know!

Friday

In the morning & early afternoon I’ll be exploring NOLA and the convention center.

1:00p–2:00pm:
(NMRT) Annual Conference Orientation
etherpad notes

4:00pm–5:30pm:
Opening General Session featuring Michelle Obama
etherpad notes

5:30pm–6:30pm:
Meet the Authors: Mariko Tamaki and Shea Fontana (most likely)

Saturday

9:00am–10:00am:
Making the Framework Work: Adapting the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Community College Library Instruction
etherpad notes

10:30am–11:30am:
Student Learning and Information Literacy Committee Discussion Forum
etherpad notes

1:00pm–2:30pm:
(LIRT) Moving Beyond the Threshold: Next Steps in Critical Information Literacy
etherpad notes

2:30pm–3:30pm:
Building Inclusion: How Can Research Instruction at Two-Year Colleges Help Students Successfully Transition to the University?
etherpad notes

4:00pm–5:00pm:
New Librarians on the Block: Early Career Librarianship, Management, and Leadership
etherpad notes

Sunday

9:00am–10:00am:
High Impact Librarianship: A Showcase of Collaborative and Experiential Learning Initiatives
etherpad notes

10:30am–11:30am:
Whiteness in LIS: Tracing its Impact, Mapping Resistance
etherpad notes

12:00pm–1:00pm:
In the Library in the Lead Pipe meet up in the Networking Uncommons

2:30pm–3:30pm:
Breaking Below the Surface of Racism, Whiteness, and Implicit Bias
etherpad notes

4:00pm–5:00pm:
Bridging the Gap: Supporting Subject Liaisons to Become Ambassadors for Digital Scholarship in Academic Libraries
etherpad notes
OR
Neutrality and Its Discontents: Exploring the Ethics of Librarianship in a Partisan World
etherpad notes
OR MORE LIKELY
4:30om–5:30pm:
Progressive Librarians Guild Meeting

6:00pm–8:00pm:
GLBT Round Table Social
OR
DSS Social (ACRL DSS)

8:00pm–??:
Que(e)ry at ALA New Orleans

Monday

9:00am–10:00am:
Evidence Based Library and Information Practice is…
etherpad link

10:30am–11:30am:
Buried in a “Dying” Field: Pessimism, Uncertain Futures, and the LIS job search
etherpad link
OR
When to Speak Up, When to Listen: Allyship, Race, and Communication in the Academic Library
etherpad link
OR
Open Education Resources (OER): Where Libraries Are and Where We are Going
etherpad link

1:00pm–2:00pm:
Effort, Education, Knowledge, Skill and Teaching Recognized: The READ (Reference Effort Assessment Data) Scale at work in Academic, Public & Special Libraries
etherpad link

4:00pm–5:00pm:
A Library for Everyone: Community Centered Design to Promote Inclusive Librarianship
etherpad link

Tuesday

10:00am–11:30am:
Closing General Session featuring Viola Davis
etherpad link

1. Making a Sandstorm instance is kind of pie-in-the-sky as a goal for me at the moment, but I can definitely put the notes on my blog at minimum. If you’re interested in helping with a Sandstorm instance for library workers, let’s talk! ↩