ACRL 2013 - Librarians and Ideas

I had the opportunity to attend the national conference for the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) a couple of weeks ago in Indianapolis. This was my first national conference, as I usually attend state and regional conferences. I knew going into it that it would be the biggest conference I had ever been to, but I approached it with optimism and hope that I could bring some good ideas home.

On that first morning, it hit me like a ton of bricks: there are a ton of librarians in this country.

There were thousands of librarians at the conference, and 1100 of us were first-timers. The keynotes of Geoffrey Canada and Henry Rollins were really interesting, but I was there to hear from librarians who had tried new things, had success with projects, tried new teaching methods, and figured out ways to assess their work better. See, most library conferences are great because people are looking to find out what works, what doesn't, and how we can evolve our craft. Normally you go home with a large amount of notes on ways to improve what you do. At a regular state or regional conference you might go home with a grocery bag of ideas. At this conference I felt like I was trying to capture an avalanche of ideas.

One of the best parts of attending was discovering that there are a number of things we are doing at our institution that closely resemble what some of the 'bleeding edge' libraries are doing. That makes you feel like you're having a big impact. However, there are many areas that we have to work on as well. But that's the whole point of going, to discover how to get better and serve your patron community the best you can. So even though it was overwhelming (so many people!), it was a wonderful group of people to hang out with, ask questions of, and bounce ideas off of. There are times when you feel like you could keep conference-ing for weeks, but then you realize you are exhausted and have to recharge at the end of the day.

It was great to see current friends and colleagues, like my buddy Carl who is just about to graduate from library school at Illinois, and my friend Robin at University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. Plus, I got to see lots of old friends from library school. Best of all was meeting new people and starting new relationships. Those are the kinds of things I want to keep doing because those relationships are where some of the best, new ideas will come from. And hopefully I can reciprocate.

So all in all, it was a great time and Indianapolis was a nice city. It all happened so quickly but I hope I can join my colleagues again in Portland for the 2015 conference.