Ink - ACRL 2009 blog Part 1

[zhie]

So, I'll be quite memorable to the rep at the Gale booth. I'll be 'that girl whose pen EXPLODED in the middle of the demo'.

And, I'm easily spotted. I have blue ink all over my hands -- mostly my right pointer finger. Oh, and some on my lower right arm. And a dot on my brown, um, I don't know what to call it, some over garment thing, sorry, I'm tired and I've had three drinks thus far today.

Anyhow -- yes, all rum -- I have blue ink on my hands. Oh well. Mark and I ventured through the vendors hall this evening. I skipped the keynote opening speaker, because they changed it last minute. Was supposed to be Naomi Klein, but last minute they got some dude I've never heard of that I decided I didn't want to listen to for two hours. So, we just went to the opening of the vendors thing.

Spoke to people at H W Wilson, Gale, Bullfrog Videos, and Proquest. Attempted to get someone to talk to me from Ebscohost, but they all seemed pretty frickin' impressed with themselves, so screw them. I don't care what they have to sell me, 'cause I'm not buying any.

Reviews on the others...

H W Wilson - Very friendly, good humor, and they knew their product. And, they have what I need.

Gale - Also friendly, and, when my pen exploded, the rep that I was talking to (Liz) was immediately genuinely concerned, didn't just rush to the next person, got rid of evil! pen (it was one of my favorites -- a blue one I had written a number of scenes of Unforgettable with *sniffles*), got me a new pen, and gave directions to where the restroom was so I could attempt to get rid of the ink.

Ink not going anywhere.

Bullfrog Films -- (oops, not videos...) Great rep, and one of the questions I had was something of an embarrassment (we have a pair of trouble instructors who thought it was 'just okay' to make naughty extra copies of videos and allow students to take them home -- big copyright no no!), but, I had to ask about what we can do so they aren't doing illegal stuffs anymore. Found they have a bunch of vids for a collection I'm helping to develop. Yayness.

gah, arm falling asleep on the left side. wtf, yo...

oh, um, there's one more...

Oh, Jeremy at Proquest. Ah, let me back up...

Ebscohost... so, I've got databases I'm looking for, and I wanted to hit Gale, Ebsco, and Proquest besides Wilson. So, I would wander up to the booth, look at the info, and wait for rep to approach. Wilson -- immediate approach. Gale -- immediate approach. Both before I had to really look around. Proquest -- thirty seconds, and I think they were just making sure I was meaning to be at their booth. Ebsco... three minutes of wandering around, into and through their booth area (and by booth, we're talking an area of about thirty by thirty or more), and no one approached. A few people kinda glanced over, basically giving me the 'Is that little girl lost?' look.

This is the trouble with being a library director under the age of thirty. Everyone thinks you're just a student or maybe a newbie reference librarian.

So, Ebsco pretended not to notice me. That's okay. I like Gale DBs better, and I'm really warming up to Proquest (in fact, I'm seriously thinking when I do BIs in the future, I'll use Proquest examples instead of Ebsco ones... 'cause I'm spiteful like that).

But, Proquest -- Proquest was great, and they not only knew their stuff, but they knew other college that are doing exactly the development with our collection that we are, so that was probably one of the best bits of info I got all night. Kudos to them.

After that (and we stayed until the voice overhead announced the hall was closed and it was time to leave) we went to the gaming group gathering.

I.... omg. I guess, for regular librarians, it must have been awesome. For a librarian who helped to organize the Tolkien Track of DragonCon twice? It... *tries so hard to be nice* Okay, it sucked. There, I said it. I could have organized something way better, but, I don't do these sort of events for other people anymore. Suffice to say, we circled the room, I explained some things to Mark ('no, guitar hero is just people pretending to play guitar... yes, that is stupid...'), and we left discussing the possibility of playing D&D in the hotel room instead.

We came back, I made dinner, we watched Hell's Kitchen, I sang Happy Birthday to him, and as soon as I finish this, I'm off to bed and convention fun tomorrow.

Oh, had nice discussion with person at badge correction booth. Had question to ask, could not figure who to ask, saw bored person at badge correction booth, and went to ask them, stating at the onset that they looked bored and I hoped to excite their time at the booth with my question.

Schedule for tomorrow....

Information Literacy (3 sessions), Gaming in library (1 session), Children's programming in Academic Library (1 session, and they're from WI!) So it's an Info-lit sort of day tomorrow!

There's a 'go have dinner with colleagues' thing at night... torn on going or not... will think on it...

Bedtime now! Nighters!

Comments

[aleabeth.livejournal.com]

Seems almost wrong to have so much fun on an employers dime....
NOT!!!!

:)We are getting you back... right???

[silsbee329.livejournal.com]

I've never been to a library convention, so this is all very interesting to me. Also because it's from a director's point of view. Cool.

Stupid Ebsco.

I love Bullfrog Films! They have a great selection of environmental issues titles. Nobody ever checks them out (*sigh*), but I like having them, anyway.

*waits for the next update*
:)

[hareatic.livejournal.com]

I have such a crush on Naomi Klein..too bad she didn't show.