ALA Marginalia

Last year we inaugurated the ALA Conference Materials Archive, on a wiki at http://presentations.ala.org/. The wiki already includes links to materials from earlier conferences, along with links to similar material from some of ALA’s units. The goal is for all collateral conference material to be linked in some way from this wiki.

So, if you are a speaker at the ALA 2009 Annual Conference in Chicago, this is *the* place for you to upload your handouts, or to publish links to your material, if it is resident on another site. Posting materials prior to conference ensures immediate access by attendees — waiting until after the conference means missing a valuable opportunity to share their knowledge and insights.

Go green! Post your handouts to the wiki before the conference–and you don’t have to make paper copies!  Just  note their availability during your presentation (add “view or download more information at http://presentations.ala.org/” to your last .ppt slide, for example).  This does work–the SLA conference has been largely paper-less for two years now.

Unlike last year, the wiki is not pre-loaded with program titles, but it is organized by day/time. When you add your program, please be sure to include the full text of the listing as in the final program, especially including unit acronyms(!). Full instructions on using the wiki, including the attribution license, and a suggested convention for organizing materials and links, appears on the wiki.

If you will not be with us in Chicago (still time to change your mind!) or if you have one of those inevitable conflicts, know that there is now a place to find the conference material, this year and into the future.

Please also know that you can always contact the ALA Library (library@ala.org) for assistance with locating more about a particular program.

Karen Muller, ALA Librarian

If you’re an ALA member, you should have received an email about ALA Connect yesterday. We’ve been doing PR for the site through other channels (American Libraries, AL Direct, etc.), but this was the first time we’ve directly contacted members. Initial responses have been positive, and according to Google Analytics, we had more than 2,200 people visit the site yesterday alone.

So today seems like a good time to do an update on statistics and to talk about Connect’s immediate future a little bit. First, some new, aggregate numbers for April 6 – June 16 (roughly 10 weeks).

• Total # of users who have logged in: 3610 (3196 ALA members + 414 non-ALA members)
• Total # of posts: 406
• Total # of online documents: 265
• Total # of calendar events: 162
• Total # of polls/votes: 25
• Total # of discussions (in forums): 143
• Total # of images: 19
• Total # of comments: 761
• Total # of new communities created: 81

So usage is consistent and steady, and we’re not seeing a major drop-off, which is a good sign. Now that we’ve let everyone know about the site in as direct a way as possible, we’ll continue watching these numbers. The Google Analytics chart below suggests even greater usage since it’s for only an eight-day period.

Now that we feel like we’re through the official launch phase, we’re moving on to the next big thing for Connect. We’re currently migrating from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, and we hope to go live (seamlessly) with the new version after our Annual Conference. Then the “really big plans” kick in.

We’ve worked with ALA President Jim Rettig to implement two exciting  initiatives from his campaign. We plan to integrate a mentoring network by the end of July and an “opportunities exchange” by the end of August (think grants, volunteering, fellowships, awards, etc.). After that, we’ll be implementing a new search engine and then the new conference event planner for Midwinter 2010.

It’s a pretty packed year for Connect, and your feedback will be critical as we implement all of this. Let us know what you think!

Good news: we’re unveiling a new Member Benefit discount with Books A Million on purchases in-store and online this week.

As a preview, members can simply use your member ID number to get 10% off at www.booksamillion.com/ala or 20% off at over 220 store locations around the US. Other details for Organizational members will follow soon. And keep your eye on the mail for a special discount card from Books-A-Million, exclusively for ALA members.

We hope that this new benefit program will help you stretch your personal and library budgets. Contact John Chrastka, Director for Membership Development, for more information at jchrastka@ala.org.