Deidre explains, “The report was provided by Allied Waste which shows the total tonnage of a variety of recyclable materials that were reclaimed during our event, along with the percentage of waste which was diverted from landfills (diversion rate) and the environmental impact of these efforts.  The report tries to focus on two main statistics which evaluate overall performance:  the diversion rate and the total tonnage.  The diversion rate is a great indicator of successful capture of recyclable or reusable materials.  The year to year changes in total tonnage may indicate changing habits by exhibitors and attendees which include the reuse of materials or bringing fewer materials which may go to waste.”

She continued, “We also sent out a green questionnaire to exhibitors and if they answered the questions correctly as to their recycling efforts, they received a “Green Exhibitor” sign for their booth. If we all partner together we can continue to improve and save the environment.”

Deidre is optimistic about diverting 70% … or more … at the ALA Annual Conference is Washington, D.C., June 24-29, 2010.

Karen

(I think if you right click on the image you can view it with type large enough to read … still learning to embed images.)

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

We and our colleagues in the ALA offices in Connecticut (Choice), Pennsylvania (ALTAFF), and DC (Washington Office) will be enjoying a holiday, Memorial Day on May 25, with all ALA offices closed.  All offices will reopen at 8:30 a.m. local time on May 26.

A few months ago we moved all of the offices that had been in “hqops” to the directory with the other offices, so that all would be accessible in the same way.  We’ve added additional links–notably to @ your library and the Legislative Action Center (”Take Action”) to the “Related” drop-down on the tool bar.  Four divisions (AASL, ACRL, PLA, and RUSA) have redesigned their sections of the site, using many of the same usability techniques as on the main site.

Changes like these are consistent with current thinking on website redesign–see “The Quiet Death of a Major Relaunch,” by Jared M. Spool for some discussion.  We conduct user surveys, do card sorts, and hold focus group sessions at ALA’s semiannual conferences to evaluate our needs and decisions.  Which is to say: The ALA website will continually evolve.  It’s not just that new material will be added; it’s also that dated material will be removed and archived, confusing navigation will be reworked, and sometimes whole sections redone.

At launch we had a “Professional Resources” area, which was a set of “tagged” pages gathering material from around the site into several broad librarianship categories (Collections, Type of Library, etc.).  These pages simply were not working as intended.  So, the whole area has been reworked, consolidating the topical tagged pages into a “Topics A-Z.”

These, of course, are not every topic of interest to librarians, or those interested in libraries, but the ones that show up in our search logs, our reference inquiry logs, headings in the ALA Editions catalog, etc.  Some topics are simply links to the main area of the site for that topic, such as Advocacy; some topics link to specific page, such as Mailing Lists; and others pages with explanatory text and annotated links to relevant materials.

There are more changes in the works … watch for them!

Karen

In between reference calls and staff questions, I’ve been paging through the program.

First, I checked that the program being planned by the committee I’m staff liaison to is there and accurate. It is (p. 79 … top of middle column). And it’s even in the right program track (on p. 41).

Then I noticed that there, on the inside of the back cover, is a short planning calendar–and better yet, a blank page facing it. The planning calendar was a feature of the preliminary programs when I first started attending annual conference, long before joining the ALA staff. And I’ve missed them. Yes, I have created them in any number of planning tools, but this one is immediately available as I page through the booklet. Handy place to note what catches my eye now so I can see if I can shoehorn in an extra or two, once I know the schedule for what I must do.

I looked at the field trips being offered by Camp ALA. Because the conference is in Chicago, I probably won’t be using Camp ALA this year, for the first time in years. If you are thinking of making your trip to conference a family vacation, know that kids enjoy Camp ALA and that the staff are wonderful and caring. Good destinations for the field trips, too.

What else?

• A great line-up of speakers between the division presidents’ programs (p. 10) and the Auditorium Speakers Series (p. 3) including several of my favorite authors
• 2009 Empowerment Conference for library support staff (p. 52 … good speakers … I’ll see if Val and Jessica would like to go)
• Scholarship Bash at the AIC on Saturday, Book Cart Drill Teams on Sunday … starting to look like I should get the kids exhibit passes, which reminds me that one of the nice things about an ALA conference is that it is family friendly
• Theme for the Membership Meetings: Libraries in Hard Times (p. 48)
• Forty (!!) pages of program listings … though some are awards receptions and special dinners and events, including the FRTF 40th Anniversary Gala … these will take more time to sift through. Some catch words: disaster preparedness, metadata, information literacy, influencing legislators, planning, partnerships … surely there’s something for everyone.

Yes, plenty of reasons to make me eager to attend, even after decades of “going to ALA”!!

Karen

Dwight D. Jones, Colorado commissioner of education, will be the featured speaker at the 2009 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Celebration at the American Library Association’s (ALA) Midwinter Meeting. Held at the Colorado Convention Center, room 201-207, the event takes place on Monday, Jan. 26, 2009, beginning at 6:30 a.m. and ending promptly at 7:30 a.m. Admission is free to paid ALA Midwinter Meeting registrants.

Thanks for your patience regarding this change. If you have any questions about it, you can contact Deidre Irwin Ross, Director, Conference Services.

In addition, the Chicago office will be closed Friday, December 26, and Friday, January 2, in a cost-saving measure. The extra closing days will save approximately $15,000 in energy costs.

Regular hours (M-F, 8:30-4:30 Central Time for Chicago, and 8:30-4:30 Eastern Time for Washington Office and Choice) will be in effect December 29-31, and will resume January 5, 2009.