IPAL & ILA/ACRL Conferences

Last Thursday I traveled to Dubuque with Ryan to the annual IPAL meeting. Ryan has ably described Bob Molyneux’s presentation. We were treated to a “state of the State Library” presentation by Librarian Mary Wegner (proud parent of a Luther student) and, as usual at IPAL, I enjoyed several conversations with colleagues from around the state. At the end of the meeting I was pleased when Richard Fyffe of Grinnell and Rich Doyle of Coe offered me (and all Luther LIS staff) a friendly welcome into the ranks of ACM membership.

Thursday evening Ryan and I attended a pre-ILA/ACRL dinner at the excellent My Verona in Cedar Falls where we shared a table with the current president of ILA (Ellen Neuhaus), the current president of the Iowa chapter of ACRL (Brett Cloyd), the State Librarian (Mary Wegner) and Temple University’s Steven Bell, the keynote speaker for Friday’s conference.

Dr. Bell’s keynote on Friday morning has been expertly described by Rebecca Sullivan in her post. I will only add that he is quite a cartoonist as well as a fine speaker. His images aptly illustrate some of the concerns that we face as we attempt to find our way through our ever-changing landscape.

There were a variety of other presentations offered throughout the day. An especially fine talk was given by Rachel Fleming from Grinnell who explored “how libraries can communicate new ideas about knowledge and knowing through architecture and action.” She succeeded in being truly thought-provoking by using carefully chosen images from the history of library architecture and speculating on the philosophical implications for libraries and librarians of the future.

Nearly every conversation at both conferences included a variation on “how are things going at your place?” The current economic situation has everyone more concerned than usual but most of the people I talked to seemed to be getting along more or less OK.