[Series] Hack ALA: Attending ALA Annual Without Attending ALA Annual

UPDATE: John Chrastka, Director of Membership Development at ALA, commented and alerted us to The Conference Tracker from American Libraries Magazine. This is another great way to track the conference, and pulls in a lot of the avenues Nicole mentioned in her post. Thanks John and AmLib Magazine!

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Like some of us here at Hack Lib School, you may not be able to attend the ALA Conference this summer.  Or maybe, there are other conferences you are not able to actually attend.  Below are some ideas on how you can participate and follow a conference without actually being there in person.  Most are directed at this year’s Annual conference but you could definitely apply them to others.  Please feel free to post other suggestions in the comments!

Staying Connected

36 credit hours complete.  It felt pretty wonderful to see that on my transcript this past week.  After 5 semesters and about 20 months, I have completed my MLIS degree.  Still feels a bit surreal.  Probably won’t hit me until I walk at graduation next week.  It’s exciting, though.  And made more exciting as I am very lucky to already have full-time employment as a Research Analyst.

It all has me thinking, though, how will I stay connected now that I will not be going to class and interacting with other students on a regular basis?  How will I keep myself a part of the profession?  In my previous career I became pretty insulated and it was hard to continue that learning process.  I really want to make sure that doesn’t happen to me now, especially working in a fairly private environment.

Non-Traditional Roles in LIS

Research Analyst.  Yup, no “librarian” in that title.  Yet, it’s my current job title.  And it is the job title of my 6 other colleagues.  They all of have MLIS degrees (and very soon so will I!)  Now I’ve discussed my role in a previous post on special libraries.  So I won’t go into that again.  But what I did want to talk about is this whole idea of using the skills taught in the MLIS degree and how you can apply them to positions outside the “typical” library setting.

The Road to ALA ’11: LIS Student Tips and Tricks

{This post is largely derived from these posts on my blog — for more detail on my ALA ’10 experiences, check them out!}

Last year, I attended my first ALA conference as a library school student, and it was an eye-opening experience. Of all the local and national librarian conferences I’ve been to, it is by far the biggest and most overwhelming. Here are some of my tips for staying on a library school student budget, networking, and more:

• Seek funding to offset your expenses. ALA’s Student to Staff program has already picked its members, but ask around at your library school for other opportunities. Are there any scholarships or grants for travel at your school? Do you know anyone you can split a hotel room with (if not, ask librarians on Twitter)?

Click through for more!!

The Road to ALA ’11: Our Experiences Thus Far

Typical conference experience - Photo from ALA on Flickr - click for Original

In preparation for ALA 2011 in New Orleans, we wanted to share some experiences we’ve had at previous conferences.  The whole professional development factor is an important one to be involved in early in one’s career, and we all believe that should start in school. To that end, we have compiled some short thoughts below, with links to previous posts discussing our adventures at conferences. Our range of experiences from a national conference, to regional, to sub-fields give a great overview for what one might expect. This will be an on-going post series leading up to ALA Annual, so if you’ve blogged, or plan on blogging, about a conference, let us know. We want to hear your story.

Have you attended a conference yet? What is most exciting or scary about them?