ALA Midwinter was a big conference – one that had many meetings in many different hotels. To the right is a video of me trying (almost unsuccessfully) to get to a program at the conference. I was confused – the hotel the program was held at, as far as I could tell, didn’t have any signs. As in, any signs providing the name of the hotel! Once I got to the program, it was great.
And that sort of summed up my first ALA Midwinter experience. Looking back, it was a good conference. But for us first timers, it can also be highly confusing! What was confusing?
- The conference session listing didn’t really say much, and there were lots of them. Someone told me to get the full session info, I’d need to go to each division website to read about the sessions. Yikes!
- Obviously hotel signage could have been better (not ALA’s fault)
- I didn’t realize these weren’t sessions but were rather “discussions.”
- Some “discussions” really were discussions, while some were really normal sessions with speakers and then a longer q & a time at the end.
- What if you want to get involved with ALA or a division chapter more (as in jjoining a committee). How do you do that?
- Are all meetings open to everyone? Council sessions? I don’t know, cause there was no place to read about it.
So – just my experience… I’m sure it’ll improve with experience!