The 2008 TLA conference Books, Bytes, and Beyond is 7 months away and the Local Arrangements Committee is creating a thread in this blog to keep you "in the know". We’ll post about 5 times each month up until March and then we plan to put something up almost every day.

Coming soon...

Before the conference:
•Speaker and program information
•Volunteer information
•Information on special programs like the Book Cart Drill Team performances
•Guest entries from presenters about their programs
•What to see and do in Dallas
•And most importantly, where to eat in Dallas

During the conference:
•Roving reports about conference programs attended
•Hot presentations you shouldn’t miss
•Important messages from conference speakers and organizers
•Authors and speakers blogging about their day at the conference

But what kinds of things do you want to hear about? Is there something about the conference you need to know about right now? Please post your questions/concerns in the comments section.

Dallas! It's a city of sparkling sophistication, raunchy roadhouses, flamboyant millionaires, desperate outlaws, and in the words of our friend, Molly Ivins, the "home of wretched excess," and it is all spread out for our enjoyment in April of '08. It's time for us to benefit from some of that excess.

The food, the chefs, the theme restaurants are superlative in Big D. Several years ago, I took a New York editor for a modest meal at La Madelaine - the original one on Mockingbird Lane - and she said, "If this place were in Manhattan, it would b so crowded, we'd never get in!" At that same conference, I heard another out-of-state visitor rhapsodize over the food she had feasted on in the West End. "Simply delicious, and an unbelievably low price! I'd have to pay twice as much for a comparable dinner in Chicago!"

And don't forget the music scene. It's as lively and juicy as L.A. or Nashville, but so much more accessible. The old song says, "When you go down to Deep Ellum/ keep youer money in youer/ for the women in Deep Ellum/ don't give a man a chance." But Elm Street is no longer the dark and dangerous district of this old folksong. It is now filled witrh cafes and music clubs and it's a wonderful place to savor the flavor of a bygone era without the danger of being shanghaied or raided.

And now, I'm dreaming of days of intellectual stimulation at TLA and then...... Dallas after dark! Yum!

Ruth Semrau

I just attended a fabulous session on providing services to immigrant populations. It encompassed academic (Georgia) and public libraries (Austin), and featured a third speaker from the Mexican consulate, who spoke about joint programs they offer with the Dallas Public Libraries. I'll be posting my notes from this session later this evening--having trouble finding the time to plug into the internet at the moment!

I'd also like to say that today has illustrated another thing I love about being a TLA member. I'm driving to Plano and taking the DART-rail in each day, so I don't have a "conference buddy" to travel with... but I've already run into people I know from TLA, from Dallas Public, Denton Public, UNT, TWU, and various other groups and committees. It's fabulous to be in such an active group of interesting people. If you're looking for a place to get involved, I strongly suggest you attend Wednesday's 10:15 session on "Getting the Most out of TLA: Your Guide to Active Involvement" (Convention Center C, room 144/145).

Just wanted to add a short note: registration is in the "A" section of the Convention Center. I noticed this isn't very obvious when you're coming in from the DART-rail. If you're using DART, when you exit follow the signs to the convention center, and then follow the signs to "A." (But don't worry--if you end up in the wrong section of the center, there are lots of helpful TLA people at information kiosks to get you on the right path!)

I just attended a session by Dr. Samantha Hastings, formerly of my own UNT and now in North Carolina. She gave an engaging talk about preservation of digital objects, questions we need to think about and strategies we can take to protect the objects we've spent our time, money, and energy creating or harvesting.

She discussed big preservation issues like migration of data, as well as issues such as who's maintaining our hardware, and do the people in charge of our servers really understand the importance of the data that they are protecting? One of the most interesting approaches she discussed was using a universal virtual machine (UVM) that has the ability to simulate any format or operating environment. She also stressed the importance of having a clear mission with good goals, to support your project.

I'm enjoying a little downtime now at the Starbucks kiosk near Ballroom C, which is not only feeding my caffeine habit, but provides free wifi access during its open hours. The connection is great for getting these blog posts and my email done, but word of caution: it's not handling my flickr uploads well, so you may need to wait to get back to your hotel room or home for those memory-hog applications.

Well, I'm about done here, so I'll head off to one of the sessions on gaming in libraries, and then maybe I'll take a quick jog around the exhibits hall.

I had never had the opportunity to get into the TLA exhibits hall at previous conferences--too... many... sessions!--so it was nice to have an hour there today. I was impressed--it really does rival ALA's exhibits, and I'm particularly pleased to have found an advance copy of Neil Gaiman's Coraline in graphic novel format. (Bat your eyelashes, and you may get one, too!)

I'm about to run off to my Government Documents Round Table meeting, so I'd better hibernate the laptop and head that direction. The facilities at the Dallas Convention Center have been great, but boy do they encourage a lot of walking! (I have more than worked off my Starbucks calories from this morning, let me tell you.)

It's Day 3 of conference, and you begin to see people grabbing their caffeine of choice with whiter knuckles than the first two days. The Starbucks has been a nice place to catch up on my internet-ing, and there's the nice relaxation station near Hall A, where you can get a short massage--and is conveniently located across from the bag check. A friend and I were discussing that the only other thing TLA needs to add now is a nap station!

If you think you can't get away to the Exhibits Hall... try to anyway! I didn't get to last year, and I had a blast this time. Lots of interesting products to see, and of course those prized advance reader copies, as well as a lot of gracious authors signing autographs. I got my copy of "American Born Chinese" (first graphic novel to win the Printz Award!) autographed by Gene Luen Yang this morning, and he was patient and gracious with all our fan questions.

So far today, I've been to:
-- Beyond Bytes and Books: Lee Rainie on the Role of Libraries in a Networked World
-- Wikipedia Smackdown!

Each link above will take you directly to my notes for each session. The powerpoint for Lee Rainie's session should be up on the TLA website tomorrow--if you're looking for any slides or handouts, keep checking this page:
http://www.txla.org/conference/Handouts08/handouts_08.html

I'm sloooowly getting my many conference photos uploaded (keep checking back--I should be finished with uploads by early next week).

Lastly, I hear that the Doo-Wop Sock Hop tonight is only $20, for a good cause, and most impressive of all, they opened for the Beatles back in the day. Sounds like it could be quite a romp!

Well, it's been quite a conference. As always, I've been impressed by the size and variety this conference offers.

This morning, I attended (the titles link to my notes):
-- Beyond Gaming in the Library: Gaming for Information Literacy
-- All the Rage: YA Graphic Novels

My complete notes for all conference sessions I attended (including last night's interesting and hilarious General Session II panel discussion), are linked on this page. Again, if you've also taken notes from sessions you attended, feel free to link them below, or comment about things you learned.

Again, if you missed any of the handouts, you can find them here.

And don't forget to fill out evaluations for the sessions you attended, to help us pick the future programs you're interested in.

Well, here are the results of four days of running around TLA with a Nikon D40x around my neck. The first day's worth are edited, nice and pretty... the rest of them are just uploaded willy-nilly without editing. (I'm moving this week, so I opted for access over beauty. Sigh.)

I do have them tagged enough that you can break them out by day, if you so wish: day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4. Also, you can find the Welcome Party shots here.

If you like, you should be able to download any images by clicking on the "all sizes" icon at the top of the photo.