june09b.indd


A view from the edge: A first-time attendee’s perspective 

Since joining the field, I have heard that the 
ACRL National Conference is a great pro­
fessional development opportunity. Many 
colleagues told me it is the best conference 
they attend.This year I had the opportunity 
to go, as a presenter, thanks to the generosity 
of my institution and an ACRL scholarship. 

Having attended ALA Annual Conference, 
I had an idea of what to expect, but was 
not sure how a divisional conference might 
be different. Luckily, the first thing on my 
schedule was to attend the First­Time At­
tendees Orientation. We learned to expect 
programs targeting academic libraries, rather 
than meetings.The Innovations Committee 
shared the conference’s Web 2.0 tags and 
tools.We learned how the conference would 
be green.ACRL leaders explained the orga­
nization and how to get involved. 

I was surprised by the size of the venue 
and the large number of people in atten­
dance. Programs were much larger than I 
expected. Many of the rooms held hundreds 
of people. Most time slots offered several 
interesting programs to choose from. Luckily, 
the virtual conference provides information 
for the sessions, so attendees can still get 
the information for sessions they couldn’t 
attend. It was amazing to be at a conference 
where every session approached librarian­
ship from the academic perspective. Even 
those sessions not obviously tied to my own 
work gave me a better perspective of the 
larger field of academic librarianship. 

I attend this conference, in part, because 
I was on Steven Bell, John Shank, and Brian 
Mathew’s panel,“Mapping Your Path to the 
Mountaintop: Planning Where You Want 
To Be In Your Career.” It was a great panel 
of people to work with: we incorporated 
multimedia and encouraged the audience 
to share their own thoughts.We had an en­
gaged group, and participation in the panel 
was very rewarding. 

Roundtables were all held in one large 
room. Each table discussed a predefi ned 
topic.This was a nice opportunity to talk in 

small groups about specific areas of interest. 
Lauren Ray and I hosted a table on collabora­
tive development of online library instruc­
tion tools. I have been pleasantly surprised 
that we have continued the discussion 
through e­mail since returning home. 

There were a number of other events in 
addition to the programs and roundtables. 
The Chair’s Reception, for those presenting 
at the conference, was held 75 floors up at 
the Columbia Tower Club, with great food 
and an amazing view.The keynote speakers 
were fabulous, and I was always able to get a 
great seat.The All Conference Reception was 
held at the Experience the Music Project 
and Science Fiction Museum, with amazing 
desserts and a little something for everyone. 

One of the things that helped me feel 
most in the loop at this large and new event 
was the informal communication that took 
place online. ACRL’s tag, acrl2009, made it 
easy to find information about the confer­
ence.Twitter and Facebook allowed me to 
keep up with other sessions, find people I 
knew, and know what people were thinking 
of the conference as it happened. 

I was most impressed with how, for a 
large conference, everything was tied to­
gether. Most people I spoke with attended 
all the keynotes and went to the All Confer­
ence Reception, leading to a shared confer­
ence experience. I was also impressed with 
how the conference pulled together online 
communication about the conference from 
Twitter, Flickr, and blogs, into a slideshow at 
the final keynote. It was fun to see friends 
and events we had all attended on the big 
screens, and to know that other attendees 
had provided all the content. 

ACRL was an enjoyable and informative 
conference, and I feel fortunate to have at­
tended and participated in a presentation. 
The next ACRL National Conference will be 
in 2011 in Philadelphia. I look forward to get­
ting a chance to participate again!—Lauren 
Pressley, Wake Forest University, pressllm@ 
wfu.edu 

334C&RL News June 2009

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