Last week I attended ACRL in Minneapolis. It’s been six years since I last attended a “big” conference, by which I mean a professional gathering in a convention center with thousands of attendees and the accompanying mayhem. As I remarked to folks throughout the event, it felt, rather reassuringly, “like the before times.” Walking through the exhibit hall, avoiding eye contact with vendors as I made my way to the posters, felt like ACRLs of the past. Bumping into old friends and colleagues, meeting new people, asking presenters about their work, was weirdly, almost uncannily, familiar. Sure, there were fewer people in the crowd than there were at the conferences of a decade ago, and many of my friends have left the profession, especially since 2020, but I left with a distinct impression that I had just been at ACRL.
Which was good! Because the main reason I attended this conference was to see how it felt. ACRL was my professional home for about a decade, and I presented at the conference in 2013, 2015, and twice in 2019. I attended lots of other, more specialized conferences in that time, ones that focused just on library instruction, but ACRL was always the place I could go to see… well… everyone. And after quietly burning out and retreating from the profession for several years, I wanted to go back to the big show to see if it still resonated with me.
In a surprising turn of events, it did. I hadn’t expected to see so many familiar faces, but former colleagues and collaborators seemed to be around every corner. Having stepped back from conferences for a few years had me worried that things had moved on without me, and while there were new faces presenting new ideas, I was also relieved to find that the professional community I had known pre-pandemic was still there, and still doing interesting work.
I also thought the overall quality of the sessions was quite high, and I found most of the question and answer sessions productive; nearly every person had a short, topical question that allowed the presenters to expand on their ideas, and I only witnessed one “more of a comment than a question.” The people at the podiums were prepared, engaging, funny, and had opinions they were ready to defend. Additionally, I spent more time in the poster hall, talking with those presenters, than I ever have at a conference, and found it very rewarding. The Kevin of eight years ago would have recoiled at the thought of having 15 conversations with strangers in 45 minutes, but it seems I’m still turning over new leaves.
Anyway, looking back on it a week later, the main lesson of the conference for me was the importance of community. For us as library workers, for the students on our campuses, for all of us living in this society at this time, community is what will sustain us in the face of ongoing horrors. Over those few days, I laughed with people, I got sad with people, I had fascinating conversations with people. I was, overwhelmingly, with people. It’s the most interaction I’ve had since before the pandemic, and it felt great to know that other folks are going through many of the same struggles. We often spoke about how great it was to see each other, and how much we’ll need one another moving forward.
To help initiate conversations, I invented a new (to me) way of bumping into people: On two separate days, I pulled up a chair at a cafe table and faced out into the main hall of the conference, watching hundreds of people shuffle by every few minutes. From that spot, I was repeatedly able to connect with acquaintances from the past two decades, trading quick updates in three minutes while they were headed off to their next thing. It was great.
Beyond the three minute conversations, I also took time to have hours-long conversations with a few folks. Whether it was breakfast with a former graduate assistant, coffee with a previous department head, or a crosstown walk with a conference friend from the old days, it was lovely to just sit and talk with people I’ve known for years, whom I trust and admire and understand, as we tried to figure it all out. It’s the sort of thing that was common in my life for years, but has been missing lately.
Other than all of the socializing, I did actually go to some sessions, so I want to share a few of my favorites. Please note, the conference had something like 60 panels, papers, posters, and roundtables about “AI,” and I didn’t attend a single one (that’s a separate blog entry), so my take is not representative of the programming as a whole. I also missed a lot because that’s just how ACRL works.
- “Empowering Education: Leveraging Special Collections for Transformative Learning and Collaboration.” Anna Opryszko, Fátima Ortega Barba, and Virginia Moran.
I haven’t really written about it, but part of my portfolio for the last two years has included supervising a small special collection. I’ve done a couple of one-shots and consultations with the materials, but I’m constantly thinking about how to increase awareness and use of what we have. To that end, this panel, which featured two librarians and an undergraduate(!), presented examples of bringing classes into reading rooms to get hands-on experience with artifacts. I particularly appreciated their description of having students design exhibits and the energy they brought to an 8:30 session. It’s always good to start a conference day thinking “Oh, I’m taking this back to my library and telling everyone.” - “A Shelf of One’s Own: A Radical Reimagining of the HQ Subclass.” Sage Hickok.
This lightning talk was something of a masterclass in how to present: A problem was presented, context was provided, and a solution was proposed. HQ, and the accompanying subject headings, is a notoriously terrible part of LCCN. The proposed solution, to break it into HQ and HR, thus separating “sex/gender as an identity” from “sex as an act,” is, to me, like… perfect? I say that as someone who, like this presenter, worked in stacks maintenance and understands how a reclassification project could be a tremendous logistical hassle. HR isn’t currently in use, and because it neighbors HQ, the shifting and reshelving wouldn’t be that bad. There was a recognition that this is still a huge undertaking that almost certainly won’t be carried out in the current climate, but I still appreciated a solid “Hey I have an idea” presentation. - “Two Decades of Critical Information Literacy: A Review of the Literature.” Eamon Tewell.
He’s been my friend for over a decade now, and as another friend of ours described his talk: “It was classic Eamon,” by which they meant dry humor and a sharp overview of where we’ve been, where we are, and where we still need to go. It was quick, it was structured, and it covered a lot of ground. This paper was a sequel of sorts to an earlier article, and I hope anyone charged with library instruction, in any setting, reads both of them and thinks about what comes next. - “Anchored in the Storm: Navigating Change as a Mid-Career Manager.” Rachel Besara, Bridgett Birmingham, Michelle Demeter, Ginger Williams.
As a mid-career manager, I likely would have gone to this panel anyway, but I should note that I worked with all of these presenters, at one time or another, between 2005 and 2011, when I was a shelver, then full-time staff, in the libraries at Florida State. Aside from the family reunion vibe, which extended into the audience and included some people I hadn’t seen in roughly 17 years, it was also fascinating to hear four managers working at four institutions talking about how hard, and rewarding, this work can be. This was near the end of the day on Friday, but the room was full and there were lots and lots of nodding heads as they described their experiences and shared advice. My favorite line was from Michelle, who pointed out that “sometimes people complain about the parts of their job that they like.” This was presented in the context that managers shouldn’t just remove something from someone’s portfolio without talking with them first, and, wow, do I wish some former managers of mine had heard that wisdom.
So that was my conference. I left with some practical takeaways, some lingering questions, and a bit more energy to keep going. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I’m glad I went, and I hope I get to do something like this again.