The New Mexico Library Association Conference

Lisa Libro and I were able to attend the New Mexico Library Association (NMLA) conference in Albuquerque this week. The conference is always inspiring, interesting and informative but this year seemed especially so. We went to presentations and discussions all day long on such subjects as meta data in cataloging (I'll spare you the details but it's of interest to us catalogers), internet privacy, reaching out to patrons aged 18-35, and state library services for the blind and physically handicapped, to name a few. In fact, we were so busy going to the sessions and speakers, we never got a chance to fully explore the sponsors' booths. But we did have time (OK, I made Lisa make time) to take some photos and, as you can see, have a little fun while we were at it.

Thursday night was the awards dinner. The theme was "Steampunk." It's a genre I never heard of - even though I pride myself on knowing these things. Wikipedia defines steampunk as follows:

a sub-genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery, especially in a setting inspired by industrialized Western civilization during the 19th century. Therefore, steampunk works are often set in an alternate history of the 19th century's British Victorian era or American "Wild West", in a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has regained mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.

Since you all know, or should know, that Wikipedia is not an authoritative source, I'll tell you that from what I gathered after talking to others, this seems correct.

So it was no surprise that Joe Sabatini, the lobbyist to the state legislature, won. As far as we know, this is not his regular workday attire!

We ran into some library friends while we were there, including UNM-Taos librarian Kathleen Knoth, also a former member of the Taos Public Library board.

One of my favorite sessions was the one on internet privacy. I'll do a separate post on that later. As you can see, it was very well attended. Lisa and I had to sit on the floor for the first several minutes until, fortunately for us, some other people left.

Here's the exhibit hall we thought we'd have a chance to explore - and then didn't.

Can you tell we were tired but happy at the end?