Category Archives: conferences

A Much Happier Post

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | May 4, 2013 - 10:45 pm | , , , , , , , , , ,
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happysun

My last post was a serious downer, and I apologize for that. I debated skipping the medical stuff, but I really felt like I needed to justify my decision to back out of ALA—if not to everyone else, then at least to myself. (And enough people have asked “What did you do to yourself, Coral?” that it seemed worth getting it all written down somewhere I could share it, anyway.) Deciding not to do ALA was a hard call. People have been super supportive, though! I am really grateful for the amazing folks in the library world, and I’m glad … Continue reading →

ALA Midwinter 2013

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 30, 2013 - 1:44 pm | , , , , ,
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I’m combining my obligatory “lessons learned” post (past ones: here… and the others all got left in draft format) with my “how’d conference go?” post. I didn’t learn that many lessons—not enough for a full blog post—and, spoiler, I had a great conference. Quickly, my lessons: Get a prescription for sleeping pills before conference. Because, seriously, I laid in bed for hours before sleeping, each night, and it wasn’t even an uncomfortable bed. Sounds crazy, but here’s my theory: I squash down my inner introvert all day, at conference, and I act totally extrovert-like. But, as social as I enjoy … Continue reading →

Projects – Learning stuff!

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 7, 2013 - 10:46 pm | , , , , ,
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I just signed up for Tabatha Farney’s and Nina McHale’s day-long Midwinter pre-conference, “Developing a Web Analytics Strategy for Your Library: Using Data to Measure Success.” I’m pretty psyched, since 1) I respect both of the presenters, and 2) my use of Google Analytics thus far has been somewhat lackadaisical. I haven’t taken the time to create an website analytics strategy, beyond “see if a page is ever used before I suggest removing it,” and the Google Analytics book I have lying around just keeps getting more and more out of date, as Google adds and changes features. (I know … Continue reading →

ALA Conference – In Style!

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 5, 2013 - 3:51 pm | ,
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I’ve been to ALA enough times, in enough cities, that I think I finally have a handle on how best to get around, get to the things I want to do, etc. My way may not be the perfect way, but I thought I’d share it, in case you might find it helpful. Some folks will give you the advice to skip sessions entirely, and while I understand their point, I disagree (and not just because I have to go to sessions to get even partially reimbursed by my employer). Instead, my advice is “Don’t ONLY go to sessions you … Continue reading →

2012 is over, time for 2013!

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | January 1, 2013 - 9:30 pm | , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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2012 was an incredibly hectic year. I have been especially tired, this winter, even beyond the normal sleepiness that comes from short days—enough so that I took the three workdays between Christmas and New Years off, which I never do. (It’s so quiet! You can get so much work done!) I tried really hard not to think about work, or much of anything else, during the time off, with moderate success. As a result, I feel almost (but not quite) ready to go back to work, now. But you know what? Looking back, I kind of feel justified in my … Continue reading →

Quick News Post

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | October 10, 2012 - 1:08 pm | , , , , , , , ,
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I have so many real posts queued up—some of them are even started! But I’m on what I hope is the tail end of a super hectic, um, year. I’ll share some quick news, though (bolded for quick scanning), because I want to tell folks about the things that are going on, and I don’t want to seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. Probably my biggest news is that I’m running for ALA Council—the link goes to ALA’s press release with the list of nominated candidates, not to any kind of Facebook page or other campaigning … Continue reading →

Comparing and Contrasting Leadership Programs

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | July 20, 2012 - 10:52 am | , , , , , , ,
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I’ve been very fortunate, in my nearly three years as a librarian, to have had the opportunity to participate in two library leadership programs: PNLA Leads and ALA Emerging Leaders. The programs have different methodologies and different goals, so, unsurprisingly, my experiences and takeaways were very different. I should acknowledge, it’s possible that trying to write up a comparison, when I am only a month “emerged” from ALA’s leadership program, but almost two years after PNLA’s, isn’t entirely fair. I’m giving it a shot, though, because Alaska is talking about whether or not to participate in ALA Emerging Leaders (via … Continue reading →

ALA Day 1

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | June 22, 2012 - 5:09 pm | , , , , ,
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(Numbering the day is no promise to write one of these every evening.) I’m on an iPad, so this will run brief (and choppy) for a post in a CoralBlog. It isn’t so bad to type on, but it’s slow. This was the first day of my first conference in a repeat location. (I attended Anaheim 2008, as an enrolled-but-not-yet-matriculated library student.) I am staying at the EL house, which is a bit of a walk, so I actually passed the hotel I stayed in the last time, which was cool. And then the giant tree I remember admiring, in … Continue reading →

See you in Anaheim?

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | May 31, 2012 - 6:50 pm | , , , ,
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Things have been hectic, since Midwinter. Work’s been busy (because when isn’t it?), some things in the Alaska Library Association have moved forward (which is fantastic, but potentially time-consuming), various life stuff (including more of Dale’s and my first year as homeowners) has continued to happen, and Group G’s Emerging Leaders project has taken up way more of my time and energy than I should admit to, given the other things I’m supposed to be getting done. But that last one, at least, will be over soon. We’re pulling together our report and our presentation(s), and it’s really nice to … Continue reading →

Bits and pieces

  By Coral Sheldon-Hess | February 20, 2012 - 4:34 pm | , , , , , , , , ,
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Google Plus OK, I don’t know how long this will be available (and I don’t know a better way to capture it forever than to play-and-grab with screen capture—any Elluminate Live wizards out there with a better plan?), but my Google Plus talk is available here. You’ll need to fill in the email address and name boxes, for some reason I don’t understand, but nothing will happen because of it—you can put in gibberish with an @ sign, and it won’t know. :) It isn’t the world’s best Elive session, but neither is it the worst. I wish I’d said … Continue reading →