Tuesday, October 23, 2012

First Time Attendee

By Kathy Karn-Carmichael
Gregg-Graniteville Library
USC Aiken

Last week I attended, for the first time, the Depository Library Conference in Arlington, Virginia. My name tag bore a turquoise ribbon embossed  in gold letters "First Time Attendee", so everyone would know I was a DLC rookie. The first event was an orientation for first time attendees, which gave us an overview of the conference. The mornings had a variety of sessions covering collection development, websites, online resources, tools and speakers from federal agencies. The afternoons consisted of a two hour session reporting on the results of the FDLP Forecast Study ( more on that in another post) followed by late afternoon sessions. As with most conferences, I had to carefully choose which sessions to attend, choosing those which would help me the most in dealing with issues I am facing here at USC Aiken..

One of the highlights of the week was the screening of Linotype: the Film, a very interesting documentary about the Linotype machine. The film made many of us almost regret the advances of technology. It was followed by a reception in the GPO bookstore, with wine, cheese, and cake.

During the course of the week I attended a session on Rare Earth Elements by Bert Chapman of Purdue University, He provided an abundance of government resources and information on this hot topic. Other very informative sessions included, "Access to Justice Information and Statistics" information in the use of https://www.ncjrs.gov/, National Geologic Map Database session provided information about the revised website, GPO staff provided information about the progress of the redesign of the FDLP website, our Regional Librarian, Bill Sudduth presented a session on the ASERL Disposition Database, another session provided information about Public Health reports. By far, my favorite session was, "Promoting Public Access to Modern Day History: an Introduction to the National Security Archive which, according to the Los Angeles Times, has the largest collection of declassified U.S. documents. Currently featured on the home page are declassified documents related to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
If you are interested in learning more about these or some of  the other sessions, many are available for download. at DLC 2012 presentation materials

It was a wonderful and exhausting experience, I highly recommend it.


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