by Sara Ring
Quick Summary
Read a few highlights from our trips to the 2018 state library association conferences in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Minot, North Dakota, and St. Cloud, Minnesota.
South Dakota
Fall library conference season kicked off this year with the South Dakota Library Association Conference. The conference went from Wednesday, September 26th through Friday, September 28th in Sioux Falls. DIME staff members Molly Huber and Lizzy Baus attended the event, and each gave a presentation on Thursday, September 27th. Molly spoke about standardized rights statements and how they can be applied in "Digital Collections, Rights Statements, and Expanding Access," while Lizzy gave an update on the latest cataloging trends and initiatives in "Success, Failure, and In-Between: A Minitex Cataloging Update." Other presentations of note at the conference were Valerie Horton's talk on the risks and rewards of innovation, and a group presentation by four South Dakota public librarians on the opportunities and challenges of non-traditional collections. Tea Rozman Clark's keynote presentation on the power of storytelling also resonated and provided good perspective on the value of gathering undertold stories and the impact those stories can have when shared with the community.
North Dakota
The following week, October 3-5, saw DIME staff traveling to Minot for the North Dakota Library Association Annual Conference. Sara Ring presented on rights statements in "Digital Collections, Rights Statements, and Expanding Access," and she and Lizzy Baus spoke together about the latest cataloging trends and initiatives in "Success, Failure, and In-Between: A Minitex Cataloging Update." Lizzy also gave a talk about the library linked data landscape, including a bit of history and a bit of prediction, in "The Future is Now-ish: A Linked Data Overview."
The rest of the conference was interesting and lively, including presentations on audio descriptions for the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot and the trials and rewards of circulating board games. Thursday night also included a Family Feud-style showdown among conference attendees, which led to much laughter from contestants and audience members alike.
Minnesota
To wrap up the summary of our travels to the region's state library conferences, here are a few highlights from the Minnesota Library Association Conference, October 11-12, in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Staff from DIME presented on cataloging and metadata trends, Minnesota library history, quick tips on library advocacy, the Minnesota Digital LIbrary (MDL) rights project, and on recent MDL projects.
I attended a great session called "Let's Get Digital: Preserving Analog Memories at the Public Library." New Ulm Public Library (NUPL) staff spoke about their participation in the Memory Lab Network, sponsored by the Washington, D.C., Public Library in partnership with the Public Library Association and the Library of Congress. NUPL was one of 7 libraries to receive the training and financial support to create digitization stations at their public library, along with educational public programs. Rochester Public Library staff spoke about the self-serve Digital Conversion Lab they have developed so that the public can convert older analog video, film, audio, and images to digital so they can access their content now and pass it along to future generations.
It was a busy but fun few weeks catching up with library colleagues and learning what's new. And it only snowed once on the Minot trip!
