Final Thoughts from IL2009

When I first read the preliminary program for Internet Librarian 2009, I made a few mental notes about which sessions were going to be of the greatest interest for me.  First and foremost, I wanted comparisons of CMS open source programs so I could move ahead in planning for one at our Library.  Second on my “must attend” list was the Track on mobile platforms for Libraries.  Learning more about the role of digital photographs in a library setting was of great interest to me as was the topic of mashups. 
I attended all of the sessions I had listed as well as others that proved to be highly entertaining as well as informative.  Did I come away with all of the data I had hoped to obtain – no, not even close, especially in the area of CMS.  But I have enough parts of the puzzle to start planning new strategies in determining which system we’ll use.  In the meantime, I want to move ahead with inserting a mashup or two in our existing web site to make it more user-friendly.  On the mobile end of things, I discovered that we can’t just try to “squeeze” our current webpage into a micro version.  With mobile, it’s a whole new ballgame and we have a  chance to make the page correctly to start with – with fewer graphics, only essential text, and the ability to perform tasks with the fewest keystrokes.  I walked out of the Digital Photographer Boot Camp with a renewed enthusiasm to complete our Libs365 project on Flickr, even if it’s a bit late – but better late than never.
In addition to the individual sessions, I learned so much from other librarians I met in informal settings thoughout the conference.  I was able to get together with a former PDL intern who was attending IL2009 for the first time.  And, of course, I enjoyed the beautiful setting of Monterey and the sea lions.