Brian Hickam, ALAO President

Toledo Conference a Success:
Thank you, everyone, for a rewarding year for ALAO and a successful two-day annual conference in Toledo. Thursday’s pre-conference had attendees from all five regions of Ohio and two nearby states.  Sixty-nine of the seventy-seven who returned evaluations listed pre-conference keynote speaker Lauren Pressley as being either “good” or “outstanding.”  Seventy-two considered the panel discussion on the ACRL report on the value of academic libraries to be “good” or “outstanding.”  Three quarters of those who attended the pre-conference also attended Friday’s conference.
Of the 205 evaluations received on Friday, 189 are from those working at academic libraries, 2 from public libraries, 4 from special, and 10 “other” (which includes consortia staff, students, and retirees). Forty-four of these attendees indicated that 2011 was their first ALAO conference.  Thirty-five had been to 6 to 9 ALAO conferences and thirty-one had been to 10 or more.  173 considered keynote speaker Steven J. Bell’s talk to be “good” or “outstanding.”  Both speakers’ keynote presentations will be linked to the conference website.  Overall, the twenty-four presentations and eighteen poster sessions received good reviews
Your comments and ratings on the evaluation forms will have influence on future gatherings.  Conference planning committees typically review the evaluations from the three most recent conferences.  A common complement for 2011’s gathering was that the conference theme “Constant Change, Constant Opportunity” was “very timely.”  It is very helpful to have your suggestions for future conference themes and locations.  Due to the audio glitches on both days this year the ALAO conference planning group has put new procedures into place that should help prevent future problems.  Thanks to all for proving that we can indeed expect a good turnout for events in Northwest Ohio. (A special thanks to Diane and Jenny for compiling our conference evaluations data.)
I encourage you to review ALAO’s offering of spring workshops as the dates, locations, & themes come out over the next several weeks.  They provide excellent opportunities for presenters and attendees.