PALS Grant

Evaluative Report

2009 KLA Conference

Wichita, Kansas

 

(Submitted by Beverly Kelley)

 

I received a PAL Grant of $50 to help with registration fees for the 2009 KLA Conference held in Wichita, Kansas April 1-3, 2009. I would not have been able to attend without this assistance. I planned to attend several sessions on April 1 and 2, but because of unplanned scheduling conflicts with my library director, I was only able to attend Wednesday, April 1, 2009.

I am responsible for the interlibrary loans at our library so I attended the “Best Practices in ILL” session. There are always instructions and hints that I learn from other library personnel. We each do the ILL process a little differently, so tips are beneficial. It is always helpful to put a face with those I have been in contact with through the ILL programs. It makes it easier to call them directly and ask questions if it is needed. I would have attended the KLC/KICNET Update on Thursday, if I had been able to be in Wichita. Teasers were given by Rhonda Machlan during the “Best Practices” session for the later session. Both sessions are always very informative. I have attended them regularly and hated to miss a session.

I have my MLS degree and have the goal of being a library director so I attended the “Case Studies” session led by Gloria Creed-Dikeogu and Rita Sevart. We were given the opportunity to consider real-life management situations with both public and academic library problems/conflicts to resolve. We broke up into groups, quickly discussed how to handle our situations, and then reported back to the group. I mostly listened and learned. The management perspective uses different terminology and has different responsibilities than I use as a paraprofessional. I learned about board/city governance, advocacy and marketing, and human resource issues. My eyes were opened and my ears were alert to learn about possible uses of this information in the future in both types of libraries.

The last session I went to was “Academic Libraries and the Remaking of the Canon” with Julie Buchsbaum. This session was not as beneficial as I thought it would be. I thought I would learn more about collection development, but I learned more about the definition and making of canons. I should have attended “Shift + WeED = SHED. Maybe this will be offered at another conference.

My attendance at this conference was very short so the PALS grant was greatly appreciated. I probably would not have attended at all without the reward of the grant. I could not justify the registration fee to my library director without the grant fee subtracted from the total fee.