WAAL Conference 2009

ALSO encourages all of its members to attend this year's WAAL (Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians) conference in Green Lake, WI. The conference will be held Tuesday-Friday April 21-24.

The 2009 conference theme is "Library DIY: Create, Collaborate, Innovate." As libraries continue to face new challenges and opportunities, librarians are doing more themselves. How have you created, collaborated or innovated? What do you do to improve your situation? What can others learn from your experiences? What do you wish you had known? Your experiences and answers to these questions inspire the great programs in store for the annual WAAL Conference.

In response to this call for DIY experiences, ALSO will be presenting a poster on Wednesday, April 22nd from 5:30-7:30. We will be presenting the experience of recognizing an unmet need in SLIS for networking and acquiring new skills among students interested in academic librarianship, and then establishing our own student group to create opportunities for ourselves. See the description of ALSO's poster session and other posters by clicking on this link to the WAAL conference website: http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/waal/conferences/2009/posters.html

The cost of student registration for the full conference is $30. If you attend Friday only, the cost is $20. Scholarships and discounts are available for students and WLA members. See the earlier post about scholarships or click on this link for more information from WAAL's website: http://www.wla.lib.wi.us/waal/committees/appguidelines09.pdf

ALSO will be coordinating carpools for at least Wednesday April 22nd, the day of the poster session (if not for the entire conference). Please either comment to this post or contact Jessica Gile at jgile@wisc.edu or Amanda Kramer at adkramer@wisc.edu if you will be attending the conference and need a ride or will volunteer to be one of the carpool drivers. ALSO is in the process of organizing fundraising events for the month of March in order to raise money for travel expenses for this conference. Stay tuned for more information about how you can help out with these events.