I confess that at this point in my career, some of what I enjoy most at conference is catching up with people I see but once a year and finding out what’s happening in their libraries. I also had a couple meetings of informal groups during the conference that were worthwhile.
The session that stuck with me most was the Thursday keynote, “We, surveilled and afraid, in a world we never made” by Dorothea Salo, a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin – Madison library school. She did a nice job walking us through online surveillance by companies such as Google and Facebook, but then turned her attention to libraries. Notably, she discussed how libraries in Minnesota are, weather deliberately or not, permitting surveillance. I found it a curious approach given that she named the libraries; I think she might have done better to use examples from another state. I also believe a greater focus on what libraries can do to limit the problem might have been helpful.