One of the most exciting outcomes of Technology Essentials 2010, WebJunction’s first online conference, was hearing how libraries used the event as an opportunity for staff to attend as a group. We heard from a number of organizations who set aside a conference room in the library with computer and projector for staff to drop in throughout the two-day event.
The staff at one such library, St. Joseph County Public Library in South Bend, Indiana, were fortunate to have the leadership and support of their organization to attend the conference as a group. Frances Walters, their Staff Development Librarian was kind enough to tell us about the group’s experience.
WebJunction: Frances, can you tell us a little bit about your library and about how many staff were able to attend the conference?
Frances Walters: First of all, thank you so much for hosting this conference. With our budget the way it is, I doubt that anyone could have gotten away to attend an offsite conference.
Our library consists of a main library and 9 branch libraries with close to 200 staff. I set up our training room so our Main Library staff could come and share the experience. There were approximately 20 staff members who attended some portion of the conference in this meeting room. Other staff at Main and at least one of our branches attended sessions from their own desks. It was nice to be able to come and go as our schedules allowed.
WebJunction: What do you think folks liked best about attending the conference as a group?
Frances Walters: I think people liked attending as a group for a couple of reasons.
- Since it was set up already in our training room they could come and go as they were able to without having to set it up themselves for each session they wanted to attend.
- Having it in a room away from their desks also made it more difficult for them to be interrupted during a session. It was a way to get away without actually taking a lot of time from their schedules.
- And having their co-workers in the room with them made it possible for them to share their insights and ideas right away. And they could share these ideas without interrupting the speakers or bothering others in the audience.
WebJunction: That’s a great point! You certainly can’t do that at a face-to-face conference! I’d like to ask you about your idea of using a wiki as a way for attendees to share their notes. How did that turn out?
Frances Walters: One thing we do on a fairly regular basis after conferences is to schedule a 'debriefing' session where staff who attended conferences or workshops can come together and share what they learned with each other and other interested staff. We talk about ways to implement some of the ideas and also post the results for the entire staff to read. This time, though, I thought that in keeping with this type of conference, I'd try something different. Rather than try to get everyone together to share, I set up a page on our staff wiki for attendees to note the sessions they attended and the interesting things they've learned.
I have to say that my experiment with using our wiki to talk about the conference after it was over kind of fizzled. There were only a couple of people who posted and another who said she planned to but apparently never got around to it. I think everyone is so busy that we tend to finish a project or conference and then jump right in to the next thing. Not that we don't put into place things that we learn because we definitely do; we just aren't as organized about it as we could be.
On the plus side, though, the people who did contribute to the wiki were from a branch and weren't at the group attendance here at Main. They attended on their own. It's possible that the people who were in our group here at Main figured they had done their discussion at the time. And I'm sure they'll also be sharing their experiences with other staff at their various department and branch meetings.
WebJunction: We’ve experienced that same challenge around engaging folks after the event. I wonder if there’s something more we could do to make the conference more integrated into ongoing work so that their learning can be immediately put to use. We’ll have to put some more thinking into that!
Can you tell us what could have been done (by us as conference facilitators, or by you as local host) to make it a better or more useful experience for your group?
Frances Walters: I can't think of anything you all could do to make it a better experience. There were very few technical glitches in the sessions I attended. For my part though, I have a few ideas of what I can do on my end.
- I will definitely urge everyone attending to print out the handouts that are available ahead of time. It makes it easier—for some of us anyway—to take notes.
- I also think I need to do more follow-up after the conference is over. Maybe push the wiki part more and remind not only the attendees but other staff that the archives are there with so much extra material. I particularly like how thorough the archives of the sessions are! For you to take the time to not only post the handouts, copies of the slides, chat transcripts, and recorded sessions but to go through and pull out everything that the audiences shared so that we don't have to do that ourselves and add other related resources is above and beyond. Thanks!
- Thanks also for making it possible for us to get certification credits for this.
WebJunction: Thanks so much, Frances, for taking the time to reflect on this. It’s truly exciting to see the potential for supporting your efforts in building a learning organization!
See also: Lansing Public Library cohort attendee feedback on the conference.
