Thursday, July 29, 2004

Whole 'Nother World

Speaking of which, I have to say I had no idea that George and Joyce (his wife) were cruise people. I am only exhibiting my own woeful stereotypes here. Because I think a cruise would be awful I am always taken aback when people I like and admire (like George and Joyce) do things I don't like-- they should care anyway!  I am the sort of person who feels put-upon after a short elevator ride with strangers, especially when they make conversation so being on a very large elevator with many strangers for days on end seems Heronimous Bosch-ish to me.  But, I admit I know zippo about cruising.

What I had meant to say was, here I am at the Grand Hyatt in D.C., a hotel I realized I'd been in many times before at various ALAs. It's just around the corner from the convention center. I don't think the OCLC staff have stayed here but I've been in the building. Mind you, I have never been here while there was a karaoke event happening and as the rooms face inward I can hear the wannabe American Idols.

Can you remember the first library conference you went to where a whole new world opened up to you? In my library career, this was the LITA conference in Denver in...hmm, maybe 1993 or 4? These cathartic events are always a combination of your own experience (or lack of), the event itself, your receptiveness to new ideas and the content of the conference.

Well, even if the events don't live up to the billings, I am feeling the same way after a thorough reading of the conference sessions at the World Future conference. A whole new vocabulary -- "enterbrainment", "digitalization", "transmodern", "choice-oriented behavior" and "regenopasal". What fun!

I am thinking ALA and other library orgs need to have "futurist" sections...we  have loads of format and market segment organizations. How about sections and committees who do what we did in the scan, on an ongoing basis?

4 comments:

George said...

Alane, the best thing about cruising is being in a totally different world, one where the biggest decision you need to make each day is whether to have a Foster's Lager or one of those frou-frou drinks with the umbrellas and the skewered pineapple. We had a group of 16 people on this cruise, since it was my parents' 50th anniversary celebration. We had my four sibs, the significant others, two nieces and two nephews, all of whom had a wonderful time. Maybe I should start a blog for survivors of non-dysfunctional families...

poet said...

what a great phrase: enterbrainment. Im going to have to use that one (citing source, naturally)

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful invention it is, this thing we call the Internet!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful

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