ALAs and ALAck

Well, so much for blogging ALA. I listed The Letter Z on the ALA “Blogging Annual” wiki, implying that I would occasionally write something about my experiences there. Then I proceeded to write one goofy post that had very little to do with the conference, and now I haven’t written anything at all in two weeks. Just another example of the unreliability of wikis, I suppose.

But here is a post that is about that ALA Annual Conference, so the inclusion of this blog on the ALA list isn’t entirely untrue.

On my first day in D.C., I attended a day-long preconference session entitled “Libraries, Older Adults, and Technology,” which, aside from being very long, was excellent. It featured a wide variety of speakers, from researchers to practitioners to vendors, who presented a range of perspectives on the topic. While the whole session was remarkably interesting, there were two questions that came up several times throughout that I found particularly thought-provoking. The first is terminological: what do we mean when we talk about technology? And the second is normative: why is it important to help seniors with technology, and what should our goals be?