Library Worklife

Volume 2, No. 5 • May 2005

Career Advancement

The Why and How of Conference Attendance

Why You Should Go to a Conference

By Judith A. Siess

If you are already making plans to attend a conference, great! You can skip to the next section on managing your time. If you aren't going, read on. Why aren't you going to a conference? Perhaps you have one of these "excuses" (you didn't think they were really "reasons," did you?)

Excuse #1: "My employer won't pay for it." Are people in other departments of your organization getting to go to conferences? If they are, you may given the same support. If your manager says there's no money budgeted for this expense, remember what library sage Herb White said, "In the absence of money there is always money for what is important." The money exists-it's up to you to find it and make sure you get it. What will be the cost to the institution of your not going-of not knowing the latest and best ways to locate information for your customers?

Prepare a detailed list of all the events that you plan to attend. Include the various "parties" and "open houses," but call them "networking opportunities," because that is exactly what they are. (You will notice that librarians at such functions are not talking about the weather or sightseeing, but about work!) List the vendors that you deal with that are going to be there. Provide a list of specific questions or information goals you plan to pursue at the conferences. Also mention that you will be taking various reference questions along with you and will have some of the vendors search their wares to find the answers-free searches! Make sure you show how your organization will benefit from your attendance. Some organizations are more likely to pay for your attendance if you're are delivering a paper or participating on a committee.

You might also offer to split the cost with the organization. Do not, repeat do not, offer to stay in a cheaper hotel if it is more than a block or so from the conference center. You will spend more time walking or taking cabs than meeting and you will miss those serendipitous encounters in the hotel lobby that constitute good networking. Don't offer to penny pinch so much that you reinforce the idea of the library as a second rate, nonessential function.

Or just ask for the time off with pay. One year my boss asked me what I would do if he didn't pay for the conference. I said I would pay for it. What if he didn't give me time off? I said I would take vacation. What if he didn't let me take the vacation time? I said I would quit. He paid for the conference and gave me paid time off-he was just seeing if I was committed to the conference and not just interested in a paid vacation. Another boss, when I asked him for just the time off (I would pay my way), said "we can't have that-we pay for others to go to conferences so we'll pay for you to go." I think part of the reason our non-librarian bosses (in special or other libraries) are reluctant to send us to conferences is because at their conferences they sit around the pool and talk sports, or golf, or whatever. If they could come to a library conference just once, they would never hesitate to send their librarians to conferences again.

If your manager still won't pay, think about this: Who gets the benefit from the conference? You do. P.S. You also might want to start looking around for a more supportive employer. Although it is too late to help you now, I have always made it a policy when responding to an offer for a job to make it a condition of my employment that I be allowed to attend at least one professional conference a year. This gets this issue settled up front and also is my personal insurance that my new employer understands that this is of primary importance to me in maintaining my professional skills.

Excuse #2: "I can't afford to pay for it myself." Of course you can-see Herb White's quote above. It is essential that you keep up with what's new in librarianship and information technologies. A conference provides technical and management education, networking, and an opportunity to make deals with our vendors-all in one convenient location. (You can use this logic on your manager, too.) To save money you can share a room with a colleague, stay at a hotel a bit farther from the convention center, or even make the conference part of a family vacation. Be creative!

Excuse #3 : "The program doesn't look very interesting." First of all, many sessions are more interesting than they might seem on paper. Second, the most valuable part of a conference is not the sessions, it is the networking and the exhibits. This is where the real learning takes place. Take reference questions with you and get them answered at the exhibits. Ask librarians you meet about their libraries, what they have done that they are especially proud of, or what resources they use that may be new to you.

There is no shortage of conferences to choose from. Each professional association has at least one national, regional or local conference per year. These are usually affordable and sessions are presented by a combination of members and invited speakers. For-profit companies such as publishers and consultants sponsor other conferences. While these tend to be more expensive, they attract some of the best thinkers, experts, and speakers, and often give you a different perspective. There are also conferences that center on technology. These are not as library-oriented as the others but feature the cutting edge of hardware and software and give you a very good view of the future.

Excuse #4: "I won't know anyone there." You may be surprised how many people you know. Besides, one of the reasons to go to a conference is to meet new people and make connections that will be helpful to you in your daily work. Hang out in the lobby of the headquarters hotel and find someone to talk with or to go to dinner with you. You'll find that librarians are very friendly people. One of the best ways to get to know people and to learn something is to volunteer to serve on a committee or be an officer in a professional organization. (And this helps to get you to next year's conference, too.)

How to Make the Most of Your Time at a Conference

Before you go: Make a plan. Use the information you prepared when making your case to your manager. Look over the preliminary program carefully for what interests you. List any tough reference questions you have (or sample questions) so that you can use them to try out vendors' products (and get free answers). Make a daily schedule of sessions and meetings, including the room locations. I use an Excel ® spreadsheet and print it out. When I get to the conference, I add the room numbers to the spreadsheet and make any corrections for any sessions that have been canceled or moved to a different room. This is my "bible," and I refer to it many times a day to find out where I should be. I include alternate sessions so that if a session is not what I expect, I know where else I can profitably spend that time.

Contact people you need to meet before the conference and make a date to get together. Be sure to take a notebook, pens, tape, markers, file folders (to keep straight people to meet, meetings to attend, and questions to be answered, or divide the above by day), a highlighter for the program, and so on.

Pack comfortable clothing and shoes. Appearance really doesn't matter much at these affairs, although you will want to dress more professionally if you are presenting a paper or moderating a session. If you are tired or sore you won't get the most benefit from the conference and might even miss an important session. But include a jacket with at least two pockets. Use one for outgoing business cards (yours) and another for incoming. It's embarrassing to mix them up. Speaking of business cards, take plenty and exchange them with everyone you meet. After the person has left your sight, write a note on the back of their business card so you'll remember who they are. If you'll never need the card or person again, throw their card out now, not when you get home.

At the conference: If this is your first conference, by all means attend as many sessions as you can. If there are special events for first-timers, make sure you get to them. Attend the association business meeting, just so you know what goes on in it. Spend a good amount of time in the exhibits, picking up literature from as many vendors as you can to get an idea of the breadth of services offered.

If you're an "old-timer," you should have different priorities. I suggest this order:

1. Talk to people. Talk to everyone, whether you know them or not. The more people you know the wider your network of potential contacts for reference, interlibrary loans, and even future employment. Go to breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. Especially go to any open houses you can find. If you didn't receive an invitation, go anyway. If it's a vendor's open house they won't turn away a potential customer; a division or section won't turn away a prospective new member, either. If you don't have dinner plans, hang around the exhibits or the hotel lobby and find someone that's going out and ask if you can join them. You'll be surprised with whom you may wind up. Nowhere else can you talk to as many people as quickly and inexpensively.

2. Visit the exhibits. Go up one aisle and down the next (start from the left since most people start from the right) and make sure you at least look at every booth. Pick up information only from vendors new to you-or, better yet, leave your card and let them send you the material. Note the vendors you need to talk more with and make an appointment to come back later. Don't forget to ask for a free password for a period after the conference to explore the product further.

When you get back to your room, go through what you've picked up in the exhibits and in sessions and throw away what isn't absolutely essential. Tear pages out of magazines and take home just what you need. What looked interesting on the exhibit floor will look less interesting in your room and even less interesting when you get home and face all the work you left behind.

3. Although the technical presentations are ostensibly the reason you are at the conference, they often go over old ground or, if new, are so crowded that you cannot get into the room. You may want to buy the conference proceedings or tapes of popular or particularly high-rated speakers. Get handouts if you can. Hint: If the session is not as advertised or turns out not to be as interesting as you thought it would be, get up and leave. Old conference hands do this all the time, and few speakers will be offended. Often, it is the only way to get to all the sessions you want to hear. Stay focused-remember your objectives.

After you return : Prepare a fairly detailed report for your boss. Include program summaries, new ideas or tips or techniques found, your opinion of any new products (especially of those you want to try), people you met (and why they are important to you), and any positions or committees you volunteered for. Emphasize how you learned ways to do your job better, faster, and cheaper. If you went to a formal continuing education class, include a copy of the completion certificate. Mention the conference in your monthly and annual reports, especially if you can show how your work has improved since the conference. Give one copy of your report to your boss and put another in your files. (It might be a good idea to make a note to take the report out in six months and review it to see what else you might try.)

Follow up on all of your contacts. Gather together all of those business cards you collected during conference and enter the information on them (including the notes you wrote on the back) into your contact database. You never know when these contacts will come in handy. Go through all the vendor information you collected. Throw away what you don't need and file the rest in some usable format where you will be able to find it later. Share what you learned at the conference with your colleagues. Finally, start planning for next year's conference season. Which conference do you want to attend? Start lobbying your manager now.

About the Author: Judith A. Siess, President of Information Bridges International, Inc. and editor and publisher of The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management since 1998 is the author of articles for publications such as American Libraries and Searcher , and four books: The SOLO Librarian's Sourcebook , 1997, The OPL Sourcebook: A Guide for Solo and Small Libraries , 2001, Time Management, Planning and Prioritization for Librarians , 2002, and The Visible Librarian: Asserting Your Value Through Marketing and Advocacy , 2003. The third edition of The OPL Sourcebook will be published later this year, as will The Essential OPL, 1998-2004: The Best of Seven Years of The One-Person Library: A Newsletter for Librarians and Management.