I wanted to take a peek at the ALA event planner for the annual conference in New Orleans, just to see what else was happening 12-1 on Sunday, when Google is holding an event. They aren’t serving lunch so I wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing some other, equally informative lunchtime session where I could at least snag a cookie.
Well, first, you can’t access the event planner unless you’re registered with the conference and with this loathsome bit of software. That will keep Al Qaeda out of the MARBI meetings!
Not only that, the page boldly informs me: “Please allow 3-5 business days, after registering, for your registration to be processed before you can access the Planner.”
Now, exactly what is the purpose of a “planner” I have to wait a week to use?
This is software ALA uses because Conference Services selected it without ALA IT’s involvement. The Web committee was allowed to comment on it after the fact, but most of the responses from the company were in the genre of “The software can’t support that.” It’s an idiotic product that has a poor UI, can’t output to PDAs, and grinds to a halt when it’s stress-tested by a lot of people accessing it at once–like, you know, like right before a conference. I get the feeling it’s BCBC software–that is, Beggars Can’t Be Choosers; it probably came free with something else, like the search engine that came with the execrable website management software ALA purchased in 2003.
So how do I update my schedule? The same way I always do: I look at divisional websites and scan for hand-entered meeting information, and I watch discussion lists. When I arrive at the conference, I will be handed a thick dead-tree schedule. I will rip out the meeting information and keep the maps.
Posted on this day, other years:
- ALA 2010 Preliminary Schedule - 2010
- Speaking of GPS... - 2008
- Announcing Twitterprose - 2007
- Comments and Surveys and Eli, Oh My! - 2005
- Who Drugged ALA? - 2004
- Boo Effin' Hoo - 2004
Oh, I feel your pain. I went to the same planner about a week ago and had the exact same experience and thoughts. I now have a pile of invites from vendors on my desk as well as the latest issue of AL to go through in my quest for free food and good information at the conference before I do battle online to cobble together the rest of my schedule. Maybe one year we will have a proper online planner for the conference…
Right on, Karen. I started to use the conference planner in all its pain-inducing glory, and then I said to myself, “Self: why?” I mean, it’s a whole lot easier to simply enter stuff into my PDA, which is where I want it anyway. I mean, if I got something out of using it other than a persistent pain in mouse hand, I might do it, but until then I’ll keep doing what I’m doing. The one benefit I see for using a web planner is to let others see your schedule, but since the ALA web planner does no such thing, I’ve used the Wiki instead
Wow, I’ve added content to that wunnerful Wiki and never even noticed that section! Thanks, Roy. I’ll link mine there as well.
I must say, as a first-timer I’m completely confused by this whole Annual process. I have created a schedule on the online planner, that has a million conflicts and misses half the things I want to do. So off to Excel and iCal for me. After that, next step is to work out where these hotels and rooms actually are.
I have been to a few conferences before, but none even approaching 1000 delegates, let alone the size of Annual. I’m finding trying to get organised a bit overwhelming.
I generally find ALA to be large and overwhelming too, so you’re not alone! And the event planner certainly doesn’t help. I was actually able to pretty easily find stuff I wanted to attend before the planner went online. But it literally took me an hour to find them again in the planner. And then I just entered everything into PDA. Complete waste of time. If my memory serves me right, all the meeting hotels I noticed are relatively close to convention center.
If any of y’all want to do some “unofficial” blogger drinking in Nolia lemme know. We’ll discuss library issues of course!
Excel works wonders for me. Print it out and I am ready to go! I have wondered why they do not just take the planner down; it is such a POS. Does it really do anyone any good?
I’ve only been to one ALA annual, so I can’t say much, but the event planner is awful. Last year, when I got to ALA I got this very useful schedule that was actually organized by time–so if, for instance, you wanted to decide what to do from 12-1 on Sunday, you could just go to the 12-1 on Sunday section, rather than having to go through every division and round table and so on and so forth hunting for times.
I’m all for better technological scheduling features, but I’m also in favor of better print ones. Even on the suckiest of suck OPACs, you can usually search by author or title, and every reference book worth its weight has multiple indices. Why can’t I get a conference schedule arranged by both division and time?
Laura, was that the freebie that LJ did of special events? I remember something as well.
This is especially for Fiona. Meredith Farkas has an ALA wiki up and running. It includes helpful advice for ALA newbies (like me!): http://meredith.wolfwater.com/ala2006/
That’s very true, Mike, and I’ve even added content to it–such as restaurants I heard about, and my own schedule, and some wi-fi information.
It is still hard to face the calendar and know what to do! Library Journal does a good job summarizing programs–maybe give them a try.
I spent about an hour trying to figure out my schedule using the useless planner! It was actually easier to figure out what was going on when before the planner went online. I find ALA a little overwhelming too, so you’re definitely not alone Fiona. But if my memory serves me, all the hotels I noticed with programs are pretty close to convention center.
If any of y’all want to get a drink or coffee in Nolia lemme know. We can discuss pressing library issues of course!
Hmm. . . I’m not sure if it was an LJ thing or an ALA thing or what, but it was in an adorable little booklet that fit in (maybe even came with?) your conference badge. I don’t seem to have it anymore, though I do have my last year’s schedule, which I made using a Word table. This year I’ve been playing with Planzo, and my ALA schedule (or some semblance of it), as well as my general schedule, is up on my calendar page.
Well, as an ALA Exec Board member and someone who has personally crashed the planner each Midwinter and Annual until now, I have to say that Karen has been way too kind about this piece of —- software.
The language used infuriates ALA members (itinerary???? I doesn’t have a damned event out of town!), and is completely inadequate.
I do my schedule in Outlook (I know, I know, but it was a corporate decision before I took over, and it works for our system) which synchs with my PDA and I print to PDF for the odd hard copy need.
Here is the good news. This is item #1 on the post-Annual punch list for the key ALA staff.
I will note that I do use it to look things up (especially room locations in advance), but as any cataloger would tell you, it needs Authority Control in the worst way, and that, too, is on the ALA staff list of items.