Originally, I was going to lump Feedster’s Scott Johnson’s and Nick Bradbury’s of Bradbury Software (FeedDemon and more) posts about what it’s like being a vendor at a conference with the other post about BloggerCon III notes, but I think those of you who attend any kind of conference might appreciate learning about what vendors get out of conferences and sponsoring professional development activities.

Some of my blogging friends are attending the Accelerating Change conference in California today: sj and Shimon. I just checked my aggregator and the two, who happen to be sitting next to each other, posted to their blogs minutes apart, so their writings appear in my aggregator together. Coordinated effort, perhaps.

Both of these guys attended BloggerCon yesterday. Shimon has a few posts about it:

• His arrival, which I already mentioned.

• A list of blogs from the Emotional Life of Weblogs session
• A reflection on the conference

Berkman fellow and blog group participant Rebecca MacKinnon also wrote about several sessions:

• The beginning

• the journalism session
• blogs and politics
• the perennial making money with blogs

Eli also posted about it.

Perhaps they will write more in the next few days, too.

While I was visiting sj’s blog, I couldn’t help noticing he’s also getting hit with comment spam from the same spammer I am. I can tell from the consecutive numbers on the comments, he’s not getting the flood I’m receiving. Since Tuesday, I’ve received 116 comments, two or three of which, I think, have been real. I received about 80 in the first 48 hours. The deluge has slowed, but it’s still happening. I’m getting a little frustrated, but I accept that fact that if I’m going to have this blog, I will receive comment spam. I’m trying to keep up with deleting the posts, but there are going to be lags while I’m offline.

Addendum: Scott Johnson wrote a bit, too, as did Lisa Williams. Scott wrote a post mirroring what Lisa wrote.

Today, BloggerCon happens somewhere out in California. I haven’t been paying too much attention to it this time around because of all the other chaos in my life that must take priority.

I was a little surprised that the Feedster geniuses didn’t set up a search or something for it on their site. The above link should go to a Feedster search with results for items about BloggerCon. My quick glance at the list shows quite a few people are writing about it, whether they’re actually present or tuning in via IRC or the Webcast.

Shimon wrote a humorous post about getting picked up at the airport in California. He plans to write more from BloggerCon later.

Jort Mentink posted “cleaned up” IRC transcripts of many BloggerCon sessions, including the Librarianesque Session. Thanks, Jort!

And thanks, Sam, for typing the session so that those in IRC could follow the not-so-audible Webcast better. Sam did such an amazing job typing what was said in the room, the IRC log is basically a paraphrased version of the session.

(I’m flattered that the Dowbrigade was there: ” Excellent session.” Thanks!)

Too bad I can’t read Dutch.

Another blogger writing in a foreign language that seemed Germanic pointed to me a few days ago. I can’t find the link or remember who it was now. I think the jist of the post was something about librarians not knowing what blogs are.

Addendum 4/29: Check out Jort’s translation. Thanks, Jort!

Addendum 5/5: This is wild: I was playing around on Frassle today and discovered Gerard commented on this post as it appears on the mirror in Frassle. Gerard corrects my interpretation of his post.

I wonder how many other people have commented on the manifestation of this blog in Frassle that I don’t see because there isn’t a direct relationship between what’s there in Frassle and what’s here on this blog.

While I was waiting at the reference desk at my local public library tonight for a librarian to finish with another customer, I picked up a book on the display in front of the reference desk: “Walking Across America.” I looked at the back cover to see if it said what the book was about and was surprised to read a blurb about a book about some woman named Jessamyn West who left California to go to Europe. When the librarian came back, I put the book down. I forgot the title of Jessamyn’s book by the time I got to the car. Whatever it is, it’s on my (long) reading list.

I met a Jessamyn this weekend when she was in town for some talks at Simmons College and BloggerCon.

Now that I’ve typed and posted my notes from BloggerCon, I’m remembering and revisiting how much the sessions I attended meshed with each other. As people in the Librarianesque Session talked about blog features, I wondered how many had been in the Visions from Users session and wondered how I could communicate what people were saying in that session to the people in the Visions from Users session who were really interested in learning what bloggers and blog readers want. The Blogs in Academia session broached points of interest to those in the Librarianesque Session. Marketing blogs and bringing customers into a business came up in the Librarianesque and the Blogging as a Business Sessions. (So did ads on blogs, but in a different context.)

Yeah, we’re all in our own little niches and seem to have our own interests, but a lot of things we deal with are the same or very similar.

I read some notes from other people about the Librarianesque Session today (linked below). A recurring theme was that the session only raised issues; it didn’t necessarily offer any solutions to some of the problems bloggers face. The authors seemed a little disappointed that they didn’t walk out of the session with concrete answers. This is often the case, unfortunately. A lot of what people decide to do with their blogs depends on many things. One solution used by one library may not be the best option for another.

Some of the issues people probably want answers to could be major debates, like whether to use a controlled vocabulary for blog categories or something less formal. Again, it might depend on your blog’s primary users. If it’s an internal blog, for example, and most of the users are librarians accustomed to sophisticated subject headings, perhaps using such a set would be appropriate. A school librarian may not want to use Library of Congress Subject Headings on his blog because kids may not be that familiar with the system.

The lack of answers/solutions reminds me of one of my library school professors who always used to ask something that seemed like a question with an easy, concrete answer and then say, “Well, it depends.”

The Librarianesque Session notes are finished, as is the blogroll (pending additions from others).

I also tossed my brief notes for Blogging in Academia up and my jottings during the Blogging as a Business session, which I will probably flesh out when I’m more awake.

I guess I didn’t take notes during the Visions from Users session, which was very good and quite interesting. If you’ve read what I’ve written before about Frassle, then I don’t have to repeat about 1/3 of the discussion in the room: people want blogs with nifty category systems, ways to integrate feeds into their blogs, ways to comment on someone else’s blog and have those comments be part of their own blog(s), and more. It was a lively discussion that covered both what bloggers want and what blog readers want. Hopefully some of the programmers in the room were paying attention. I saw one scribbling notes occasionally. (If they were for the session, he hasn’t posted them yet.)

I know some of you might be interested in the notes from the Librarianesque Session. It’s after 1 am and I just got home from my BloggerCon social/networking obligations. I apologize, but I’ve been awake for 19 of the past 24 hours and I don’t think I have the stamina to write and post notes right now knowing that I have to be awake and moving early tomorrow morning/later today. I will try to post notes sometime today.

I will say that I think the session went very well. We talked about a lot of great issues about blogging in library settings and as information professionals. People asked some very good questions. There were more than 40 people in the room from a variety of libraries and many non-librarians, too. Some of the issues off the top of my head:

• authority

• trust
• using blogs to draw non-library users into the library
• marketing the blogs to management/coworkers/blogging as a worthwhile activity
• blogs as knowledge management tools
• networking via blogging
• categories: use a controlled vocabulary or not

I really appreciate everyone who attended or participated in the session and those of you, Garrett Eastman, Kris Liberman, Mary Chitty, and Vernica Downey especially, who let me pick your brains about the session.

I just checked to see if the archived Webcast is available yet and it does not appear to be. It should be linked from the Webcast page when it is. Jay McCarthy, who provided a lot of the tech support, probably hasn’t had a chance to put the Webcasts online yet because he’s been really busy doing other conference-related things. (Thanks, Jay, for all your hard work. You really rock!)

If you blogged about the session or run across anyone who did, please let me know because I’d be interested in linking to any posts about the session.

I almost forgot to thank sj and Sun for monitoring my session and Bob and Jesse for helping out with some of the computer stuff for the Webcast and IRC.

Addendum 4/20: I noticed some people have linked to this post regarding Librarianesque Session notes. They’re available elsewhere.