News Library News Online
Vol. 22, No. 4/Summer 2000

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Student's 1st Time

By Jessica Baumgart

Chris Hardesty and Jessica Baumgart
Chris Hardesty and Vormelker-Thomas Student Award winner Jessica Baumgart.

 

What did I learn from my first conference? Besides the fact that the News Division seems to be the liveliest division, the conference reinforced my decision to be a special librarian. I began my conference experience with a CE course on budgets. While that might be enough to make anyone shy away from the conference itself, it made me even more eager to jump into the swing of things.

After the course, I met my conference roommate Kathryn Pease of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. We walked with a group of news librarians to attend the tour of the Philadelphia Inquirer - my first official News Division function. There, I met my mentor Jim Meier of The Sporting News and began meeting librarians from all over the world. From that point, the rest of the conference became a big blur. The only constant seems to be the evenings spent in the News Division suite. I attended so many exciting sessions on such a variety of topics and spent so much time in the exhibit hall that I wondered if I should have just checked out of my hotel room since I wasn't using it anyway!

I also attended functions sponsored by the scientific divisions, the Education Division, the Legal Division, and the Solo Librarians Division. I could not pick a favorite session if I had to. The ones that stand out in my mind were all the sessions on technology in news libraries - from the digital archives of the Chicago Tribune to archiving content on the web. The sessions with other first-time conference attendees and solo news librarians were very helpful, too.

What I remember most is all of the people. It was great to put faces with the names of people on Newslib and whose articles I had been reading to find out if I really did want to choose news librarianship. The mix of people constantly amazed me: students, recent graduates, retired professionals, and many from outside of the United States. I knew that the Special Libraries Association was large and international, but I was surprised to see so many people attending the conference. Talking with everyone about their careers was fascinating, too, because of the range of things we do as information professionals. And I don't think I met anyone who said they'd rather be doing something else.

Listening to the stories of the winners at the annual awards banquet was inspiring. I'm glad I heard these tales at the beginning of my career so I can start lifting weights early! It sounds like I have a lot to live up to since I'm a member of the News Division and the Vormelker-Thomas student stipend winner. My advice for other attendees: get plenty of sleep the week before, bring a coin to flip to decide between which one of four simultaneous sessions to go to, and wait at least twenty-four hours after returning home before trying to move across the country to start a new job. I hope to see you in San Antonio!


Jessica Baumgart - this year's Vormelker-Thomas Student Award winner and a recent graduate of the University of Wisconsin at Madison - just started a new job as Information Resources Specialist in the Office of News and Public Affairs at Harvard University. Her email is jessica_baumgart@harvard.edu.


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