TX Library Association and Alberta Library Conference, oh my!

by Jessie Zairo on May 14, 2017

The past 3 weeks have been incredible! It started out by attending as a vendor at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference (TLA) 2017 where I discovered downtown San Antonio for the first time. How incredible! I don’t how I missed San Antonio all these years and all I have to say is, WOW! Once again, TLA put on a fantastic conference and it was exciting to see current partners and have the opportunity to speak with folks who are new to the idea and power of Koha! I love it when our booth is sought after and so well received at a conference. We had an incredible outpouring of enthusiastic and interested visitors asking about Koha and ByWater Solutions support services.

The day after TLA I drove north from Reno, NV to Jasper Alberta, Canada for the Alberta Library Conference (ALC). It was an incredible drive to ALC and to see so much of the lesser traveled NW from the US into Canada. The wildlife viewing was incredible while I made stops along the way talking to a few libraries about Koha and ByWater Solutions.

ALC attendees were an interesting group and most booth visitors seemed to lack knowledge of Koha to which I contribute that they hail from larger systems using proprietary software.  Their frame of knowledge is limited to what they use and what information is being shared with them from within their own library systems. So, introducing Koha to these attendees had its challenges but it was met with a great deal of curiosity, some raised eyebrows and then some deep diving questions. I call this a good start to enlightenment! Once we got past the obligatory first timer questions we were able to dig into the OPAC and staff-side interfaces to show what Koha has under the hood and well, let’s just say we moved from a country dirt road to the autobahn in short order. I love it when I show and tell folks about Koha and what we do at ByWater and they’re standing there listening.. with gaping mouths.

And now, I’m in Eugene, OR preparing to participate in the Eugene Marathon this Sunday. I’m awaiting the arrival of my friend and ByWater’s intrepid, company captain, Brendan so we can hit the pavement Sunday adding yet another race to our 2017. I told you that the past 3 weeks have been incredible!