LlyfrgellyddIt’s Welsh for librarian.

I’ve been meaning to blog about my experiences at Computers in Libraries for nearly two weeks, but every time I sit down to organize my thoughts, they scatter and multiply. In an earlier draft of this entry, I wrote that the best conference sessions left me with questions to consider – I think this is true for conferences, as well. In other words, the level of my confusion is inversely proportional to the quality of the conference.

I think the main question on my mind is: was it right for me to have so much fun at Computers in Libraries? I had a wonderful time socializing – eating, drinking, singing, and chatting about nothing in particular with a number of colleagues I knew from Twitter, Meebo, and Library Blog Land, but had never met in person. Although this was not my primary reason for attending the conference, I was very excited about meeting these people. Now that I’m home I feel vaguely…guilty for enjoying myself so much, even though I don’t think it interfered with my attendance of Real Conference Stuff.

When I mentioned my feelings to the people in the Library Society of the World chat room, I was pointed to Ryan Deschamps’ post from last fall about the ethics of conference attendance in a networked world.

In the past, I held the opinion that conferences have two purposes: learning and networking. The emphasis, I thought, should be on the learning. I thought conferences were supposed to be a passive experience: attendees are to be like sponges, absorbing information and names. I think this jives somewhat with what Ryan says: generally, employers contribute money toward registration for, travel to and from, accommodation at, and meals during the conference. They expect you to “bring something back.”

I think this is completely fair – but I think that we need to expand our conception of “something.”

Ryan explains that much of the content at conferences is available elsewhere; people blog about their projects – so you may know about these things before a presentation is even developed. Then, at the conference, people blog and Twitter about sessions they attend. Do we really need to be at the conferences to learn?

Perhaps not. I think the typical meaning of “something” in this context is “something that another library is doing, that we might be able to do here.” I definitely attend conferences with this mindset; I hoped to learn about the Next Big Thing at Computers in Libraries. But I didn’t. I did take away a few concrete things that I’d like to try here, but as I said above, the best conference sessions left me questions, or at least things to consider.

Another idea of  “something” is that it can be an informal measurement. One reason that I think I didn’t learn more at this conference is because my workplace is already doing many of the things that were talked about – so “something” I brought back was the observation that we’re doing pretty well in terms of integrating emerging technologies into our services. I’m not sure this is would be an ethical motivation for attending a conference; you should be able to get some feel for this by reading about technology initiatives on blogs and mailing lists, or even by looking at a preliminary conference program. What I’m saying is that while this knowledge is something useful you can bring back from a conference, it shouldn’t be your primary motivation for going.

“Something” can also be “raising awareness of one’s institution and what they’re doing.” Let’s not think about conferences as passive, but active – if you present, it’s a way for you to draw attention to your library, business, or organization, and the neat things it’s doing. This might be an odd way of thinking of it – but if you present well, you’re marketing your library and perhaps recruiting future employees. I’d definitely argue that this is an ethical motivation for attending a conference. It also occurs to me that if you’re an academic librarian and presenting at a conference, you may even be fulfilling job responsibilities.

However, I don’t think I’m any closer to answering the question at hand, implied (if not directly stated) by Ryan: is it ethical to attend a conference (on your employer’s dime) if your main motivation for attending is to see the faces of the people you network with online?

Let’s break down the question: is it ethical to attend a conference if your main motivation for attending is to see the faces of the people you network with online? Is it ethical to do so on your employer’s dime?

I hope most people would agree that it is ethical, but if you don’t, I’d love to hear why. (Despite my philosophy degree, I have been known to unintentionally set up straw men.)

To address whether it’s ethical to do so on your employer’s dime – I think we’d have to refer back to the aforementioned “something.” What does an employer get out of it when you socialize with colleagues? What do we, as employees, get out of it?

For my part, I feel closer (emotionally) to many of my colleagues. I feel refreshed and inspired.

It’s hard to say whether these things are of use to my employer. I like to think that I’ll be a better employee because of the socializing I did at the conference. How do you quantify inspiration?

My conclusion: socializing is a good reason to attend conferences…but I don’t think a person is being a good steward of their library’s funds if that’s the only reason an employee has for attending a conference. I’ll quantify inspiration enough to say that I think it is a luxury.