On the day I was celebrating the 1st year anniversary of working at Southern Methodist University, I presented the culmination of the largest project I worked on during the spring semester, at the Cross Timbers Library Collaborative Conference, with my supervisor at SMU, Jonathan McMichael.
One of the things that was most challenging was that I haven’t been able to attend a conference as a librarian. I’ve attended webinars and virtual conferences, but it’s difficult to know what would normally be done during a presentation as compared to what we had to do — present virtually, from two different spaces on campus. And even during the presentation, it was hard to read the room, literally. Is it normal to only have 15 attendees? Are they following what we are saying? Am I talking too fast? Are my glasses too big — can they see my face well? Is my video even showing to the attendees?
(To see what our attendees saw, here is the video from the virtual conference.)
That said, I felt fortunate to be able to present what I have been working on throughout the spring and summer. And at least one attendee said the presentation motivated her to evaluate their juvenile collection, using the tools we mentioned during the presentation. Overall, it felt like a success.