An Embedded Librarian at CES

Going to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has been a minor dream of mine for a while.  I’m a science fiction fan, so getting a chance to see the lasted tech and gadgets and talking about emerging concepts was gleefully mind blowing.  (And Las Vegas is one of my favorite cities in the world to visit!)

CES was the first non-library, professional conference I’ve attended.  I’m only speculating, but at least anecdotally, I think many librarians (myself included) are guilty of going to primarily to the conventions attended by peers (ALA Annual, SLA Annual, Internet Librarian, etc.)  While those conventions help me develop as a specialist in my field, the problem is that they only help me.  Unfortunately, The Company can sometimes view this as an empty expense because it’s only helping me. 

So what’s the value of going to non-library conferences?  Primarily that you’re adding more value to your organization.  More importantly, that translates into you being seen as more valuable. 

I went with the idea that I would be on the lookout for certain topics and tech that would help inform the groups I support over the next year. (Looking back on it, I should have also sat down with each team and asked if there was anything specific they wanted me to look for.) I was essentially acting as an information broker for The Company.

In addition to bringing back pure data, embedded librarians can also bring a special perspective to intelligence gathering at trade shows.  As I’ve said before, because we work with a variety of teams we’re in a position to see how concepts and gear may affect multiple groups and make connections.  The Company had multiple people going from specific areas with specific foci, which allowed me to look at focus on more overarching themes and how they tied together. 

Further think librarians might consider sharing the information they bring back a bit differently than others.  I had intended to post updates to my in-house blog while there, but technical difficulties didn’t allow that.  I’m not sure if anyone else considered doing this.  And, on returning from the show, I set up a roundtable Lunch-And-Learn for my department with speakers from the areas that sent staff to the show.  (Perhaps this was the librarian in me wanting to programming? Or maybe just the showman in me wanting to be ringmaster?)  The hope is that together, we’ll be able spread the information we gathered beyond individuals and individual areas.  Again, the benefit to the mercenary librarian is that as the host you get a bit of credit for pulling it all together (even if that’s all you did). 

A final side note from my experiences: It was immensely useful to have colleagues back home emailing me stories they saw coming out of the show and asking me to look for specific items.   CES was 4-5 times bigger than any professional conference I’ve ever been to and it’s just not possible to catch everything.  Having an ops center helped me to stay aware of things I might have missed.