So far, Code4Lib has been a blast. Throughout the day, there seemed to be a theme of user experience running through many of the presentations, from the opening keynote by Sumana Harihareswara to the extensive user testing conducted by NC State librarians in the pursuit of better virtual browsing. In what is becoming a bit of a personal tradition for me at conferences, one of the sessions I found most interesting was about new ways that librarians are utilizing Google applications.
About half the people here are first-timers, according to an informal poll during lightning talks, but the atmosphere is one of a community of librarians and tech professionals who know each other well. Conference-provided meals are conducive to meeting tables full of new people, and I definitely felt as though I left the day having made more connections more easily than I ever have at a larger conference.
Easily the best part of the entire day for me, though, was the evening reception and tour of NC State University’s Hunt Library. In addition to free pizza and beer (always appreciated), we got to look around at some of the amazing stuff going on at the library. Right off the bat is the impressive is the bookBot, the storage and automated book delivery system that welcomes visitors just inside the entrance.
There were also creativity studios, a game lab, and a dedicated makerspace complete with laser cutters and 3D printers. These two printers were affectionately labeled R2D2 and C3PO.
All in all, Tuesday was engaging and enlightening. It would’ve been great to get to a preconference yesterday, but if tomorrow and Thursday are anything like today was, I’ll have more than enough to digest and be excited about for a long time to come.
Cooking the Books 
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