LITA Camp is long over now (it ended on May 8th), but I’m just finally getting around to adding a post about it. Though it would’ve been ideal if the “un”conference hadn’t had such a hefty registration fee attached to it, it was still a nice couple of days to network with a bunch of interesting librarians whom I had never met before.
Also, though Dublin seems to be a really nice town, transportation to and from the airport was less than ideal (especially for me, since I opted to stay in Ohio until Saturday in order to see a bit more of a Columbus while I was there). Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared for the horrible website that is COTA (the Central Ohio Transit Authority).
Perhaps I am a little slow, but just one small tweak that could make those PDF bus routes a lot easier to use on one’s own would be to include some “ante” and “post” meridian notation! Or, heck, even using military time would make things a lot less ambiguous, and slightly more user-friendly. Here’s an example of a problem that I encountered, putting me on the wrong side of the meridian and stuck downtown without a bus back to Dublin:
Fun to twist your head and read, right? Well, to make a long story short, I could’ve avoided getting stuck had this particular excerpt included “am” next to each of those times. Though I was able to travel down to Columbus early that evening, that same bus did not run back uptown at night (and I had unwisely assumed that I could get hitch a ride back at the 7:42 stop).
Aside from that misfortune, I did get to see a few other interesting sights and signs while in Dublin/Columbus, a few of which I’ll post below. First, you’ve got OCLC’s headquarter’s sign, captured pretty poorly with my camera phone:
And then you’ve got, what must be, the most active pedestrians in Dublin, Ohio:
As for the funniest piece of graffiti that I encountered, I’ll bestow that honor on this alley-side image:
And finally, the out-right winner for what was clearly the best sign that I saw during my trip:
A sophisticated treat, indeed; but, sadly, it was one that I opted not to partake in during my time there. Next time, though, Columbus!
