Feedback on library conferences
Suzanne Johnson
Friday, 13 March 2009 15:24 UTC
NPG is attending several library conferences this year – click here for our calendar.
We have attended a few meetings this year already and it is clear that visitor numbers are lower than previous years. It is important we control our costs and we have already reduced our travel budgets and cut spending on promotional items. To ensure we maximise our conference attendance, I’d really appreciate your feedback.
- Which meetings are you attending this year?
- Are you attending regional meetings rather than national events?
- What are the essentials that you need from publishers to maximize return on the meetings you’re attending?
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Replies
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I just returned from ACRL in Seattle, WA. We had the opportunity to meet with librarians from all over the U.S. but it was clear the exhibit hall was relatively quiet, as many librarians were unable to attend due to budget constraints. Did any of you make the trip to ACRL? How was your experience this year?
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I’ve just got back from two great library events with many disappointed would be participants turned away due to lack of space. The first meeting was held in Rome, March 6, “Web 2.0 and Libraries”, and presentations, including mine, may be seen “here”: http://www.uniciber.it/index.php?id=485
Another “seminar”: http://www.cenfor.net/agenda/bibliostar2009.htm#pomeriggio, “Library services for and about our users”, was held during a satellite session of the recent annual meeting of Italian librarians and other stakeholders held in Milan, 12-13 March, and the contents will soon be available.
The idea of change was very much in the air, with Darwin being much quoted: “it is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”. There was a real sense of eagerness on the part of the librarians present to dare and to share, and to make use of their traditional role and reputation as reliable, reputable channelers of information in a Reference 2.0 environment where many a user is unsure as to how trustworthy web information may be.
At these time of budget constraints, participants looked positively at the possibilities offered by Web 2.0 tools to create new content and maximise resources, to collaborate and interact, to communicate and share with their community. Wiki’s to present the library homepage, short, modular videos/podcasts to present skills, Rss feeds linked to the catalogue, tagging using Delicious and Connotea, are all being tried out to various extents. The belief is that the library is a central place to help people to learn to work with new technologies and not be afraid to explore.
Commitment was also expressed to open library data and information and to find ways to enable users, stakeholders and applications share and access them: to manipulate, enhance, mash-up, remix and re-invent.
“Slam the Boards”, as one of the speakers urged. Librarians should be there our users’ space even before our users get there, and start coming up with the answers even before the questions get asked. -
Hi David, I just came back from Bibliostar in Milan. It was great as ussual, but it was definitely quieter than last year. This is a very big library conference in Italy, yet some librarians couldn’t make it or could only be there one of the two days.
MaryJoan, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Perhaps the focused topical meetings are the really successful ones. Is that what you were hinting at?
I’m enjoying the ideos of the web 2.0 seminar you mentioned! Incidentally, let us know when your next such meeting is and we could think of hosting it virtally on Second Life (live?) on the Elucian Islands in the conference centre.
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Gosh. That would be fun. Let’s talk about it the next time we meet.
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speaking of library conferences.. here I am at the Special Libary Association Conference (SLA Gulf Chapter) in Kuwait. The conference is being held at the Radisson SAS hotel, here in their ship-shaped conference centre! And since we are on a ship (almost) in the Persian Gulf I shall publish the captain’s (web)log at the end of each day. don’t expect too much though, I’m supposed to be working here!
PS. no sand storms this time (yet)!
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Anonymous
jon, looking forward to the captain’s weblog. start a new discussion topic with it. i’m sure the librarians will jump on board.
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