by: Ro McKernan

Today was the final day of the 2009 ASIST Conference and it was sad to walk out of a session and see everything being all packed up.  The last two days were a whirlwind of sessions, if you haven’t checked out the conference backchannel do so and read the thoughts from the participants to get a sense of what people thought were the most salient points during each session (and other conference news). Very insightful.  It would be interesting to see if they organize the twitters a little more next year so that every session gets some coverage (although anything about social media may get flocked) as well as whether ASIST is going to work to preserve the tweets for their digital archives. Worthwhile stuff.

Other people have also been blogging about their conference experience.  Alan Cho put up a post about historians of information that can be found here: http://www.allanslibrary.com/2009/11/asis-and-historians-of-information.html.  If anyone else has blogged the conference, be sure to tag your blog posts with #asist09 for easier retrieval – tagging can be such a great tool!

Although the commute never got any better (today’s parking woes involved a ticket machine that did not dispense tickets … I think I paid thrice…) I’m glad I had the opportunity to attend the conference as a volunteer.  It truly was an amazing experience.

Next conference in Pittsburgh, PA – will you be there?

What a difference a day makes – I brought my power cord with me so I had juice in my laptop and was able to tweet with a frequency that would ordinarily have concerned me – I try not to normally overwhelm my followers – but there was so much information to share and so many mindblowingly insightful tweets to retweet that I am temporarily justified. #asist09

I went to many sessions today and I think I found my favorite (so far) …  Mike Crandell and Karen E. Fisher’s presentation “Free Access to Computers and the Internet at the Public Library”.  From the iSchool (is your school) at UW, they did a fabulous presentation about the research they’ve done (also in book form) and I hope that they develop a model to share with other libraries on how to identify the impacts of PACs (Public Access Computers) in their communities as I feel this would be a good tool to help us evangelize in these tough economic times.  The early finding that they shared with us (on a difficult to read slide – fix please <grin>) were that the top domains of PAC use are social inclusion, education, employment, health & e-government which feels right to me as I observe the patrons in my rural library.  I wish there was more research for public librarians (in general) at this conference …

There was no lunch today …  for a conference of nerds they sure aren’t feeding us.  I had crepes with some fellow attendees including the other student conference blogger (http://crywhite.blogspot.com/) at a wonderful crepe spot on Robson street (turn right).

By the end of the last session today – I was failing at understanding all the new information.  I think I can only absorb so much info in a single day so I left the conference for the day with much fonder memories and a history of tweets I will have to one day turn into a long form blog post, complete with high quality links…

And I also realized that no matter what I do, I always get turned around at skytrain stations and spend many minutes panicking when the parking lot looks completely different and unfamiliar until I realize I need to find the entrance and backtrack from that because the exit always exists you somewhere completely different.  It’s not me, its bad user design.

Cheers,
Ro McKernan

The minutes from our October meeting have now been posted. You can find them in the Minutes section of our About page, or you can click here.

The ASIS&T student chapter at UBC is involved with setting up the ASIS&T 2009 Annual Meeting Wiki. It has information on the program for the annual meeting, social events, and general information about Vancouver (you can probably guess which part we were primarily responsible for!).

Feel free to contribute to the wiki or make suggestions to the ASIS&T UBC chapter.

Remember, the ASIS&T Annual Meeting takes place in Vancouver in 2009!  November 6-11 2009.

Respond by July 20, 2009

To help ASIS&T student members who might not otherwise be able to participate in ASIS&T meetings, we provide  an opportunity to attend the sessions and network with other members in exchange for assisting us in running the meeting.  Students who have participated in our program have found the experience “terrific.”

How the Program Works

In exchange for complimentary registration, we’ll ask you to help us run the conference.  You’ll serve as a room monitor for about three sessions each day for three days.  In addition, you’ll help out either at our registration desk or conference headquarters for a 4-hour period on one day of the conference.

How to Participate

If you would like to be considered for this program, for the 2009 Annual Meeting, to be held November 6-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada .  Please forward your name, address, phone, fax and e-mail numbers to:

American Society for Information Science & Technology

ATTN.: ASIS&T 2008 Annual Meeting

1320 Fenwick Lane, Suite 510

Silver Spring, MD 20910

FAX: (301) 495-0810

e-mail: lvick@asis.org

There are a limited number of positions  available, and applications are considered on a first come/first served basis, so be sure to let us know of your interest by July 20, 2009.

ASIS&T at UBC is pleased to announce several upcoming workshops for SLAIS students on techy tools to make your life easier. These workshops were designed and will be taught by the digital media interns at SLAIS.

Zotero – The Next Generation of Research Tools

Terrace Lab, Jan 29th, 12-2pm

Zotero is a Firefox that helps you collect, organize and cite your research sources. Come to the workshop if you’re tired of RefWorks — or (like me) copying down citation information by hand.

Delicious and iGoogle – Gateways to Academic Success

Terrace Lab, Feb 4th, 12-2pm

Can Delicious and iGoogle be beneficial to students and academics? Yes! Come find out how.

Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to tag, save, organize, search and share web pages through the web. iGoogle provides users with a customizable web site, allowing users to put all their favorite online gadgets in one place — RSS feeds, Google Calendar, various social software, etc. It also manages URLS, usernames and passwords!

The 71st ASIS&T Annual Meeting is coming right up, in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. Schmooze with luminaries like Howard Reingold and Brenda Dervin. Attend a workshop or three, maybe even the Human Computer Interaction Research Symposium with SLAIS’s Luanne Freund, Rick Kopack, and Heather O’Brien. Look for a job (via the new electronic placement system, which is just for registered attendees). Or just cut loose at SIG CON.

The student rate to register is $190 for members of ASIS&T, and $260 for non-members (which includes a one-year student membership). Of course, there is an online registration form. What are you waiting for?

When: Tuesday, September 23rd
Time: 11:30AM-12:30PM
Where: Terrace Instructional Lab, SLAIS
Who: ASIS&T@UBC

Workshop will be conducted by 2nd year SLAIS student Maureen Bezanson. All SLAIS students are welcome to attend to learn the basics or share their own wiki knowledge. Please RSVP to asist.ubc@gmail.com if planning to attend. Thanks!

We are going to tour the offices of SydneyPLUS – developer of knowledge management solutions.

When: November16, 2007 – 9.30 to 11:30 am
Where: 13562 Maycrest Way #5138, Richmond

Come tour the offices of SydneyPlus with corporate librarian (and SLAIS alumnus) Jeremiah Saunders and Curtis Wensley, R&D Manager.

Sydney Plus is the leading developer of knowledge management solutions – their products improve information delivery in large organizations. The client list includes ALA, ABC News, Exxon Mobil, General Mills, Health Canada, and The New York Times. Jeremiah and Curtis will lead a tour of the offices, and give a presentation of future SydneyPlus projects in development. Just like 501, only you don’t have to write paper afterward.

This is a great opportunity to discuss real world application of design methodologies and information architecture, and find out all about the SydneyPLUS hiring process.

Interested?
RSVP to Lili Wang: iamlily@interchange.ubc.ca

Organized by the ASIS&T, the 2007 Annual Meeting is coming next month:

When: October 19-24, 2007
Where: Hyatt Regency, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Web: http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM07/

Web 2.0 and social computing are changing the way people use information for work, play, research, and everyday activities. Sponsored by ASIS&T, the premier society for information science, the 2007 Annual Meeting is devoted to the discussion of Social Computing and Information Science. More than sixty sessions of contributed papers, panel discussions, poster sessions, etc. have been planned. They will address a wide variety of topics, ranging from tagging, online communities, information seeking behavior, web log and transaction log analysis to research directions, education, and ethical practice for information professionals in the new world of social computing.