Access98 blowout

[Roy Tennant]

I just returned from one of the best professional conferences I've ever
attended. I say this not to brag or make you feel like you missed out, but
to bring your attention to one of the best-kept secrets in North America.
But don't take my word for it, look at this partial list of speakers and
make up your own mind. Web4Lib readers should recognize a number of these
people. Many of their presentations are online at
http://library.usask.ca/access98/program.htm, but you need to remember
that you are missing the informative and witty remarks that accompanied
them.

But of course one of the most important aspects of the conference was the
informal time spent talking with 200 of your library systems peers and a
few rogue administrators who snuck past the registration staff. So take my
advice and mark you calendar now for Access99, October 25-27, 1999,
Guelph, Ontario. If it is anything like this year's, it could be the best
conference money you've ever spent.

Some highlights:

Thomas Dowling, OHIOLINK - Thomas held forth in his inimitable and highly
entertaining way about Web standards and the inability of either of the
top browsers to pay the slightest attention to them. 

Peter Scott & Darryl Friesen, Univ. of Saskatchewan - Of course Peter is
best known for HYTELNET, a hypertext guide to library catalogs before
anyone knew about something called the Web. You don't know Darryl yet, but
you will. They tackled library intranets.

Terry Noreault, OCLC - Terry Noreault talked about how librarians are
responding to the challenge of creating organized interfaces to the chaos
that is the Web.

Tim Bray, Textuality - My money is on XML to be the next "killer
application," and there is no one better than Tim Bray to tell you why,
and how it fits into the landscape of markup languages and technologies. 

Lou Rosenfeld, Argus Associates - Web4Lib readers have already heard me
rave about Lou's book "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web."
Lou is even better in person, if you can imagine that.

Steve Sloan, Univ. of New Brunswick - Steve covered some of the techniques
he is using to serve some amazing digital content, ranging from the
dictionary of a native language (complete with sound clips) to the diary
of a loyalist. What he called Perl I call alchemy, he made it look so
easy.

Clifford Lynch, Coalition for Networked Information - Clifford needs no
introduction. As a fellow speaker, it absolutely appalls me that he can
comfortably fill an hour with interesting and informative conversation
with no apparent means of support (where are his slides?). If you haven't
heard him speak, you're missing a treat. And judging from his conference
schedule, you have also probably been absent from the planet for the last
decade.

George Machovec, CARL - George pulled off the amazing feat of making
authentication and security interesting. And for his next act...

Greg Notess, Montana State Univ. - Readers of Online and Database are very
familiar with Greg's practical, no-nonsense information about vital
technologies. It was our luck that he is even better in person.

Rich Wiggins, Michigan State Univ. - If rolling in the aisles with
laughter while learning a good deal about search engines is your idea of a
good time, we missed you. "Mr. Gopher" cemented his position as a
flexible, entertaining, and informative speaker who could help "make" your
conference. I'm thinking of starting a caption contest using his
Powerpoint slides.

Joyce Ward, Northern Light - Usually I steer well clear of speakers from
companies trying to sell me a product. But Joyce made me moderate my
stance with a presentation that was soft on the hard sell while being long
on content.

In addition to these world-class speakers, there were a number of panel
presentations, project descriptions, and good presentations, some of which
I missed while trying to scoop up some gifts to placate my children at
home. David Fox and company at the University of Saskatchewan Libraries
have my gratitude for putting together a truly wonderful program. I can't
wait for Access99!
Roy Tennant