Electronic librarian conferences

[Julia Schult]

On the theory that controversy is intellectually productive,
I'd like to answer the question about which conference is
best for "electronic services librarians" with a comment
about the Information Today series of conferences.
Infotoday puts on a whole series of conferences for
librarians, including Internet Librarian, National Online
Meeting, and Computers in Libraries.  There is another
conference, Online World, which is similarly sponsored by
Online Inc.  Several of the corporate sponsors of these
conferences are the same, such as Lexis-Nexis and Northern
Light.

I have been to several of these, and they seem to be
amazingly similar.  I think Internet Librarian is the best
for people in academia, because it seems to be done more by
and for librarians rather than "information professionals"
by which I mean people in the corporate setting.  All of
these conferences that I have attended have been useful to
me, and have helped both to provide concrete solutions to
problems I encounter in the library, and inspiration for
dealing with the "larger issues" of the modern age.  (Side
note: I refuse to call it the "information age" when it is
really the "marketing age".  But that's another paper.)

All of these conferences lean toward the business/corporate
world when compared to library association conferences.  I
sometimes wonder if they couldn't track them better so that
librarians with interests in corporate, academic, and school
or public libraries respectively could find sessions that
interest them more easily.  At the last National Online
Meeting, it seemed as if the speakers were thrown into
categories with little coordination, so I would attend a
session where one speaker was exactly the expert I was
looking for, and the other speaker in the same session had
nothing to do with my issues at all.  Very strange, it was.
And inevitably, there are some time slots that have nothing
for me, and at least one slot with 3-4 sessions I really
wanted to attend -- but that's one of Murphy's corollaries,
I guess.

I, too, am interested to know which conferences people find
the most useful.  I vote for Internet Librarian, but it's on
the other coast and therefore expensive for me.  How about
some of you who've been to EDUCAUSE giving a report?  and
what is Web Net?

---Julia E. Schult
Access/Electronic Services Librarian
Elmira College
Jschult at elmira.edu

<Original message:>
Hello,

I apologize for the duplication to multiple lists.

I have recently taken on the role of Electronic Resources
Librarian, and
need to decide on which conference is the BEST one to
attend. I realize
every library has different 'flavors' of Electronic
Resources/Services
Librarians with various responsibilities. My
responsibilities entail
coordinating with other reference/instruction librarians
selecting,
evaluating and testing electronic resources, and making them
available via
the web; developing web pages (not only for access to
databases);
maintaining a proxy server for remote access. And, of
course, electronic
reference and instructing students on the use of various
databases, is a
large part of my responsibility.

I'd like to hear from those who are largely responsible for
electronic
resources and services? What conference do you recommend?
Which is the
best?

A few that I am aware of are:
--Computers in Libraries
--EDUCAUSE
--National Online Meeting
--Internet Librarian
--WebNet

Thank you for your thoughts,
Sid
________________________________________________________________

Sidney G. Dreese -- sdreese at gettysburg.edu

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