Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
What’s Missing?
- Like the case studies; there should be more practical examples of how a library is dealing with their problem
- Not enough publishers.
- Need more points of view.
- More dialog between librarians and vendors. There should be a strong policy so vendors don’t do sales pitch during presentation sessions. Possibly have an open forum with vendors; lightning talks style.
Most Useful
- Thought cloud is cool. Could be used for next year’s topics.
- Anything that gives back practical stuff and idea.
- Trends and issues and how to deal with it.
- Round tables are good; small number of participants is good.
More Comments
- Start time should be later! 8am is too early. It’s OK to finish later.
- We appreciate that registration cost is low. Please keep it that way.
Add any other comments. Thanks everyone for your feedback!
Tags: Conference 2008, Feedback
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
Some shared their reasons for coming –
Practical stuff we can bring back to home
See what others are doing
Hear and learn about new ideas/concepts
Meet others concerned about these issues
Looking for answers, not more questions
Why do you come to ER&L?
Tags: Conference 2008, Feedback
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
We discussed the idea of keeping ER&L at the Global Learning Center in Atlanta or moving it around. Some thoughts were:
- Move around if possible
- Even/odd year arrangement (east-west coast); alternate location.
- Facilities and hotel are important; current facility operates really well and provides opportunities to network.
- Room monitors are really good.
- Food is good.
- Spring Break timing is good since the area is less crowded.
A lot depends on costs and availability. Any other thoughts?
Tags: Conference 2008, Feedback
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
Comments on the website:
Currently we are using OCS (Open Conference System) to experiment with this open source system created by the Public Knowledge Project .
OCS was easy for presenters to submit proposals, but for our interactive purposes, OCS is rather limited.
Moodle (what we used the last 2 years) was better even though it has limitation as well.
Thoughts:
- An interactive place for presenters and attendees is important
- Speaker bios are useful
Idea:
- Each presenter gets their own page, like how we had the Moodle site set up. One suggestion is to use WordpressMU. Presenters can get notification if anybody made comments on the topic.
To add to the website:
- Wireless instruction posted ahead of time.
- Brief schedule/time slots with time line outside the login.
- Travel Information: More information about Atlanta: visits, places to eat, maps and Public Transit/Marta information
Any more thoughts/suggestions?
Tags: Conference 2008, Feedback
Bonnie Tijerina March 26th, 2008
On the last day of the ER&L08 Conference, ER&L planners Elizabeth Winter and Kelly Smith led a Feedback Discussion over lunch. The next several posts are a break down of comments captured by me, Ranti Junus and Jacquie Samples. If your comments weren’t captured or you didn’t make the Feedback Discussion, feel free to comment on these posts.
Thoughts on Conference Sessions
- The conference is really useful; it’s working; it’s great; vet the abstracts to reduce overlap.
- Too many similar topics and overlap of topics. Not really clear how one presentation connected with other similar ones and there are plenty of overlap.
- Consider “lightning rounds” where anyone has 5 minutes to share an idea or a project they are working on.
- A lot of sessions seems to take a wide variety of user expertise; need more specific topic.
- Have more publishers to dialog with librarians
Thoughts on Conference Logistics
- The 45 minutes is good because it forced the presenters on target.
- Mix up the program; can we bring the 4-hours preconference as part of the conference (like workshop on practical stuff).
- Utilize the track system to combine theory and the practical stuff. Possibly create a 3-hour “track” with presentations that touch on different aspects of a topic.
- 45 minutes is too short for 4 speakers.
- Speakers need to stop taking after 30 minutes and allow more time for questions and discussion
- Repeat some sessions to allow people to participate as well.
- Starring some sessions is a good idea
Ideas
- Have people post to the Thought Cloud before our Call for Proposal for ER&L09 so topics are based on what we want to know.
- Post proposals and let the community vote like Code4Lib does.
Tags: Conference 2008, Feedback
