Fall Conference Season: Access & Internet Librarian

Most of the large professional associations hold their annual conference in the summer months (e.g. ALA in June, SLA in June and CLA in May/June), but those large events are not the only ones worthy of attention. For some time now, I have been looking into two fall conferences: Access 2009 to be held September 30-October 3 in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island and Internet Librarian 2009 to be held in Monteray, California which will be held October 24-28. Attending both would make for a very exciting and education fall season certainly!

The Access conference describes itself as, “Canada’s Premier Library Technology Conference.” Though there are still quite a few TBAs in the conference schedule, it looks promising. I like that such conferences are in parts of the country I’ve not yet visited – it makes them doubly appealing. The opening keynote will be given by technology columnist/science fiction author Cory Doctorow. I’ve read several of his novels and his non-fiction work on intellectual property (his novels are available for free under Creative Commons) with interest, so that makes it quite interesting. I also have the impression that it is a smaller event than SLA and CLA which means it should be easy to meet people and connect.

In contrast, Internet Librarian is a large conference that has been fully planned out for some time. There is even a video trailer for the conference (something I’ve not seen before in any other context) to promote it. The keynote is given by Vint Cerf, known as one of the architects of the Internet who now works as “VP & Chief Internet Evangelist” (quite possibly one of the most interesting job titles I’ve ever seen) at Google. There are different themes to the conference covering digital libraries, content management and innovation. The conference’s title is, “Net Initiatives for Tough Times: Digital Publishing, Preservation & Practices.”

Related posts:

1. The Web2.You Conference at McGill University
2. Upcoming Conferences: CLA and SLA
3. Notes on the TRY Conference
4. Canadians use the Internet a lot, eh