Internet Librarian: Afters
Among my contradancing friends, going out after a dance to get food is called “Afters.” Afters play an important role at conferences, too. Often, some of the best networking is done outside of the sessions, the exhibit hall, and the talks. Being able to join colleagues over a meal or a drink to informally talk shop is fairly vital.
Monday night, I went out with a group of librarians from the Boston area. Now, it probably seems a little odd that I would travel across the country and end up having dinner with folks from back east, but the activities I do don’t often bring me into contact with public librarians. I stay mostly in circles of academic or special librarians. One of the features of Internet Librarian I really liked is that I was able to meet and mingle with all kinds of librarians. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with expanding local networks through conferences.
On Tuesday night, I joined an interesting group of folks Gary Price gathered together. I spent a lot of time talking to an academic librarian and his wife about setting up blogs and wikis. We all learned a bit about Ask.com from Gary and his colleague. A few of us went for coffee after dinner to converse further.
Last night, I joined an employee of Elsevier to discuss blogs, wikis, scholarly publishing, and XML feeds. (No real surprise there, eh?)
