Science Library Pad

SLA2005 event blogging (and wireless)

With apologies to Library Boy for copying an entire posting

According to messages on the listservs of SLA Toronto and TALL (Toronto Association of Law Libraries), SLA is thinking about doing something similar to what happened at the recent Computers in Library conference at the upcoming Toronto SLA conference in June, i.e. "blogging the conference".

Jane Dysart, of Dysart and Jones Associates, is asking "if there are any bloggers out there who are planning on attending the conference and blogging the event".

Any interested bloggers are invited to get in touch with her.

Hmm, if only someone had been thinking about blogging SLA2005 earlier.
Say, in January.

Please, please tell me that we can blog SLA with tags (the tag is SLA2005) and without this core/noncore debate.

UPDATE: I hear some good news from Jane Dysart on SLA2005 wireless - I'm told SLA is trying to find a sponsor to cover the costs (the conference centre has extensive wireless infrastructure, but they charge a hefty price to make it available).  If YOU would like to sponsor, I'd be happy to pass that info along.  Regular SLP readers may recall that I suggested the idea of wireless sponsorship a while ago.

latest in the SLA 2005 connectivity stream

j's scratchpad writes

Many of us have been whining about how much the Special Libraries Association is charging for Internet access during the annual conference in Toronto.

...

how about the idea of getting some of our sponsor friends to support our individual Internet access? I'd be happy to slap a sticker on my machine saying "So-and-so paid for my Internet access" for free advertising.

cost issues with SLA 2005 wireless

I got an informative response about the reason there will be no free, conferencewide wireless for everyone at SLA 2005 from Kristin M. Foldvik (Events, Director - SLA).

I am summarizing the information provided, with permission.
Basically, the conference centre charges per user, even though those of us with a technical bent know that wireless is a shared medium.  The per user cost is (I assume in Canadian dollars, although I don't know for sure) $395 which would enable it for one person for the duration of the conference.

So For example if you wanted to have 6 connections: the Wireless service would be $2370, plus taxes.

Now, since last year SLA announced that a 'Grand Ole' total of 3,839 information professionals gathered in Nashville, Tennessee for the 2004 Annual Conference (from Courier Fall 2004) then to be reasonable you would want to support what, 500 connections?  That would cost like $200,000!

The conference centre should support a flat fee to turn on its access points, say like maybe $5k per day would be expensive, but at least in the realm of sponsorship possibility.  Incidentally, I did email the centre a while ago for info, but I haven't gotten any response.

So I'm thinking... rogue wireless.
Note to anyone attending SLA 2005: If you should happen by some chance to see a wireless access point sharing a wired Ethernet network connection, err... please don't disconnect it...

Speaking of which, for the Internet Café (which will be an SLA provided service), I gather this is the wired pricing: order a single T-3/LAN Internet connection (witch comes with 2 IP Addresses @ $795) and add additional IP addresses @ $150 each.

I looked around the Metro Toronto Conference Centre site but I couldn't find any pricing. I did find that they have a full setup for wireless from Mobile Village.  The "deployment case study" on it contains the telling bullet point

• By creating a service that is sold to conventioneers and exhibitors, the IT department is now a distinct profit center.

Perhaps someone should explain to them that zero dollars for conventionwide wireless is less than they would get if they priced it reasonably.  It's a shame, because they have installed a very sophisticated wireless system from Chantry Networks.  It's the BeaconWorks system, using BeaconPoint access points.  This system has loads of capacity.  There is a fairly detailed 4-page report (PDF) available from Chantry (different from the Mobile Village PR above) on the implementation of BeaconWorks at the MTCC.  Again the magic paragraph is

Pay for access wireless connectivity represents a whole new revenue stream that had not been tapped previously. This will have an overall positive impact on current revenue for the Centre.
“The Technology Services department at a convention is a distinct profit center; it is an important source of income to the Centre,” says Chris Taylor, MTCC’s telecommunications manager. “We moved into data a couple of years ago to increase our revenue and I hope wireless will add to my revenue base and eventually become the top product.”

I don't object to them monetizing wireless, that's all well and good.  I object to them pricing it so high that it can't be used.

use capitalism to get SLA wireless

So I will admit right off, I don't know anything about the SLA, or how things are progressing on the wireless and blogging front.  I am by nature an outsider.  But anyway.

I was reflecting on Internet Librarian 2004 and two experiences:
1 - seeing the line up of librarians waiting to check their email at the Sponsored by Yahoo! computers
(and thinking, what is this, the dark ages?  what's next, a bunch of terminals connected to a mainframe where you have to reserve your 30 minute slot in advance?)
2 - the insightful Tuesday keynote
Making Deals: Lessons for Librarians
Patricia Martin
LitLamp Communications Group

and I'm thinking, you know what, this is all backwards.  What's the issue, the SLA can't "afford" to turn have the wireless turned on at the convention centre?  What's the SLA doing paying for the wireless?  You know who has money to spend on sponsoring stuff like that?  Tech companies.

How about SLA 2005 wireless connectivity brought to you by... Cisco?  Apple?  Microsoft?

I also heard people saying they didn't have a laptop, or they didn't like to bring a laptop, ok fine.

How about SLA 2005 conference blogging laptop loans (you lose it, you buy it) brought to you by... Dell?  Apple?  Google Blogger?  Typepad?  One of those corporate collaboration blogging software companies?

I think there are lots of possibilities.

Just click on SLA2005 (or the category link below) for my previous postings on this topic.

no conference wireless at SLA

I contacted SLA events about wireless at the SLA 2005 conference, since the venue supports it.
Here is their response:

As stated the Metro convention center does have Wireless capabities, but at this time are not planning on offering it, throughout the entire conference area. The convention center will allow you to pay for access on an individual basis through their business office.
SLA does offer a cyber connection area, where you can check email, free of charge to attendees.

So this is not terrible, assuming that the individual access covers all of the conference areas and is not ruinously expensive.  I will try to find out the cost.  Further options include:

• members lobbying SLA to get wireless for everyone at the conference
• interested wireless users getting together as a group to negotiate a better price for access
• rogue wireless using wireless access points (WAPs) brought in and connected to available high-speed Internet connections

UPDATE 2005-03-29: There is some positive news on this issue.  Please see my March 22 posting SLA event blogging (and wireless).

SLA blog and wifi?

UPDATE 2005-06-09: Everything following this update is from January 2005, so the info is a bit dated.  The summary is that eventually an SLA 2005 Conference Blog was created.  I was selected to be one of the contributors.  Read more in my blog in local category SLA2005 to get up-to-date info.  ENDUPDATE

The PLA blog is good, they're currently reporting on ALA Midwinter.

So I'm wondering, is there a plan for blogging and wifi at the SLA conference coming up in Toronto?
Since it's nearby, I'm hoping to go.

UPDATE: Am trying to sort my way through this.
Shifted Librarian has a post PLA Blog Living Up to Expectations which talks about conference blogging in very enthusiastic terms.

That posting reminds me I did want to briefly, without getting into flamewar, mention my thoughts on conf blogging and WiFi.  I have read comments to the effect of "Why blog? or Don't blog during my presentation, pay attention or Why do you need connectivity?"

Here's the thing.  A conference presentation is different from a university course.  You are not pouring knowledge into undergrads.  You are communicating with your already well-informed, educated peers.  Those peers are both busy and smart.  Now obviously, people in your presentation should be sensible (not playing videogames, hammering on the keyboard etc.).  For me:

- I blog during the sessions because, quite frankly, I rarely manage to write a full-blown retrospective conference report afterwards, and I have a lot better things to do than transcribe paper notes into electronic after the fact too
- To me wireless is self-evident.  You mention something that interests me, I can check it out right away.  You're covering an area I'm already familiar with, I can be doing something else during that time rather than staring bored into space.

I found a blog from the News Division of SLA

NewsliBlog

SLA has an "information portal" for members about Blogging and RSS, it is basically just a list of links to articles, blogs, etc.

UPDATE 2005-01-18: Christina has posted to the SLA-PAM (Special Libraries Association - Physics, Astronomy, Math division) mailing list

For Toronto -- How about a PAM group conference blog?

via EngLib

Also a comment about pre-arranged tagging for conf postings.  I had this discussion earlier - what's the best way to find all the blog postings on the net about a particular conference.  Based on an idea from Shifted Librarian, how about we agree on tags in advance?  Then you can just search for all postings with a particular tag.  I propose SLA2005.  (I tagged all my Internet Librarian postings with IL2004.)

If your blog software doesn't support tags, you can still techno-tag your postings by adding a link
<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/sla2005" rel="tag">sla2005</a>


UPDATE 2005-01-22:
Directly referencing this post

• LibraryTechtonics
• diy librarian

Check Bloglines Citations, Technorati Cosmos, Feedster Links,

Referencing this topic

• Library Stuff
• j's scratchpad

Check Technorati tag SLA2005.