I'm fairly certain I took enough notes today to fill up 4 blog posts so I'm just going to do a recap of my day, and post some more detailed after the conference (I really promise).
The early morning session I attended was called "Whither LIS Education". I was a little sleepy so I don't think I ever caught the name of the committee or the report that this panel was formed around, but the main speakers were Clifford Lynch and Ann Prentice. I didn't have a real pull to this session other than I have a lot of respect for Clifford Lynch and what he has to say, and I really enjoyed his thoughts on LIS Education. The panel was structured as some observations by Clifford, then Ann came in with some numbers and observations from the white paper... which she mentioned where somewhere on the ASIS&T website. If anybody knows where, please let me know. The hunting down process would be easier if I even had the name of the committee. I sort of wish some of these things were published better, or made more readily available for us... as a side note, I can't even get into the proceedings section on the ASIS&T website either, so for all I know there's a gold mine of things there that I'm also missing. But I also wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't too.
The second session I attended was "Tagging as a Communication Device: Every Tag Cloud has a Silver Lining", with a panel of 5 different people; Heather D. Pfeiffer, Emma Tonkin, David R. Millen, Mark R. Lidner, and Margaret E. I. Kipp. Some of the discussions echoed thoughts from a tagging session I saw last year at the annual meeting, but the highlight of this session for me was David R. Millen's talk on IBM's social bookmarking tool, Dogear, and how he's studied patterns in collaboration and tagging in the enterprise. His contribution to this panel was also a breath of fresh air, without going on a large rant, I really wish there was more representation from practitioners at ASIS&T. I do enjoy the contributions and the research from the academic institutions, but I would really enjoy a more balanced conference in this respect. I've been lucky enough at this conference, this year, to find some people who aren't all in academia, or have their PhDs or working on their PhDs. I've even discovered that there are Master's students like myself at this conference who have no intention of getting their PhDs, and I'm really working this out to be the theme of the conference for me this year. Overall I do enjoy this conference, and I like the opportunity to meet people in many different areas, and I think I will continue to enjoy these opportunities in the future too.
I only had enough energy for three sessions today, the last was titled, "My So-called Life on the Web." The panel was William Jones, Fred Stutzman, Catherine Marshall, Gary Marchioni, and Allison Brueckner. Lots of really good topics here, unfortunately the presentations were rushed. I was really disappointed that Catherine couldn't even get through hers. What struck me most about this session was how different the tone was compared to the opening plenary.
After the sessions I stepped in and looked at a couple of the posters from today. I didn't get a real chance to scope them out though. Today I also met some new Twitter friends, was introduced to a Twitter friend I already had in person, and had a great conversation at the bar with another MLIS student for some time before the Alumni Reception.
I was tableless for the Alumni Reception, but I stopped in and talked to some of the Michigan people, and I even caught up with somebody who I met last year and finally saw for the first time this evening. I spoke a couple of times with a former professor at Wayne State, Dr. Yunfei Du, and caught up with what he's up to now, and then headed out to dinner with the NOR-ASIS&T (Northern Ohio) Group.
As sleepiness reigns, I'll have to save my wrapup of the individual sessions for another day. And because I'm so sleepy I'm just going to post this into the wild without proof-reading (I'm so reckless)! I'm certain tomorrow will be another day jam packed full of excitement, so it's probably best I get to bed soon.
