Just back from the welcome reception and opening of exhibits. We were welcomed with Hawaiian music and hula dancing. (There will be an opportunity for delegates to try hula dancing over the next couple of days so I may give it a try!)
The ususal vendors were there and I had to be careful not to pick up too much information or too many freebies as I need to bear in mind my luggage restrictions! Over cheese and biscuits I chatted with several American and Canadian Librarians, and it seems we are all feeling the pinch these days, everyone has reduced budgets. They asked some questions about the NHS/academic arrangements in Wales so did my best to fill them in.
The prize for most novel vendor stall must go to Elsevier for their Scopus database. “Scopus is the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature and quality web sources with smart tools to track, analyze and visualize research.” The introduction to Scopus took the form of a bingo like quiz as we watched a demo of the available tools and crossed of icons on our ‘bingo’ cards. I failed to win a Starbucks voucher but came away with a booby prize of a parrot shaped stress toy!
Alongside the conference ‘proper’ there will be some demos from vendors over the next couple of days. I’ll try to attend the PubMed update session and the Endnote 3 demo to take a peek at what is coming with the next version of the reference management software.
First attendees breakfast session at 6.30am tomorrow, looking forward to meeting other ‘newbies’ and glad of the start time, early morning and evening temperatures suit me better!
May 19, 2009 at 9:02 am |
It looks like a information packed conference – no wonder you have to start at 6.30am to fit everything in!