Information Online 2009 - Day 1

Some thoughts and notes on day 1 of Information Online 2009. This is the first time I've travelled with a PC to a conference (have a Dell mini) and I've found it handy to note-take during sessions. Topping up the battery at random Power-point's in public spaces during breaks has worked ok, but wireless internet is too expensive for live blogging/twittering.


Highlights so far - Neerav's efforts with this page to aggregate all of the user-created content for the conference, meeting people who I've 'met' online via twitter and blog commenting, and meeting old colleague and friends.


Official opening by Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. He stressed a few times that the government's approach to ISP level filtering would be evidence-based, and that any technology used for such filtering would be well tested and trialled. I couldn't detect much anger in the room, but there wasn't much love either.


Next speaker was Sherman Young, Senior lecturer, Dept of media, music and cultural studies at Macquarie university, talking about the role of the book in an online world. I liked the way he tried to distinguish a 'book culture' apart from a 'print culture', and if we can understand and debate the use and value of books in an online world without becoming emotionally attached to the 'printed object'.

I was inspired by the work Paul Hagon from NLA has done mashing things like Google Maps, heritage images from The Commons on Flickr and geolocation services. Very cool...
Check out Paul's work on his blog: http://www.paulhagon.com/

Liz Lawley gave an outline as to why games and gaming is so important and central to most people's lives, and how effective games are as teaching tools, and encouraged libraries to understand and use games more in library services.

Exhibition hall was good, not quite the buzz I remember from previous conferences, but that may just be me. Looking forward to day 2!