WiLSWorld 2009

Registration is now open for WiLSWorld 2009. It will take place here in Madison on July 28th-29th at the Pyle Center. We have a great lineup of plenary and breakout speakers. See more information and register here.

Our opening day keynote is Joan Frye Williams. For more than 25 years, Joan Frye Williams has been a successful librarian, consultant, vendor, planner, trainer, evaluator, and user of library services. Since 1996, she has been an independent consultant specializing in innovation, technology, and the service needs and preferences of non-library "civilians." Her many clients include libraries of all types and sizes, library consortia, state library agencies, professional library associations, library boards, library vendors, and architects. Joan is best known as an acute—and sometimes irreverent—observer of emerging library trends, issues, and practices. She is an internationally recognized library futurist and designer of innovative library services. Joan is a WiLSWorld alumnus, having keynoted a conference a number of years ago. Joan's web site is here.

Our second day keynote is Karen Schneider. Karen is Community Librarian at Equinox, the support and development company for Evergreen open-source library software. She is a writer and librarian who has published over 100 articles and two books. Schneider's technology writing has been recognized in a variety of venues for being both lively and learned. From 2005 through 2007 she contributed to ALA Techsource. From 1995 to 2001, as the Internet Librarian columnist for American Libraries, Schneider consistently ranked in magazine surveys as AL's most popular author. Schneider is an enthusiastic speaker, presenter, and educator who in 2000 was named by PUBLIB as one of the top ten speakers in librarianship. Karen is also a WiLSWorld alumnus, keynoting one of our earliest conferences. See Karen's Free Range Librarian blog.

Andrew Nagy Senior Discovery Services Engineer for Serials Solution and the Lead Developer of VuFind, will present a breakout session comparing VuFind with the new Serials Solution product Summon, and how they can work together. Andrew is an open source evangelist and library technologist. Prior to joining Serial Solutions, he was the Technology Development Specialist for the Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova University where he was responsible for developing and implementing an innovative suite of applications to provide access to library collections on the Web. That certainly describes VuFind.

Dorothea Salo will present a talk entitled "Institutional Repositories: Rebirth of the Phoenix", discussing IRs, the rocky road they have traveled, and their prospects for the future. Dorothea is Digital Repository Librarian at the UW-Madison. She has been identified by Library Journal as one of the "Movers & Shakers" for 2009. Her provocative and thought-provoking take on the state of IRs is outlined in "Innkeeper at the Roach Motel", published in the Fall 2008 issue of Library Trends. Find more of her thoughts on her blog, Caveat Lector.

Also among the breakouts are:

--Conversations with Joan Frye Williams and Karen Schneider
--Updates on Evergreen and Koha from Equinox and LibLime
--A Discussion of MnPALSPlus, an implementation of VuFind for the PALS library consortium
--Making Toolbars, Gadgets and Gizmos for Your Library's Users
--All about podcasts, screencasts and vodcasts
--Tasha Saecker on Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed
--WorldCat Navigator, a new service for resource sharing
--RFID Revisited

As usual, there will be an opening-day reception and a second-day member breakfast (that is open to all attendees, not just WiLS members).

Join us for a useful and educational conference. You'll also get a chance to schmooze with your colleagues and have some fun!

Thanks,
Tom

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Tom Zillner Telephone: 608/262-0047 (Voice)
Research Coordinator 608/262-6067 (FAX)
Wisconsin Library Services------------------------------------------
464 Memorial Library Internet: tzillner@wils.wisc.edu
728 State Street Web: http://www.wils.wisc.edu
Madison, Wisconsin 53706