Conference Mania!

Sarah Houghton comments on her upcoming conference presentations, and the conflicting schedules of the California Annual Conferences and Internet Librarian:

“I’m really disappointed that the conference organizers couldn’t get their $*&# together enough to have these conferences not conflict. I fully realize that many attendees of the Internet Librarian Conference are not from California, but as the conference is being held here in CA, I’m willing to bet there is a lot of overlap. And my life is going to be raucous hell for that week.”

While there is an overlap between the two conferences, it is only a small one. The CLA conference ends on November 15th, and Internet Librarian begins on the 15th (not counting the pre-conferences, of which Sarah is quite upset in missing). As a presenter at many conferences over the past few years, I have been fascinated at the number of library conferences that are out there. There’s national, state, and local conferences, divisional get-togethers, as well as regional committee meetings. Basically, a lot of stuff to go to. I think that’s great. Many will argue that there are too many library conferences, but I’ll beg to differ (please oh please can I differ?!). The more the merrier, I say. The problem arises when there is overlap, which can’t be avoided. There are only so many weeks in the year for conferences (basically from September through November and then again from Mid-January to May are the prime periods) and so many conferences to put on. Overlaps do happen.

That said, I’m so glad that Sarah will be joining us at Internet Librarian this year (not sure if she attended last year). Has anyone mentioned a bloggers dinner yet? Thoughts? (I promise that I’ll make it this time).