http://www.information-online.com.au
I am a member of the Australia Library and Information Association (ALIA), as Australia is where I am interested in living and working someday. They sponsor a biennial conference called Information Online. Information Online is being billed by ALIA as "the No 1. event for the online information industry in the Asia-Pacific region", and focuses on topics which are relevant not only to traditional 'brick and mortar' libraries, but to electronic-based libraries as well. Workshops include topics in electronic information literacy, bringing electronic resources to user context, search platform utilization and customization, collaborative physical/virtual space, e-learning professional development, knowledge management, Web 2.0 technologies, and much more. The conference is 3 jam-packed days of learning and social networking. I'm also going to a pre-conference workshop on professional development for committee/board appointment, and a post-conference workshop on learning how to "train the trainer". It should definitely be a good experience, but hard work. As my director said, "People think that you're having fun when you go to meetings, but they're actually hard work. It's not like your regular workday at all." Which is exactly right-- the conference day may only be 8 hours, but you're constantly busy. And there are often social functions before and after the conference day, in which you are meeting people, or meeting vendors, and talking shop and/or socializing. Thus, the "workday" can end up being 12 hours. Add in, in my case, a 15-hour flight to Australia and an 8-hour time difference, and it ends up being a pretty strenuous week.
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