The end of two hectic weeks!

The last two weeks have been hectic because the calendar is filling up with conferences and meetings that have waited for consistently good weather.

Last week, I began a two-year digitization planning project with the Western New York Library Resources Council (WNYLRC) located in Buffalo, NY. This is the fifth library council that I've worked with on either some aspects of a digitization plan or on digitization training.

WNYLRC has three goals for the next two years:

• Establish guidelines and framework for conducting digitization projects in the region.
• Establish WNYLRC as a regional resource for digitization projects undertaken by its members.
• Explore the future possibility of providing a single point of access to digital collections housed at member libraries and library systems utilizing a federated search tool and make available through the established WNYLRC portal - WNYinfo.org. (Currently, WNYLRC owns the domain, but nothing is yet available at that URL.)

Some of WNYLRC's members are already involved in digitization and I hope will provide inspiration (as well as lessons learned) for the rest of the region.

The highlight of this week was the third annual WISE conference here in Syracuse. WISE stands for Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship. The one-day conference was sponsored by several organizations and hosted by the Syracuse University Whitman School of Management Falcone Center for Entrepreneurship. The keynote speaker was Myra Hart of Harvard University who co-founded Staples.

In all, more than 500 people (including a handful of men) attended the WISE conference. Those that attended included established business owners as well as those in the start-up phase, and even students who feel the entrepreneurial spirit. Given the economic impact that women-owned businesses have, it is no wonder that the mayor for the City of Syracuse and the county executive for Onondaga County were both in attendance, as were the chancellor and provost for Syracuse University.

Although I think of the world as being more electronic, we still rely on paper. And so one of the items handed out yesterday to every participant was a binder filled with copies of presentations, resources, articles and more. Many trees were sacrificed, but I believe it was worth it. (And hopefully one of the impacts of the conference and its web site will have is that women entrepreneurs will all feel more comfortable with using electronic resources.)

One of the messages that stuck in my head from yesterday was to understand your goals and how best to achieve them. That is good advice for anyone and for any project.

Okay...it's the weekend...have a good one.