CIL2006: A final wrap-up

I can't believe how much I've written about CIL! I'm slowly catching up on reading what other bloggers have written and seeing what information they captured. Those that used their laptops in the sessions capture more raw information. I used a pen and paper during the sessions, then used my laptop to posted some of that content online. I hope that I wrote meaningful highlights, even if I didn't give every detail.

Someone said that this CIL had more energy. I think that might be attributed to the use of technology (the blogs, the wiki and Flickr) before and during the conference. People got jazzed and expectations were raised. Of course, after the conference, there are still more things being posted. And this is when all of us get a chance to catch up and read about the sessions we went to (in order to gain a different perspective) as well as read about those we missed.

Information Today, because it is a publisher, does an excellent job of disseminating information from the conference. Every attendee received a book of handouts from the sessions. These handouts were gathered back in January, so some will have changed (and not everyone turned in a handout), but still an excellent resource. All of the sessions were recorded, so the audio will be available for sale. And many of the PowerPoints (or whatever people used) will be on the Information Today web site. Some are already there! Add to all that the blogs and you've got a tremendous amount of information coming out of this conference. Not quite like "being there", but still very useful.

The amount of positive feedback I got on my presentation was incredible! And my session was blogged. Here are links to those posts, so you can read what people got out of my talk:

• CIL 1.2: Failing to Innovate
• Blogging Computers in Libraries 2006
• Innovation
• CIL2006 - Failing to Innovate

I was pleased that my presentation seemed to set the stage for some of the other presentations that followed, including more talk of innovation and of the Millennials. Are we talking too much about the Millennials? I don't think so. Steve Abram, though, reminded us in mid-March that the seniors (those over 65 years old) are a growing group and should not be neglected. True, we can't ignore the other age groups nor those who aren't as technology immersed as the Millennials. However, the Millennials will set the stage for years to come, so they truly cannot be evaded.

At the end of CIL, I think people left feeling hopeful. New technologies are being developed that will help our users (and us). Libraries are adapting in positive ways to the changes happening around them. For those in libraries that seemed to be "behind", I think people saw ways of getting their libraries to move forward. Everyone, I'm sure, left with at least one new thing to try!

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