The Librarian of Congress, James Billington was on hand in the morning and gave introductory remarks. He also helped to hand out several awards, including one to Jill Golden, an SU student, who is working in Germany. During her acceptance speech, Jill said:
I love the joyful moment when people are connected to the knowledge they seek.I was on a panel about "Web 3D and Virtual Worlds" with Stefan Geens and moderated by Cindy Hill. Stefan Geens oversaw the building on the Swedish Embassy in Second Life. While I enjoyed hearing Stefan talk about the virtual embassy, I enjoyed more hearing about his life as a telecommuter. Stefan is from Belgium, currently lives in Egypt and works for Sweden. Now that is a 21st century worker!
In the afternoon, Aneesh Chopra, the Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia spoke on how they are making government information more accessible. WOW! He said that the public web site promotes transparency in agency outcomes. Virginia has won awards for what they have done in making information accessible and building a great online presence. Chopra was a very good speaker and should be heard by other's in government who are doing more thinking than doing.
Bonnie Klein also spoke in the afternoon about "Marking of Government Information." The vision is to more clearly mark information produced (or disseminated) by the government so that its copyright status is clearly known. Right now there are no standard markings. As users of government information, having documents clearly marked would be a great benefit.
The last speaker of the day was Paulette Robinson whose role was to be the "weaver." The weaver listens to all of the presentations and pulls out the highlights as well as those topics that seems to be present across presentations. I had never been to a conference where someone was assigned this role AND had time on the agenda to present her results.
Finally, I should say something about the security in that part of Washington, which is very close to the U.S. Capitol. Yes, some streets are blocked off and you need proper ID to drive through, but walking was okay. Yes, there was security as we entered the Library of Congress, but not as drastic as what we go through at the airport. Yes, everywhere in that area, the security was noticeable. It does bother me that we have to be this cautious, but I'm glad that it is not too, too onerous.
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