Ever since I first started screencasting almost two years ago, I’ve been really surprised how few people are talking about how cool it is. It can be so hard to teach students at a distance how to use databases, and screencasting is the only tool that allows you to concretely demonstrate how they work. Add in the interactive components you can incorporate into a screencast using Captivate (and perhaps some of the other tools) and it really becomes a tremendous information literacy tool. I’m definitely a fan. So I’m totally excited to be attending Paul Pival’s SirsiDynix talk Show and Tell The Easy Way – An Introduction to Screencasting next week! And I hope you will come too. It’s Wednesday November 8th at 11 am Eastern/8am Pacific. And the best thing about it is, it’s free (you just need to register)! All you need is the Interweb and you’re good to go. Paul is a really great speaker and this is a topic that he knows quite well, so I think we’re all in for a really fun and educational hour.
Speaking of screencasting… I am on the program to be speaking at the ASIS&T 2006 Annual Conference, but I will not be able to attend due to funding limitations. So instead, I created a screencast of my entire presentation that they will be playing at the Wikis and Blogs panel. It’s all about my experiences creating conference wikis, why I did it in the first place, and what I’ve learned from it. I’ll be sure to make it available online after the conference.
I’d really hoped to go to ASIS&T, but they charge over $400 for speaker admission to the conference. Yikes! I’m not on a tenure track, so I wouldn’t go all the way to Austin just to give a talk and head home. I want to go to other people’s talks, learn, network, etc. I will only speak at a conference if 1) it’s online or for a good cause, 2) it’s fun and won’t cost me much to attend or 3) I’m getting paid. I just think charging a speaker (especially for the day they’re speaking) is no way to treat someone who is contributing to the success of your conference. What I really love about Information Today conferences is the appreciation that they show their speakers. I don’t need my ego stroked, but it’s nice to feel valued. I’m not a bigwig who can ask $2500 for a talk, but I do know that my time and effort is worth something and I shouldn’t just feel grateful to be asked to speak. Too many of us don’t know what we’re worth.
Still wish I was going though. Looks like a really cool conference with so many fascinating talks based on scholarly research. If you’re going, won’t you blog it for me?
Hey, thanks for the plug Meredith 🙂
Glad to do it! (You can pay me later) 😉
Too bad you can’t go! That is expensive considering that you’re speaking. I still don’t understand why so many conferences seem to charge spearkers more for speaking. I can see charging the regular attendance fee, minus some sort of ‘thanks for helping!’ discount. Oh well.
Anyway, I know of a few places you can go to keep up with the happenings. I should probably note that I know of them because I organized the ASIS&T@Simmons stuff and am a contributor to the NEASIS&T-run conference blog. 😉
Simmons GSLIS: Dispatches from the Field
http://gslis.simmons.edu/blogs/dispatches
The Official Annual ’06 Blog, by NEASIS&T
http://asist2006.neasist.org/
Simmons ASIS&T Flickr photostream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/simmons_asist
The Official Annual ’06 Flickr photostream, by NEASIS&T
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neasist/
Hi Meredith,
Can’t even begin to address the charging speakers thing … but I am going to ASIS&T. I will blog it I’m sure, but I won’t make any promises about the quality, timeliness, depth, etc.
I hope to do a lot of paying attention and learning, and having a good time. I’ll blog what I can, what I remember, and when I can. Heck, I have no idea what the wireless situation even is. Also, my Powerbook battery is a serious lightweight.
So, I’ll do some blogging of ASIS&T, no doubt, just no promises is all.
Did you see the Flickr + Libraries presentation at Internet Librarian? I thought they made great use of recorded bits.
As for charging speakers that much… there is NO excuse for that. None. Did you catch Shifted Librarian’s post, Why I’m Not Joining ALA Right Now After All? It is about the only thing more absurd that ASIS&T wanting $400 from speakers. Don’t they sponsor the IA Summit, too? I think they only charge speakers $200 or $250 for that, but it covers attending the whole thing, receptions and all.
Everyone — regardless of how they are marketing toward practitioners, this is an *academic* conference. Papers and sessions are peer reviewed in the real sense, there is very, very, very little sponsorship. Other academic conferences run the same way. Speakers (except for plenary) pay the same entrance fee as attendees, not more. I spoke at the 2004 one in Providence as a practitioner, and I was amazed at the favorable response but still noted that competing sessions were from researchers whose work I studied in Library School.
Please don’t compare this to an ITI (for-profit company) conference. That’s like a trade show. I think that you don’t get a discount to attend SLA for speaking even though SLA is HEAVILY sponsored.
Either way, this would have been easy to determine prior to accepting the invitation to speak.
Really? I actually had to call ASIS&T twice to get a straight answer about how much I’d have to pay as a speaker and just got an e-mail from another speaker who was incorrectly told that her registration would be waived. It is not on their site anywhere, so I don’t know how I was supposed to have determined this ahead of time.
Meredith, you were mis-informed about ASIS&T registration policies. Non-members receive the day on which they are speaking at no cost. And they can purchase additional days (or the entire conference) at the early, member rate. Dick Hill, ASIS&T Executive Director
Thanks for letting me know, Dick. I will definitely keep that in mind for next year, but it’s frustrating that I couldn’t find it on your Website and that the woman I spoke to at ASIS&T gave me a totally different answer. However, I know that the people on the preconference panel I was going to be a part of each had to pay $60 to attend the panel we were giving. The person who organized our preconf. told us that in e-mails over and over again.
Sounds like you have a great lineup there this year… enjoy!