Access 2006, Day 2

Sadly, I think I’m starting to wear down a little bit from all the travel this month.  Morning sessions (and morning bike ride) — great.  But its 5:30 now and I’m definitely tired.  If it wasn’t for the Ghost Walk, and a chance to chat with a few folks tonight, I’d probably just grab my slippers, a cup of tea and relax the rest of the night. 

Anyway, day 2.  Roy Tennant led off with his keynote (https://blog.reeset.net/archives/369) followed by a pretty cool talk by Anne Christensen from the library in Hamburg Germany.  Anne talked about library chat bots and talked a bit about what they learned in creating their own chat bot (http://www.sub.uni-hamburg.de/).  If enter Ottawa in the stella chatbox, you get a response and then a page (in German) giving more information about the project.

Next, Annette Bailey talked about LibX — the Firefox toolbar extension.  This is one of those projects that I think most libraries could make use of within their own buildings, but not sure what kindof uptake one really would get outside of the library building — realistically.  I think that Dan’s right (from his Thundertalk) — we really need to move in the direction of zero installation.  I realize that’s impossible on systems we don’t own — but I think its the reality.  But what do I know.

Next were the thundertalks.  Lots of interesting stuff going on.  This was the first time I’ve heard Ross formally talk about Umlaut and I’m very impressed.  There are some things that you see, and think, “Dang, I wish i would have thought of that.”  This is one of those projects.  I would have never considered binding together the wide variety of services as found in umlaut.

Other highlights for me…getting a peek and a little more information on Rochesters XC Project and I enjoyed listening to Paul Miller’s talk — though I’m not sure if there was much offered that was new (outside of seeing some of the talis development products — which I’d never seen before).  Oh, and Pete Hickey — someone I can relate to.  I found out that he cycle’s all winter.  So do I — though not in the snow and junk that he must ride in (Ottawa).  Anyway, he had a great quote:

Privacy on the net is like virginity.  Once its gone, its gone. –Pete Hickey

So true.

–TR


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