VALA 2012 papers

The papers presented at the VALA 2012 conference held in February are now available online at http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/blog.

VALA looks at the use of information technology in a range of libraries and many of the papers provide useful information about the use of information technology in other collecting organisations as well.

The plenary sessions at the beginning and end of each day provide frequently provided an overview of changes occurring in the information world plus an insight into what may occur in the future.

The two papers about Trove presented on the Tuesday morning I found particularly interesting. Trove: the terrors and triumphs of service based social media is relevant for all collecting organisations wanting to use social media to promote their services- http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/vala2012-session-2-dellit - while Mining the treasures of Trove provided a different view of the possibilities of technology based research for broad themes - http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/vala2012-session-2-sherratt.

A number of people I know also recommended the plenary session on the Thursday morning on the Guiness Archive as particularly relevant for family history researchers - http://www.vala.org.au/vala2012-proceedings/vala2012-plenary-5-roche

I was only able to attend two half day sessions but having the papers available online allows those unable to attend on the day the opportunity to follow what occurred at the conference.

Presentation software

Presentation software such as PowerPoint is frequently used to provide additional information during information sessions, meetings, seminars etc. however not all presentations are successfully prepared or presented.

 Ten bad presentation techniques describes mistakes that can be made when using presentation software.

Further links in the article provide additional information to consider when using presentation software.