Tuesday's Tool: Conference Tracking How-To's

This week is the Internet Librarian 2006 (IL2006, usually) in Monterey, CA. Sigh. This is the tenth anniversary of a favorite conference (having attended the very first one, a relatively intimate affair!) and this blogger is currently suffering from conference lust. The attempt to slake it uncovered a good model for real-time conference reporting/investigating.

For anyone who hasn't tried to "virtually" attend a physical conference recently, there are amazing numbers of tools that help you do so. Using the IL2006 example, there's a very (so far) underused reporting page on their conference planning wiki (ALA has better models for this, but most IL2006 attendees have their own blogs and are reporting there) and also an official blog from the conference sponsor, Information Today, Inc. However, for tracking the majority of the reporting and other goings-on in all the various unofficial sources, one must be more creative and far-ranging. There's Technorati, tags IL2006 and IL06; there's flickr, tags IL2006 and IL06; there's del.icio.us, tags IL2006 and IL06. There are definitely many more than this, but time is not an unlimited quantity and for now, mission accomplished; conference lust slaked!

SUBJECTS: TUESDAY'S TOOLS; WORKSHOP WEALTH