The Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) was held November 6-11, 2009 in Vancouver, British Columbia. SLIS Associate Dean Howard Rosenbaum talked with current MIS/MLS student Crystal White at the conference, and encouraged her to write about her experience as a conference volunteer - see email responses below.
SLIS has an ASIS&T Student Chapter. Crystal White is the current Vice-President, and Dr. Rosenbaum is the faculty sponsor.
Notes from Crystal White:
"Howard Rosenbaum talked to me during the ASIS&T meeting and found out that I was a volunteer with an interesting story of how I got there and what I was doing as a volunteer. I made a last minute phone call in September to volunteer for the conference and was offer the opportunity to Blog about the conference, which meant that I could go to anything I wanted.
I had a great experience at the conference. I got to learn about the research that is going on in the field. For example, I work as a reference assistant in the Information Commons and it was interesting to hear about the research going on with Q&A sites, crowd sourcing, Virtual Reference, and digital libraries. In addition, I learned about technologies that I have never heard of and situations I never knew about, such as the situation with TRIPS in Africa and the effect it has on HIV/AIDS drugs.
I also met new people and had great conversations. I put most of it up on my blog since that is what I was at the conference to do: Blog: http://crywhite.blogspot.com/
Other volunteers had to help with the panels, while others were Blogging or Micro blogging (using Twitter) about the conference.
I would write everything down throughout the day and then post it that night.
I do not have set career plans. I love technology and books. So I am looking into either a government job or a Library job. I think I might be one of those people that creates a job title for what I want to do. However, my dream job is to go back to my undergraduate school and take over the position my former supervisor has when she retires. But that is a long way off. I have to find something to do for a few years.
My undergraduate degree is in Political Science (B.A.).
I am a dual: MIS and MLS in SLIS.
I have always loved working with professional organizations. I started in High School with FCCLA (family career and community leaders of America), in College I was with KPA (Kentucky Political Science Association), and now I am involved with ALA and ASIS&T. I love going to the conferences to talk to people, hear the research that is going on (it helps me keep up with what is going on in the field), even presenting. I feel like I belong when I go because we all are there because we have a common interest."
See Related SLIS News Story:
• Information Opportunities in a Pluralistic World: ASIS&T 2009
Posted February 17, 2010