Thinking of submitting a proposal for the Ghent conference? Some further reflections on the Aleph component at the Helsinki conference may give you some ideas about how to make a presentation interesting and engaging:
If a prize were on offer for the most entertaining session at the Helsinki conference, it would probably go to Self Service Aleph (lockers, baskets, SIP2, RFID?) presented by Bas Vat from Leiden University and Theo Engelman from Utrecht University, and ably moderated by Fay Harrison from Nottingham Trent University. As part of the session, Theo had arranged a live webcam feed showing users interacting with a self-check machine at Utrecht University Library. But what users and what interactions? For what seemed an age, no student came into view, then two approached, stopped, chatted, continued chatting, and wandered off. Audible disappointment from the audience. Many more minutes passed, no users, the audience felt like spectators at a chess match without the chess players. Finally, moments before Fay was about to call time on the session, a flurry of activity, a user confidently striding up to the machine, issuing a book, then off: applause and laughter from the audience, and relief from the presenters.
None of this greatly distracted Theo and Bas from the substance of their talk which included a description of an ambitious provision of lockers for the delivery of holds to users, with the self-check machine directing the user to the locker where their reserved items had been securely placed for them to pick up.
Other Aleph sessions that stood out were Matthew Phillips’s two presentations on Easy OPAC enhancements and his discussion of Recommendations in Aleph. But one could also point to the The Wireless Library by Helene H. Svihus and Christian Aune Thomassen from Norway for another innovative exploitation and extension of Aleph functionality. Among the posters, François Renaville’s (from Liege, Belgium) Aleph Conversion from Excel into Aleph sequential excited a lot of interest and has since then generated a lively discussion on the email list.
All in all, the Aleph track provided a rich seam in the mosaic of the conference and much to ponder and exploit thereafter.
Gerard Bennett
