1998 Calendar
February

18-20: Kissimee, FL (Hyatt Orlando Hotel). Orlando Multimedia '98, the 16th annual conference & exhibition on Interactive Instruction Delivery & Distance Learning Systems, is sponsored by the Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT). It will cover areas such as distance learning, telecommunications, and the Web; instructional systems design and development; electronic performance support systems (EPS); industrial training and academic education systems; legal issues in multimedia delivery; and special design and technology innovations. In addition, there will be preconference tutorials and exhibitor displays and demonstrations.

Contact: SALT, 50 Culpeper Street, Warrenton, VA 20186, 800/457-6812, 540/347-0055; Fax: 540/349-3169; E-Mail: info@salt.org; Web: http://www.salt.org.

22-25: Philadelphia (Four Seasons Hotel). NFAIS 40th Anniversary Conference. The National Federation of Abstracting & Information Services' (NFAIS) 40th anniversary conference will feature experts from the scholarly research community, with keynotes by industry observer Jeff Goldstein, editor and publisher of Digital Publishing Bulletin; Dan Wagner, CEO of the newly formed Dialog Corporation; and Steven Schneider, CEO of Disclosure. This year's Miles Conrad Lecturer is Kent Smith, deputy director of the National Library of Medicine, who will speak on the topic "Federal? Information? Policy? Putting It All Together." The plenary program focuses on changes in the scholarly communication process that are effecting all publishers, all libraries, all distributors of information, and all users. A full copy of the preliminary conference program is available at http://www.pa.utulsa.edu/nfais.html.

Contact: NFAIS, 1518 Walnut St., Suite 307, Philadelphia, PA 19102-3403, 215/893-1561; Fax: 215/893-1564.

March

1-5: Arlington, Virginia (Hyatt Regency Crystal City). Computers in Libraries '98 is the leading conference for librarians and information professionals who need to know about the latest technologies, equipment, software, and services available. It focuses on library technology that transforms the operations, products, services, and roles within all types of libraries and information services. The conference caters to all levels of knowledge and has four simultaneous tracks to choose from as well as many workshops. The tracks and themes this year will encompass digitizing resources, virtualizing services, Internet tools and techniques, education and technology, multimedia/CD-ROM, Internet and Web management, library systems, training and instruction, managing organizational knowledge, school libraries, intranets, and library Webmasters. The sessions are cutting edge, yet practical, so attentees can apply what is learned in their own libraries and information services. The exhibit area will feature product information and demonstrations by companies that specialize in library technology.

Contact: Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055, 609/654-6266; Fax: 609/654-4309; custserv@infotoday.com

10-14: Kansas City, Missouri (Kansas City Convention Center). Public Library Association (PLA) National Conference will offer more than 100 continuing education programs during its seventh national conference. Program tracks cover 10 areas of specialization: adult services/reference; author/literary/readers' advisory; buildings; library administration; marketing/customer service; special populations/young adult; staffing and staff development; technology; trustees/friends/volunteers/advocacy; and youth services.

In addition, the conference will feature more than 250 exhibitors and special exhibit events including an opening reception and coffee breaks scheduled throughout the conference. PLA members will automatically receive registration information in the fall.

Contact: PLA, Chicago, 800/545-2433, ext. 5PLA; http://www.pla.org.

30-April 1: Orlando (Disney's Coronado Springs Resort). The Electronic Commerce & EDI Conference and Exhibition will hold its 11th event, a 3-day conference designed to explore the latest electronic commerce tools and information technology solutions. Conference tracks include electronic commerce on the Internet; security issues; future trends and techologies; Internet, intranets, and extranets; business solutions and strategies; integrating the Web and EDI; financial electronic commerce and EDI strategies; streamlining implementation; supply chain initiatives; industry focusÑincluding case studies and success stories from the health-care, insurance, transportation, government, and pertorleum industries.

Contact: Data Interchange Standards Association, Inc. (DISA), 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 200, Alexandria, VA 22314, 703./548-7005; http://www.disa.org.

April

1-2: Boston (Back Bay Hilton). Search Engines and Beyond: A Landmark Conference is the title of this Infonortics meeting. "Some of the best speakers from a 1995 Conference in Albuquerque and the 1996 and 1997 Search Engines Conferences in Bath, England, will update their presentations in Boston," said Harry Collier, managing director of Infonortics. The Search Engines Meetings bring together commercial search engine developers, academics, and corporate professionals to learn from each other. David Evans of Claritech, Matthew Koll of PLS, Stephen Arnold of AIT, Steve Kirsch of Infoseek, Donna Harman of NIST, Paul Jacobs of IsoQuest, and Susan Feldman of Datasearch are some of the planned speakers. The first day will be devoted to "Search Engines: Yesterday and Today" and will be analyzing what is here at the moment. The second day of the meeting is devoted to the "And Beyond" aspects of search engines and will embrace such things as the alerting services, push and agent technologies, entity extraction, relational databases, and image retrieval.

Contact: Infonortics, 15 Market Place, Tetbury, Glos. GL8 8DD, England, 011-44-1666-505-772; Fax:011-44-1666-505-774; contact@infonortics.com; http://www.infonortics.com.

1-6: St. Louis (Frontenac Hilton Hotel). Association of Independent Information Professionals 12th Annual Conference. The conference will focus on information industry issues and on running an information business. Keynote speakers will be industry pundits John December and Stephen Arnold. Three longtime information industry participants, Roger Summit, former president of Dialog Information Services, Dick Harris, president of Responsive Database Services, and Eugene Garfield, chairman emeritus of ISI, will present "Celebrating Our Online Foundation," an illumination of the early days of online. There will also be vendor training sessions by Dow Jones and The Dialog Corp., for which participants must register with the vendor.

Contact: AIIP, 234 West Delaware Avenue, Pennington, NJ 08534, 609/730-8759; Fax: 609/730-8469; http://www.aiip.org.

2: New York (The McGraw-Hill Companies Conference Center). IIA Interactive Information Venture Forum, a 1-day conference this year, will feature panel sessions led by experienced moderators actively involved in and knowledgeable about the industry segments covered. These sessions will focus on the marketplace, company strategies, technology trends, projections of growth and profitability, and positive and negative factors affecting the development of the industry segment.

Contact: Information Industry Association, 1625 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20036, 202/986-0280; http://www.iiameets.com.

15-17: Philadelphia (Marriott Hotel). Update '98 is an information solutions conference from The Dialog Corporation. This 2 1/2 day seminar and workshop event will provide attendees with an opportunity to network with hundreds of information specialists, learn the latest "tricks of the trade" from DIALOG, Profound, and DataStar experts. Participants in the "Quantum Track" sessions will learn how to enhance their image and earn more credibility within their organizations. The "Applications Track" seminars will teach new ways to use DIALOG, Profound, and DataStar products to answer research questions in areas such as science and technology, business, and intellectual property. See live product demonstrations and learn techniques to boost their information search efficiency by attending the "Productivity Track sessions." Ask about early registration discount. Registration fee ($395) includes attendance at dozens of seminars and workshops, the Database Bazaar, the Casino Night special event and luncheons. It also includes valuable reference materials.

Contact: The Dialog Corporation's ASAF fax service, 800/496-4470, to order registration forms (document number 5104); http://crossroads.dialog.com.

27-29: New York (Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center). Internet & Electronic Commerce Conference & Exposition (iEC) is a business-to-business event for electronic commerce organized by Gartner Group, Inc. iEC provides top-level technology decision makers with strategies for competing on the Internet and methods for integrating intranet, extranet, and Web- based electronic commerce business solutions. One track will focus on the strategic use of electronic commerce and the other will focus on the technical issues involved.

Contact: Expocon Management Associates, Inc., Fairfield, CT, 203/256-4700; http://www.expocon.com.

May

12-14: New York (New York Hilton). The National Online Meeting & IOLS '98, North America's largest electronic information conference and exhibition, are concurrent conferences that bring together information industry pioneers and practitioners from all over the world. The National Online Meeting is different from other meetings because of its focus on information content rather than on information technology alone. It offers numerous sessions the opportunity for information professionals to present papers on timely topics of interest to the library community, information professionals, and the information industry, as well as offers numerous sessions and exhibits and pre- and post-conference seminars.

Contact: Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055, 609/654-6266; Fax: 609/654-4309; custserv@infotoday.com; https://www.infotoday.com.

Copyright © 1998, Information Today, Inc.