Vol. 23, No. 2/Winter 2001
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Conference Corner: Online
Information 2000
During the first week in December for the past 24 years, information technology people from all over the world have gathered at the Online Information Cenference in London to get an overview of the trends, the news and visions in our industry in addition to some good practical ideas. Learned Information in Oxford runs this huge annual conference and exhibition, which it claims is the largest and most comprehensive information industry event in the world. The exhibition is enormous. This year more than 300 companies focused on service and technology, e-business and knowledge management. I did find more technical companies than content companies. But of course, all our old friends like Northern Light, Lexis-Nexis, Dun & Bradstreet and Factiva had huge stands. 18,000 people visited the exhibition in 1999, and it seemed no less this year. The conference brings together IT-people of all kinds - from end-users to vendors. I counted about a hundred from the US, including speakers. Parallel sessions ran from early morning. Even if the programme gives you a good notion of each session, I find it hard to always pick the right event - but it is fairly easy to walk out and try another. What I found most interesting this time:
Of course, I listened with pleasure to our own Debra Bade who presented a case study on CNN. Sad to say that I never met so few news people at London Online as this year. To a news-aholic this was a disappointment. But do not let that stop you from going! The conference always has something for everybody, and London itself is worth a visit. I strongly recommend Tate Modern, the restaurant at the National Museum, the shops on Regent Street for shopping and those behind Piccadilly for window-shopping. If you want to read more, see www.online-information.co.uk/online/splash.asp Turid Hegna is the Chief Librarian at VG, Norway's largest daily newspaper. You can reach her at turid.hegna@vg.no.
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