Is a conference the same as a convention?
Not really. A convention has the connotation of a holiday where conventioneers party the night away and may attend a meeting or two and visit exhibition booths to see the latest products on display. For academics, though, going to a conference is an opportunity to share ideas, research results and new ways of thinking about a discipline with others. Professors often find research partners by serving on a panel with other researchers and learning about work being done at other universities. They’re able to disseminate the results of their own research through conference presentations. Students often try out dissertation proposals by presenting a poster at a conference’s poster session.
That’s not to say that conference goers don’t have fun and party. Social events at IFLA, an international library conference, are legendary for locavore food and colorful entertainment provided by the conference hosts.
Recently students in the Master’s degree program in Library and Information Science traveled to Puerto Rico to participate in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) annual conference held in San Juan. Listening to speakers and talking with other participants from all over the world provides an intense and powerful way to learn about information professionals and libraries internationally. It is always humbling to hear about the efforts made in a third world country to reach readers who may live in a very remote village or outback region of a country. Students studied international librarianship in online class sessions before traveling to the conference, and they will all write a paper on their focused area of study now that they have returned to the mainland USA. I expect that like students in past summers who experienced IFLA in Italy and Sweden, this year’s student cohort will have had a learning experience that they will remember for years to come.
In 2012 the meeting will be held in Helsinki, Finland with the theme – “Libraries Now! - Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering”. MLIS students or recent graduates can join IFLA at a greatly reduced rate. To read more about how to become a member, visit the IFLA website http://www.ifla.org/en/news/are-you-a-new-lis-graduate-and-interested-in-ifla-membership .