LSA/SSILA 2005

[Jeff Good]

Hello,

I keep meaning to mention to the list about how LSA went. I can echo
Steven's comment about getting a room being a hit or miss affair. It
seems to me that this year's LinguistList room was more miss than
hit--a bit too small and off the beaten track to be as useful as it
might have been. However, it did seem that, in the future, it made
sense for OLAC to team up in some way with Linguist because the average
linguist won't know to differentiate between the two enough to know
where to go.

As for setting up in the publisher's area, I have a vague recollection
of talking about this with Jim Mason and Doug Whalen, and they said it
was fairly expensive. So, if we want to do this, we probably should
plan ahead, see if we can get some non-profit discount, and then try to
get as broad participation as possible to spread costs.

I do think, by the way, the publisher's room will be worth the money,
assuming it can be raised. The level of visibility far exceeds perhaps
anything outside of a keynote address.

Jeff

On Feb 18, 2004, at 5:48 PM, Steven Bird wrote:

> On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 06:29, Heidi Johnson wrote:
>> Dear folks,
>> I've been thinking a little about what we can do to make a
>> splash at next year's annual meeting in San Francisco. We
>> talked a bit about the possibility of renting a room for demos and
>> workshops once upon a time. I still think this is a good idea. Does
>> anyone know how this room-renting business works or who I could
>> write to? It's early, but probably we have to plan well ahead to make
>> the deadline.
>
> The LSA secretariat handles room renting.  In the past I've found this
> to be a bit of a hit-and-miss affair concerning location (you could end
> up tucked away in a corner) and concerning price (once I was billed
> double the amount quoted).
>
> I think the book exhibit room is a preferrable location.  I've seen
> both
> SIL and Rosetta demonstrate software in this room.  SIL had a projector
> and screen set up, so that several people could observe a demonstration
> at once.  Since OLAC is non-profit, perhaps the LSA will give us a
> discount on the price they charge print publishers.  Further
> justification for choosing this location is that we represent a
> consortium of archives, each publishing language resources on the web.
>
> If we were successful in getting such a booth, we'd also need to think
> about some kind of banner to help our visibility alongside the
> publishers.
>
> -Steven
>