LSA booth report

[Heidi Johnson]

Gary,
This is a great idea. Maybe you could even bring or recruit
a few additional OLAC techies, to give you a break. And this
is exactly the kind of thing that we need to organize well
in advance so it can get into the handbook. A few people
asked me questions about OLAC implementation, too (or maybe
it was just Peter Ladefoged asking me repeatedly :-). I would
point them at you when you were around, and just tell them
to write to you and/or Steven, or to EMELD, and to go to the
website, when you weren't. I am certain that if OLAC
counseling had been a scheduled event, that there would have
been lots more lining up to take advantage of it.

We could probably do mini-sessions on archival topics, too,
like "Come ask Nick Thieberger about recording formats" or
whatever. Also what I think of as IPR counseling; give people
a chance to think out loud about their ethical issues with
someone who has heard a lot on the subject. So we could do
sort of topical office hours as well as project-oriented ones.
That would fill up the schedule pretty quickly!

We may have a bit of a struggle with the LSA organizers about
getting a specific booth schedule in the handbook. Maggie
Reynolds seemed to really want us to do office hours for some
reason. Maybe because we had grumbled a bit about the registration
fees? But I strongly feel that the booth is better, even if we
intend to use it as an office. But we may need to come up with
a different term than "office hours" to avoid confusing the
organizers...

I do think the booksellers would be delighted for us to anything
that increases traffic. So we don't have to worry about messing
things up by thinking outside the booth, as it were :-).

Heidi

Quoting Gary Simons <Gary_Simons at SIL.ORG>:

> Heidi,
>
> I want to get another point down on our official list of ideas for next
> time.  I wandered by the booth from time to time to be in the vicinity in
> case anyone wanted technical consulting on how to become an OLAC data
> provider.  I ended up having lengthy interactions with three individuals
> who are tasked with implementing a data provider for their archive to
> answer their questions.  This time around it just managed to happen without
> any specific planning or scheduling, but we could probably maximize those
> kinds of opportunities if it were specifically planned and advertised.  We
> could post a sign in the booth announcing the hours when a technical
> consultant would be on hand to answer detailed questions about becoming an
> OLAC data provider--maybe an hour-long period during each morning and
> afternoon that the booth is open. Whoever is on duty in the booth could
> encourage enquirers to come back during one of those periods if they start
> asking questions that get too technical.  It would also be nice to get some
> of that advertised in the conference program as office hours.
>
> -Gary
>


--
Heidi Johnson, PhD
Project Manager
Archive of the Indigenous Languages
   of Latin America
http://www.ailla.utexas.org