Registration opens for ACRL 2009 Virtual Conference

Contact: Margot Conahan


ACRL


(312) 280-2522


mconahan@ala.org

NEWS


For Immediate Release


February 3, 2009

CHICAGO - The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) will offer a Virtual Conference during the association’s 14th National Conference in Seattle. The Virtual Conference, held March 13-14, will provide academic and research librarians unable to make the trip to Seattle an affordable opportunity to participate in the conference. For those librarians with reduced support for professional development and or travel, the virtual National Conference is a great way to leverage a small investment into large learning opportunities. Registration for the ACRL 2009 Virtual Conference is now open at
www.acrl.org/seattle (click “Virtual Conference’).

Like its face-to-face counterpart, the ACRL 2009 Virtual Conference will run on a real-time schedule. The online conference will feature synchronous events, such as live Webcasts, as well as asynchronous activities, allowing for convenient scheduling and flexibility. For the first time, the Virtual Conference will include dynamic screen captures, PowerPoint presentations synced with audio from every contributed paper and panel session presented in Seattle. Virtual Conference participants will be able to see and hear every contributed paper and panel program, more than 80 total sessions.

The Virtual Conference will also feature interactive Second Life library tours, video recordings of Naomi Klein’s opening keynote session and Robin Chase’s invited green presentation; activities on social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube; discussion boards; daily blog posts from conference correspondents and presentation materials.

The Virtual Conference kicks off on at 1 p.m. Central on Feb. 17, with a preview Webcast featuring Jean-Claude Bradley, associate professor of chemistry and e-learning coordinator for the College of Arts and Sciences at Drexel University. Complete details and the schedule of live Webcasts are online at
www.acrl.org/seattle (click “Virtual Conference”).

For those attending the ACRL National Conference in Seattle, the virtual conference is included in the registration fee.

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The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing nearly 13,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at
http://www.acrl.org/.