Not including cancelled talks, 100%ofall #swib11 speakers are male with ~1/3 female participants Congrats to #gender #fail via @nichtich
@nopiedra on a conference in Germany on semantic web in libraries.

I don’t want to overly criticize this conference, as I don’t have more information about it than this tweet. I am not the kind of woman to go around counting the number of women presenting at conferences. However, strategies to be inclusive of gender, new professionals and newbies (to new concepts) are a good thing in my book. Diversity is important, especially when it comes to emerging concepts and practices in the profession. I see this in my day job, working with library communities around the world to communicate better and to be more inclusive.

This blog has really fallen off the semantic web/linked data track, mostly because my interests have changed but also because keeping up was becoming a challenge. My strongest interest lies in working to communicate ideas, technology and practices in a way that is engaging to non-techies, and new professionals. I enjoyed the pieces I wrote for FUMSI, Library Journal, and Internet Librarian International on these topics a couple of years ago, and of course this blog.

Reader, perhaps this is just the kind of motivation I needed to get back into the topics that started this blog in the first place.

Two very exciting events being held this October in Germany:

The 1st Social Data on the Web workshop (SDoW2008) co-located with the 7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008) aims to bring together researchers, developers and practitioners involved in semantically-enhancing social media websites, as well as academics researching more formal aspect of these interactions between the Semantic Web and Social Media.

Find out more at the sites for the Social Data on the Web workshop (SDoW2008) – call for papers currently open, and the 7th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC2008).

One of the suggested topics up for discussion is Semantically-Interlinked Online Communities (SIOC) which the Library of Congress is involved with, and there are several Talis staff involved with organising the program, so perhaps the library community will have a growing role in this conference. If I wasn’t moving back to Australia next month you can bet I would be there!

Later this month, I will be attending ALA Annual in Anaheim. Below is my preliminary schedule. As you can see, I have lots of free time so far!

26/6
Arrive, dinner with co-presenters

27/6
4:30 IRRT Orientation
5:30 LITA Happy Hour

28/6
1:30 NMRT President’s Program (speaking)
4:00 ACRL/SPARC Forum
5:30 Opening session/President’s keynote
7:00 Scholarship bash @ Disney

29/6
10:30 Open Library: Promise or Peril?
1:30 LITA Top Tech Trends
3:30 Drupal BoF
4:00 LITA President’s Program
7:30 NMRT Social

30/6
8:00 BIGWIG
10:30 Legal issues in Open Source
1:30 IRRT Professional Development Around the World
6:00 International Reception