Day 1 from a new grad

Dear reader, allow me to introduce myself. I am Clare from Sydney - about to graduate BA (LIS) from CSU (well, next year sometime anyway), and information officer/research assistant/knowledge manager/general dogsbody for a small consulting firm (www.rareconsulting.com.au) specialising in greenhouse and alternative fuels strategy. Welcome to my view of Click06.

I have to confess it didn't start all that well - I missed the First Timers brekkie this morning - I was too busy having a public transport adventure in the surburbs coming back from the gym (it's a long story - some other time OK?). Having already slept through the opportunity to register the night before (the time difference got me) - I arrived at the Perth Centre with minutes to spare before the 9am start. The main result of this was that I didn't get a trendy orange Click06 bag - I got a plain black leftover one......

Anyway - onwards and upwards. The welcome to country was both sincere and entertaining - our kangaroo skin clad host sang and played the didgeridoo - clear crowd favourite.

We heard from Josephine Bryant in the keynote address about the Toronto library experience of bringing together 99 branches from 7 public library services into the one organisation. In case you think that was a misprint dear reader I'll point out again that it was 99 branches - mind blowing isn't it? Josephine's story was inspirational if you have ever contemplated a change in your organisation. The highlight of my afternoon was meeting her and continuing the conversation in a one on one at lunch time - I feel almost famous now....

The concurrent sessions present the usual challenge of people coming and going - leaving this room to sprint around this very large venue to get to the next room, all the while trying not to give the presenters the impression that you have other things on your mind than their paper.

In taking on this blog project dear reader, it is not my intention to give a blow by blow description of the papers, presenters etc - you can get that from the ALIA website - I'm more into describing the atmosphere, the impressions gained and of course the food (more on that later).

If you've stayed with me this far - thank you.

Clare