Quill 103[2], March 2003

NER*Ds rule, OK!

Fiona M. Doyle

It's now official. It is cool to be a NER*D. On 6 February there was standing room only for the second news, events, reviews and discussion (NER*D) session at BCC Theatrette. Speakers Martin Borchert (QUT), Jocelyn Priddey (UQ), Rachael Browning (SLQ), Wendy Horwood (BCC), Janine Schmidt (UQ), Sue Rigney (Dept. JAG) and Denise Frost (UQ) gave wonderful professional and personal accounts of their experiences at the Information Online 2003 Conference in Sydney held in January.

All speakers agreed that Queensland libraries are world leaders in many of the areas covered by the Online Conference, particularly in the area of Virtual Reference which was discussed by Rachel Browning and Wendy Horwood. Martin Borchert gave his views about the conference focus on portals. Read his article Portal solutions featured in this issue.

Another theme that came out strongly from the NER*D speakers was that of marketing and customer driven service provision. Wendy Horwood stated the concept most succinctly: Giving the users what they want how they want it. This may seem to be something which we take for granted but it would appear that not all library services around the world have such a customer focus as our fabulous Queensland libraries.

Other highlights mentioned by the NER*D reviewers included the trade show which Jocelyn Priddey believed to be the 'best ever' and the food which everyone said was superb. Nevertheless, some reviewers felt that the conference was not without some weakness. Some of these included scheduling clashes and over-representation of international speakers who were not familiar with Australian trends and practice to name a few.

On balance, however, NER*D speakers seemed generally happy with the conference and the NER*D attendees went home from this review satisfied and informed.