Access 2008

The CARL Institutional Repository meeting will be held in the Ballroom South, on the 2nd floor of the Sheraton in Hamilton October 1, 2008, from 9 am – 4 pm.

Coffee and a light breakfast will be served before the meeting (starting at 8:30) and lunch will also be provided.

The main purpose of the meeting is to enable IR managers to network with each other. Thus, we will try to make things as informal as possible.

The focus will be on a roundtable at which everyone will have a chance to talk about their IR project, and discuss some of the challenges they face. Then, if time allows after the round table, we can address some specific topics of interest in more depth.

–Submitted by Kathleen Shearer, CARL

There are only a few spaces remaining for Access 2008!  Please register this week to ensure your space.

We’ll be closing registration this Friday, September 26th at 5pm, unless of course we hit our max earlier than that, in which case registration will close immediately.

We had an overwhelming response to our travel grants — thank you to everyone who applied! And now for the winners:

Congratulations to Warren Layton, MLIS Candidate from the University of Western Ontario. Warren won the ProQuest Student Travel Grant.

Congratulations to Kathleen Peters, CEO/Librarian at Beausoleil First Nation. Kathleen won the Equinox-Evergreen First-Timer Grant.

Thank you once again to ProQuest and our opening keynote speaker, Karen Schneider, for their generosity. Without them, these travel grants would not have been possible!

Just a quick reminder: if you haven’t yet booked your room at the conference hotel, today is the last day you can get the conference rate! Check the accommodation page for all the details.

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) is holding a meeting on institutional repositories in conjunction with the Access 2008 conference. The meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on October 1st at the Sheraton Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario

The purpose of the meeting is to provide an opportunity for those working with IRs to network with colleagues.

The meeting will be fairly informal and involve a high level of participation by attendees.

The morning session will be a round table, in which participants describe the activities and challenges of their institution in regards to institutional repositories. The afternoon session will be a discussion of “hot topics”, one of which will be an update on Canadian funding agency open access policies. Other hot topics will be determined by participants.

The meeting is free, and open to all those interested in attending. Please email Kathleen Shearer (mkshearer AT videotron.ca) by September 19th if you plan to attend.

It’s party time! Check out the social events for Access 2008. If you haven’t registered for the “If Techies Could Fly” event yet, we hope you will — come & hang out with friends, eat & drink even if you’re not so much into historical planes and video games. Should be a fun night!

You might want to book your room soon! The conference room rate was originally guaranteed til August 31st but we’ve just had the hotel extend that to September 5th. After September 5th, rooms can be booked at regular hotel rates (ranging from $179-205 per night). Visit the accommodations page for the online reservation link & more info.

Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors and keynote speakers, we have a couple of travel grants to offer for Access 2008!

If you are a student OR if you’ve never attended Access before, head over to the Travel Grants page and apply for one of the two grants. The deadline to get your application in is Wednesday, September 3rd (for both grants) and the winners will be notified by Monday, September 8th.

If you have any questions about the travel grants, leave a comment or email Amanda at etchesa AT mcmaster.ca.

We are looking for ideas/problems/projects for this year’s Hackfest!

Please direct your ideas and inquiries about this year’s Hackfest to:
jfink AT mcmaster.ca

You’ve seen the program, you’ve checked out the social events. Now it’s time to register for the conference!

Registration is limited to 250 delegates, so run, don’t walk, to the registration page and reserve your seat at Access 2008!