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Today, in the screening room, people drifted in and out to watch parts of the Digital Shift‘s eBook Summit, Ebooks: The New Normal. The event was cosponsored by Library Journal and School Library Journal and was an all-day conference.

We heard the opening keynote, and then followed the academic library track. This track included a session on DDA as well as a session on marketing ebooks to students. The content was good, the conversation those of us in the room had was good, and it was nice to get a lay of the land for ebooks in academic libraries.

I was particularly struck by the venue. The event was set up to feel like a “real” conference. You entered into a plaza, that looked like a large foyer in a convention center. The hallways were labeled with “auditorium,” “exhibits,” “help desk,” etc, and if you clicked through you were directed to the webcasting software that ran the particular room you were in. It seemed like a likely bridge technology to help people feel comfortable with webinars who have never attended before. That being said, we weren’t able to get the slides to run during the presentations, so we paged through ourselves as people spoke. In one of the lulls between talks I spent some time in the exhibits. You literally clicked on the booth you wanted to attend, could talk to the people in the booth, enter drawings, and get demos. It was a lot like a real vendor floor. (…though less stressful for me!)

We’ll have the ability to log in later to view the recordings. Let me know if you’re interested!