Last month, I attended my first ER&L (Electronic Resources and Libraries), a conference for e-resources, digital services, and related library folks. In past years, I would have attended Designing for Digital (D4D), a conference for UX and libraries, held in Austin, TX (and online) in March. Unfortunately, D4D has been retired. Picking up the slack, ER&L, D4D’s sister conference, updated their programming to include some UX topics in a user experience and online presence track. I thought I’d give it a try—online.
It was a good conference. There were sessions on AI: AI and analytics, AI and metadata. There were sessions on tracking, triage, and trends. In one session on what’s next for discovery, there was a reference to ‘whole library discovery’. It’s an idea, without the trim appellation, that we’ve been pursuing for some time—with Bento search a few years ago and now with ZSR Search Suggestions and a lot of other work in between. As a concept that concentrates this energy, it’s still resonating weeks later.
1 Comment on ‘Kevin at ER&L 2025’
ER&L has been such a good virtual conference for me in the past and I wish I could have attended this year. I’m glad to see that they picked up UX coverage. I will watch for that if I get to attend next year. I also appreciate the whole library discovery concept and think that our Search Suggestions is great! Thanks for your report!