I am attending the Salt Lake Family History Expo as a Blogger of Honor again this year. Last year bloggers were provided free internet access during the conference, that extended into the classrooms. It was fun twittering what was happening in the classes. The first day last year I didn't realize we had free access and I had purchased my own access by credit card from the South Towne Expo Center myself for $5.99.
For some reason the wifi is only available in the Exhibit Hall and Hall 4 this year. I really miss not being able to twitter during the class session. I was hoping to buy my own access and I can't find that available either. That my friends is my only disappointment with this years expo. Like always Holly Hansen and crew has pulled off a fantastic conference for everyone.
Since I'm not really good at twittering in the exhibit hall's blogger area, after the fact, I thought I better write tonight while my brain was somewhat fresh. Here's the highlights of my day.
The Keynote Address "Let Your Light Shine!" by Thomas J. Kemp, Director of GenealogyBank, was excellent. I loved all the personal stories he had. Since it was in Hall 4 I did twitter a little during this session. One of the things I do in conferences now is not take down tons of notes. I just write meaningful notes just for me. Thoughts and ideas that pop into my head based on things the person said.
My one big To-Do item was to check with Tom or others on a library database or filing system that would let me track documents I have. I'm thinking along the lines of GoogleBooks and LibraryThing but will let me track documents and give them a reference number and note where the item is stored. Would Clooz work like that? I am in search of a filing system that will let me track every document, book, etc. that I have in my possession. I want to add categories and subjects to it so it can be searched multiple ways. Thinking about libraries made me wonder about their systems.
I missed the first class session because: 1.) my watch died and I didn't realize what time it was. 2.) because I was engrossed in checking out the vendors. One new item being demonstrated was the Flip-Pal mobile scanner. It is so light weight - lighter than a netbook. You could only scan a small item at a time, so they have auto-stitch software included to help you reconstruct a larger image. I think they said it would be available for delivery in October. Wow, I think the price was about $150, which seemed very reasonable.
The second class session I attended was by Leslie Albrecht Huber's on "Journey Takers: An Inside Look at Immigration Research". I owe Leslie a BIG apology. She sent me months ago a book by the same title to review. I have been really behind in reading things. When I saw her class about her experience in finding her immigrant ancestors I jumped at the chance. What a spell binding experience it was listening to her presentation. I can't wait to read the book. Thank you Leslie for signing the book for me too.
During lunch break I sat and talked with other bloggers, which is always nice. I don't know why but every class I picked was in the 200 block and the furthest place to walk. Isn't that always the way!
Third session I attended Gary Clark's class on "Dating 19th Century Photographs". I really learned a lot about the various printing methods and materials. I need to check my great-great-grandparents photograph and see if I can date it from the information he gave. Gary said he has a password protected PDF on his website www.phototree.com with more information. I don't know if he wants me to share the password so I won't.
Fourth session was Robert Raymond's class "Finally, a Society Website Anyone Can Manage". Robert discussed his experiment in creating a society website by using a blog. With all the Google Gadgets available I must say I think his example of the UGA website looked better with his own version using Google Blogger. To check on the difference go to www.infouga.org for the original website and http://samplegensociety.blogspot.com for the version Robert created. Being able to create a website this way is much easier using a blog as the bases. I really need to get into Blogger and experiment with changes for my blog now.
My final class was Barry Ewell's "Effectively Tapping into Local , County and State Historical/Genealogical Societies and Libraries". Barry as always did an excellent job. Love his research stories and experiences. Even though I am limited by money in my ability to travel as often to research areas as I would like, I can see that there is more I can do from home.
Wow, it's late and I am exhausted. Time to get to bed so I concentrate tomorrow.
See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!
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