I am really looking forward to visiting with the Special Libraries Association at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on June 17. The SLA 2009 Annual Conference will be attended by 2,500 – 3,000 Information Professionals from 75 countries. “IP’s” are library and information science experts — people that are vital to libraries, information centers and corporate information and knowledge resource departments. I will be part of the closing panel at the conference where there will be a discussion about the future of information — where it will come from, how it will be managed, how people will retrieve it and use it.
The closing conference panel will be moderated by TV newscaster Judy Woodruff. The panelists will be Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Robyn Meredith, and yours truly. Judy Woodruff was born in Oklahoma and has had a distinguished career as a television news anchor and journalist. I remember her as chief White House correspondent for NBC and as host of Frontline on PBS. Neil deGrasse Tyson is also a television personality — not typical for an astrophysicist. Among many other distinctions, Dr. deGrasse Tyson hosted PBS’s educational television show NOVA scienceNOW. Robyn Meredith is the author of the New York Times best-seller The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What it Means for All of Us.
You might say it is eclectic group — I am certainly humbled to be part of this panel. Judy Woodruff will have a heyday asking questions and no doubt will bring out insights that the audience will find of value. I will not be surprised if I get asked about Twitter, the mobile Internet, the semantic web, and Internet security. I also look forward to learning from the other panelists.