Online conference content done right

University of Michigan is one of the partners in Google's mass digitization program. They are a partner, not a supplier: they're not just surrendering their content to the Big G, but also host the digitized books themselves, and do a lot of research into what this means. In march, they held a symposium Scholarship and Libraries in Transition, with speakers such as Clifford Lynch and Tim O'Reilly.

The content is interesting, but I'll leave that for another time. The problems of mass digitization are, unfortunate as it may be, at the moment not yet relevant for most libraries. But we can also learn from the presentation. Now that's the way to do it! Not only are all the talks available in streaming video, but there was also a symposium blog. A mixture of more and less official posts with sometimes lively comments, made during and shortly after the conference, in which the energy of the event comes through. What a huge improvement over a website with powerpoint slides! There is a conversation going on in the blog, giving pointers to which talks to watch.

The last post is three weeks after, officially closing the comments. The blog stays online. Well done.