I have been to one event of this type, it was run by JISC and looked at their national e-books observatory project. I was working on my masters dissertation on eBook collection management at the time and thought it would be useful to attend. I was able to find out lots of information that I might not have come up with through my own research. I also got to experience an event of this type and talk to a number of librarians.
As this was an area I was studying at the time I felt that I had something to contribute and possibly a different way of looking at things as I wasn’t coming from the perspective of a librarian. I was really glad I went and that I had the courage to express my views and talk to other people.
I haven’t had the opportunity to attend anything similar since then, but I hope that if an opportunity arose I would take it even though I am not very good at meeting new people or talking to strangers.
I really hate the idea of presenting at a conference and hope I never have to do it. Any kind of public speaking terrifies me!
This picture is from the second Olympic event I attended, women’s football at the City of Coventry Stadium.
