Comments on group discussions

One merit of the room allocated for ACQ/SER group discussion is that computing facilities were provided, making it easier for the moderator present her/his materials. However the venue was too large for group discussion.

No time given for group discussion on day 2. No Q&A session after each presentation.

Group discussions did not help much if III continued to give us comments that whatever unavailable functions will be offered in the next release. III should at least send some staff who know the module well to answer answers from the Group participants.

Reserve time for Q & A at the end of each am or pm session.

Good discussion in the group on systems and Unicode, where both Aaron and Beth were present. Other groups might not have III representatives presented.
There was no III representatives at the group discussions and the answers to the questions were not helpful.
 
General comments and suggestions for improvement

Great HKIUG AGM

When we were asked to register, we made our decisions on which sessions to attend based on the programme schedule at that time. However, it seems the programme has changed several times since we registered, and the presentations/sessions that we expected to attend have been moved/deleted/re-arranged, etc. So we may 0end up attending sessions whose content is completely different from when we registered. I hope that at a future HKIUG meeting the programme can be more fixed at the time that people are asked to register, so that when we attend we will actually hear the presentations that we expected to.

I wish we could know III's answers before the discussion so we can do some checking and make better decisions during discussion. It was well organized. Thank you.

I wish you could provide the presentation materials to the attendants. Thank you.

There should be Q & A after each talk.

As a vendor, we are always looking for crowd. Unfortunately, we find that there were not enough people in the campus. Even students are not immediate buyers of our products, they are the ultimate users. It would be great if this event had been held in a place where there was a croud not matter they are technicians, students or teaching staff.

Shuttle bus service NOT on time!  Announcements, general information, company updates, updates on Release 2003, MetaFind, Webbridge, electronic resource management, metadata builder, XML server, LDAP, etc. by Mr. Aaron Blazer should be supplemented by PowerPoint, graphic and multimedia demonstrations, rather than just talks! Handouts should be provided for further studies.

Hello IUG planners: I have the following observations/comments:

1. Try not to revise the program schedule after it has been set, but think it through before setting the program. I think for the 4th meeting, the program schedule was revised three times (?) This made things very confusing for people who signed up for one and then found that the schedule had to be changed not once, but twice. I undertake that some people (perhaps a library director or two?) thought the first draft program was too fragmented and this subsequently led to a revision? If time allocation is getting to be tight, I suggest that the program planners only accept III-related presentations. There were two non III-related topics and both very interesting. As we all begin to initiate and implement more digital projects, I expect the number of non-III related projects will increase. So it may be helpful to make it clear at the beginning that non III-related presentations will be accepted if there is time after the III-related presentations with Q & A included.

2. Some Q&A time should be provided for each presentation. I gather there may have been the concern that no one will ask questions. Sometimes it is helpful to *set* up the Q&A session by assigning, e.g. one of the IUG members, to lead in with a question. It gets too dry to listen to presentation after presentation in such a concentrated manner.

3. Better time-keeping practice. There was at least one session with two presenters that went way t---0----0 long.

Thanks for the opportunity to make a few observations/comments.

A single day conference. 2. III highlights new developments only. 3. Library presentations focus on developments related to library systems only.

Overall the conference is good however the location is a bit far away!!

It would be better if time is allowed for the audience to ask questions after each presentation. 2. The Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong may have similar issues with III in terms of language, upgrades and development direction. Should we aim at organizing a joint IUG for the three regions?

Consider to be a bi-annual event instead of every year. Great job done by LU! Well organized!

My name is Pascal van den Nieuwendijk, Regional sales manager for Elsevier. This was the first year we participated and sponsored this meeting. I felt this meeting is an excellent platform for librarians and the amount of participants shows that. In the future we would be interested to participate again but I would like to make some suggestions:

1. Split the meeting in 3 days where III can have one day by themselves. The other two days can be used to focus on all sorts of library issues, trends, etc. The participants over the 3 days will change considerably as only a certain group of librarians are interested in III. Day 2 and 3 will draw a different growd depending on the topics.

2. Elsevier will be interested to be present only on day 2 and 3. We would like also be interested to provide a presentation on Elseviers view on the issues of today's librarians. I would like to stress that this will not be a product presentation.

3. Use the name HKIUG for the first day and give day 2 and 3 (which are not related to any vendor) a different name to avoid any confusion on what is discussed and presented on each of those days - day 1 III - day 2 and 3 more generic topics.

With best regards,
Pascal van den Nieuwendijk

Thank you very much for arranging a successful meeting.

Should provide handout (paper or electronic) for the participants.

More on xml, SFX, ODI and so on