The NISO Plus Conference: It's Happening!
A New (And Yet Not A New) Thing
Save these dates -- February 23-25, 2020
In just five short months (cue me hyperventilating), NISO will launch a new-and-yet-not-a-new thing into the world: The NISO Plus Conference!
Continuing in the tradition of the NFAIS conference which ran for 61 years, in February of 2020 we will inaugurate the 62nd year and celebrate the merger of NISO and NFAIS with a new and different conference experience for the information community. Our goal is to bring all of the constituencies in the information economy together to generate discussion, seek common ground, identify areas of opportunity and provide a space and resources to work towards solving common problems.
NISO Plus will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, from February 23-25 at the Lord Baltimore hotel. Baltimore is the home of NISO, and we hope to make the city an integral part of the conference, in all its artsy and quirky character. While we are building on the over-half-a-century experience of NFAIS conferences, this will be the first NISO conference, and we are planning a multi-year strategy of bigger and better for NISO Plus.
What Will NISO Plus Be?
NISO Plus will combine the strengths of both NFAIS and NISO, bringing together the future-forward thinkers of the information community and the practical accomplishments of the standards community into something more than the sum of its parts. The NISO Plus conference will focus on identifying the future of information creation, discovery, description, transmission and consumption and then leverage that into processes and projects that will have real and lasting change. Together we hope to find the opportunities for improvement in the information ecosystem and then create projects that will be the fulfillment of those opportunities.
Here at NISO we’re working hard to plan a conference that stands out and provides unique opportunities for connections and education. We are in the process of putting the finishing touches on a schedule of programming that will include built-in discussion time for all of the educational panels, allowing for deeper and more grounded connection to real-world problems to be made. The program will also include updates on ongoing NISO projects including introductions to the experts and invitations to be involved in the technical standards that will underlie the future of information exchange. Finally, we’ll have the ability for practitioners in libraries and publishers to come together and convene with the experts on systems, services, and platforms to solve immediate problems.
We will be continuing some of the best traditions of the NFAIS conferences of the past, including the Miles Conrad Lecture, while making those traditions far more affordable by reducing the cost of attendance from previous years. With two and a half days of networking and education on tap, attendees will have the opportunity to learn about emerging and exciting areas of change and development like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the rise of decentralization and blockchain, new content types like Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality, and more. There will also be sessions to help attendees wrap their heads around current issues and problems, and to work towards solutions for those in areas like Electronic Resource Management systems, Open Access issues, Digital Humanities, Data management, and the difficulties associated with measurement and statistics. We will also be featuring attendees themselves by offering Lightning Talk and other attendee-driven sessions that allow participants to highlight their own work.
Engage with The NISO Community
I’m incredibly excited for this conference, and the opportunity to bring this fantastic community together in Baltimore. Save February 23-25th for a new sort of experience with NISO, and we’ll promise great sessions, amazing learning opportunities, fantastic networking, and the beginning of the next chapter of the NFAIS conference tradition.
Registration information and lots more info coming soon!
