Had lunch with the Second Life group, somewhat by accident, as I haven't been 'in world' for over a year. Interesting to hear some of their discussion on cutting edge architecture...
Also had more lunch in the IT Division Business Meeting. Cheesecake!
On to the next session:
Information Professional: The New Private Investigator, by Howard E. Trivers, Baker & Daniels
The presenter started with a jab at Second Life, which got a surge of applause. I fail to understand why the Second Life vs. Real Life joke keeps being funny. Yes, I can see that for many libraries, Second Life has nearly nothing to offer. Really, there are very few applications where geographically distant people need to meet in a 3D artificial world. However, there are possibilities out there that we haven't thought of, and its good to have folks experimenting with it. ::cuts rant short::
Back to the session. This really wasn't what I was hoping for, since I'm not willing to pay for search services as an individual. Plus, the person I want to find is far too old to have much of a footprint in the listed databases.
Some historical commercial databases: Lexis' P-TRAK, Westlaw's Information America, CBD Info, AutoTrack, Accurint.
Today: Accurint, ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Loislaw, Intelius, Merlin, Locateplus
Some free public records search engines: searchsystems.net, brbpub.com
A free death index: ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com (must have gotten SS benefits to be listed).
After this session, I went back to my hotel and took a nap. I was back up for dinner (at Rock Bottom Brewery) and the IT division SciFi night. Some interesting discussion, but I really wasn't feeling the networking, so I ducked out early.
Its been strange to be at this conference for the third year in a row, but to have even less to talk about with colleagues and vendors. I'm not longer associated with URI, so I don't have coursework to supplement with current products and services. I'm not yet with NYU, so I don't know what they use, what they need and who I should network with. I've already learned about most of the kinds of technologies that I can think I'd be using, and there are few sessions on that kind of stuff this year anyway.
I have gotten some wonderful work done with Dave Ware on rescoping the Communications Section of the IT Division. His energy is infectious, and has really helped give me momentum. Thanks, Dave!
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