Greetings from NERCOMP in Providence, RI

10:00 AM - Dann Berkowitz here - presenting at the NERCOMP (Educause) conference today before jetting off to CSUN tomorrow. I got here mid-morning and picked up my name badge and speaker gift (a laser pointer with the Nercomp logo on it - wikked cool!).

I arrived mid way through sessions and when I first logged on to the wireless it was incredible slow - but as soon as the session broke up it sped up rapidly. Hummm -- how many folks were surfing when they should have been listening? They're as bad as the students!

I'm off to the exhibit area and will post on the day as things of interest occur.

1:30 PM - had a nice lunch and rountable discussion with other folks (mostly librarian in nature) interested in 'copyright/digital content'. When I mentioned my Disability Services affiliation it was met with greater interest than I had anticipated. We got to talking about the digitization efforts fo various DSS offices and the AHEAD E-Text initiatives (a couple had heard of this) and I risked opening my mouth with the famous (infamous?) words of Ron Stewart that 'Civil Rights trump Copyrights'. Rather than being shooed away from the table this actually led to a rather lively discussion about how DSS offices CYA as regards fulfilling the needs of their students with print disabilities.

Picked up some OK stuff in the exhibit area -- mostly added to the pen and notepad collection - and dropped my business card into every bucket that was giving away something good.

5:30 PM - My session went very well - the crowd was small but interested as I knew they would be. Anyone wanting spend an hour hearing about the defining characteristics of the terms 'digital' and 'access' had better be interested in the topic or risks being picked on by me every time they yawn.

Just prior to this I was interviewed for a podcast that will be up on the Educause site in a few weeks. It will likely be edited down a bit but I tried to cram as much as I could regarding ATHEN, AHG, AHEAD, ATIA, CSUN, the Educause IT Accessibility group, and more. Fun fun fun!

Now it is off to have a brew at the conference post and then off to home for about 4 hours of sleep before heading to the airport for a westbound flight!