This announcement is being sent to several lists, with apologies extended to
those who receive multiple copies.

You are invited to attend an online conference about books, ebooks, and digital
audiobooks to be held on Thursday, July 28, 2005 (early Friday morning in
Australasia). There is no cost to register, and there is no registration
deadline. Already over 185 librarians, information technologists, ebook and
digital audiobook users, publishers, and others from across the U.S. and around
the world have registered to attend this innovative online conference.

To participate all you need is an Internet-connected computer running a
Microsoft Windows operating system (Windows 98 or later), Mac OS X, or Linux.
If in addition to text-chatting you wish to communicate via voice-over-IP, you
need to have a microphone connected to--or embedded in--your computer.

The homepage for the conference website is:

http://www.planetlibrary.info/lgleindex.htm

The direct link to the conference registration page is:

http://www.planetlibrary.info/tinc?key=opjmI0gx&formname=LGLEregister200507

If you want to test your connection prior to the day of the online conference,
here is the link to one of the online conference rooms:

http://67.19.231.218/v4/login.asp?r=7c4d784b&p=0

Access to this room is available 24/7 from now until the conclusion of the
conference. Please note: The first time you enter one of these online meeting
rooms, the operating system you are using may ask for your permission to
download and automatically install a small, safe software plug-in.

In addition to vendor exhibits and opportunities for informal networking, this
conference will feature the following outstanding speakers:


Mark Beatty from WILS: Wilsconsin Library Services

Lori Bell (Director of the Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center):
An Introduction to Digital Audiobooks

Charlotte Johnson (Director of User Services at Lovejoy Library, Southern
Illinois University at Edwardsville), and William Harroff (Reference and
Information Technologies Librarian, Holman Library, McKendree College):
(r)Evolutionary (e)Books

Asra Nomani (Author of the new book Standing Alone in Mecca, one woman's
pilgrimage to reclaim the rightful role of women in Islam):
Interview and Online Book Signing

Jon Noring from the OpenReader Consortium, a cooperative project to create a
universal, open standards digital publication distribution format.

David Rothman from TeleRead, an organization dedicated to bringing ebooks
home and advocating for well-stocked national digital libraries.

Blake Squires from Findaway, Inc., which will begin selling the Playaway
self-contained digital audiobook device in October.

Juliet Sutherland from Distributed Proofreaders, supporting the digitization
of public domain books.

Lori Watrous-deVersterre from LibraryCity, dedicated to bringing ebooks to
online communities in the Carnegie tradition.

Claudia Weissman from OverDrive, a leading digital book and digital audiobook
vendor for libraries and retailers.


This online conference is part of Let's Go Library Expo, a planned series of
online conferences on timely topics related to librarianship and information
technology. Please watch for announcements of future conferences in this
series.

It is being organized by:

Mid-Illinois Talking Book Center

North Suburban Library System near Chicago

Alliance Library System in Central Illinois

TAP Information Services near Kansas City


The conference is sponsored by:

OverDrive (www.overdrive.com), a leading digital book and digital audiobook
vendor for libraries and retailers.

For more information please visit the conference website
(http://www.planetlibrary.info/lgleindex.htm) or contact Tom Peters from TAP
Information Services (tpeters@...). Thank you!



Tom Peters

TAP Information Services
1000 SW 23rd Street
Blue Springs, MO 64015
phone: 816-228-6406
email: tapinformation@...
web: www.tapinformation.com

TAP Information Services provides a wide variety of high quality
planning, consulting, research, and assessment services
supporting libraries, library consortia, government agencies, professional
associations, and other information-intensive organizations.

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