What makes a good vendor stand? When you get back to the day job what stands out in your mind about the displays, the way the vendors communicated, the information available, etc. Building on a vendor suggestion, we are proposing a "best stand" award at this year's conference and we need you to tell us what the assessment criteria will be.

All suggestions to the blog, please.

We'll be asking the you to do the judging too. After all, you are the customers so your perceptions are paramount.

And perhaps any vendors reading this blog would like to tell us what the prize for the best stand should be.


Now for some news a number of you have been waiting for: conference registrations will be opening in mid-June; the LIANZA Council has just signed off on the registration charges and you'll be pleased to see they are not significantly different from last year. We're certainly pleased with the calibre and range of abstracts that have been submitted (and with the draft social programme).

Organising the LIANZA 2008 Conference is at a really exciting stage. The buzz about the keynotes, particularly the latest one annouced, has been very encouraging. From the beginning we knew that getting Professor Lessig to come to New Zealand would be a coup and I am pleased to see the conversations that have been generated by the announcement of his visit.

You'll also know that we have been inviting abstracts of proposed presentations - the programme team and helpers will be starting on the first stage of the selection process in a few days. It's therefore far too early to say if any proposals received address the Creative Commons issue - but it's not too late for more abstracts!

So, we have keynote speakers confirmed and fleshing out the programme is underway. Don't worry - we haven't forgotten the social programme. Kim and her team have some great ideas and I am sure this conference will be beyond your expectations on that front too.

The organising committee has been exercising its collective brain for some time over the challenges of needing to generate income from the conference for the contined operation of LIANZA (of course, you will have read the President's column in the latest Library life that referes to this) and innovative ways of making conference content available. I've no answers to share with you today - but we haven't stopped thinking about this one!