Happy New Year and welcome to a new edition of Informer! This time we offer you a special edition, a Conference Reviews Edition. Nothing but conference reviews, how does that sound? Well, let us know and we will listen …
But first for some news on the editorial team. Tyler Tate who has been a co-editor and has contributed feature articles on search and navigation since we re-launched Informer as an electronic newsletter has moved on (unfortunately for us). He decided it’s time to start another adventure, this time involving coffee. Thanks, Tyler, and all the best with the new startup!
That brings us to our first question. Are YOU interested in joining the editorial team? If you think the answer is ‘no’, then perhaps think again, and again. If eventually the answer is ‘yes’, then do let us know!
Now, it’s time to get to the point: conference reviews. Let’s start with our very own annual practitioners’ event. Yes, it’s been a year already since we had Search Solutions 2013, and in November we organised a sold-out Search Solutions 2014 with an amazing line-up of speakers. Luckily we had our own reporters there who summarised the day for you in this (special conference reviews) edition of Informer. Some of the buzzwords I picked up this year included ‘context’, ‘open source’ (again), ‘search solutions’ (indeed!), ‘knowledge graphs’, ‘schema.org’, ‘excellent day’ …
Birger Larsen contributes a thorough review of IRFC 2014. IRFC? Has that not ceased to exist years ago? It may well, but the conference continues with another one lined up for later this year.
Another interesting event that was organised around the corner from the Informer head offices was the 2014 Digital Libraries Conference and our very own events editor Andy MacFarlane wrote something up for you.
Finally, Ingo Frommholz, the brand-new BCS IRSG Treasurer, was one of the organisers of the Autumn School 2014 for Information Foraging and Retrieval and he spared no effort in writing up a review once he came back.
But what would Informer be without a schedule of upcoming search-related events? Thanks, Andy, for another comprehensive list of relevant conferences, workshops and meetings (and nice places to go to). May I just point out: ECIR 2015 in Vienna is just around the corner.
Enjoy the rest of the winter and perhaps see you in Vienna!