As I sit here preparing myself for a weekend of ALA Annual, I find myself ruminating once again on other modes of conferencing and what is gained or lost depending on how a conference is organized.
I, personally, come to ALA only for Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) events. Any activity related to my core job duties happens at a different conference or, increasingly, online, and thus every year I find myself torn on whether or not to go to ALA. Attending APALA events is, of course, lovely, but it would be much more fulfilling if I could get more work done in conjunction with them.
And so, virtual conferences. While I like the concept, I’ve found them to be relatively hit or miss. The convenience factor is obviously a plus. No travel means lower costs, both financial and environmental, as well as less time potentially lost to travelling. Video presentations can also in theory be accessed later, relieving some of the time crunch of an in-person conference, at least if you’re organized enough to go back and watch more panels once the conference is over.
On the other hand, virtual conferences require a lot more organization to incorporate the spontaneous interactions of an in-person conference. Forced interaction in a Zoom breakout room is not the same as chance encounters at a conference. Sometimes you do find that spark in a Zoom room, but sometimes it’s missing.
The best “informal” encounter I’ve had to date in a virtual conference was during an early version of the AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies, a conference notable for having been conceived of as an online-only affair in order to achieve equitable participation by Indonesian and American scholars. Still in the midst of COVID, when a panel was going well, organizers allowed the conversation to continue past the panel’s allotted time so that attendees could chat more informally with presenters. This ensured that everyone in the Zoom room already had some level of similar interests and laid the groundwork for a conversation not based on ice breaker questions. This might be harder to organize, but I can imagine interest-based Zoom rooms as one way to organize socialization.
Again, this runs the risk of being too forced, which is where enhanced virtual profiles with research interests and other information that attendees can browse might be helpful. I’ve never taken advantage of these features at an online conference, but perhaps they’re working well for others.
Continuing in the realm of virtual conferences, one other mode that I recently heard about was explicitly designed around limiting the environmental effects of travel, in this case through a conference designed around zines. For DIY Methods, Researchers propose their topics, create a zine when accepted, and then copies of the zines are distributed to all participants and made available online. Again, this significantly cuts down on the chance encounters aspect of conferences. That said, it also provides a different way of communicating research and works in progress for those who may not be interested in communicating via another paper presentation but also aren’t ready yet to make the jump to a book chapter or article. I can also imagine a way for this to be expanded to include discussions from “attendees” about the zines.
At any rate, I’m here at ALA, but still not convinced by either in-person or virtual conferences. Have you seen any interesting iterations of conferences focused on inclusivity in some way, be it geographic, financial, or otherwise? If you were to redesign conferences, how would they work? Or, alternatively, just come say hi to me at ALA!
At this point in my career, conference presentations can spark an idea but the real magic is then processing the sparks with others- people I end up sitting next to at a dine around or lunch, random hallway encounters with people who were in the audience, catching up over drinks with long-time friends from other libraries. I’ve never seen an online conference be able to replicate that. I also have recent concerns about all the online platforms integrating AI (whether we like it or not.) All of our online conversations feel like they are being watched, which has a huge chilling effect.
The vastly superior accessibility of virtual conferences to the full breadth of the community really cannot be overstated. The privilege involved in travelling the traditional conference circuit is the elephant in the room that academia still refuses to seriously address. At any given time there are an order of magnitude more people who can’t travel than can, for a whole plethora of reasons, which arguably means that in-person conferences attract a biased representation of the community and reinforce certain perspectives over others. Yes, there are also technological barriers associated with virtual conferences, but there are more options to address and work around them than when the ability to participate depends entirely on being physically present. Especially if the conference has a technology focus, at this point I consider it somewhat embarrassing if there isn’t at least a hybrid option offered.
My absolute dream for the future of conferences is for them to take place in (or at least with an associated designated meeting space in), virtual worlds – something like a Second Life or a persistent Massively Multiplayer Online type game-world. Heck, you could do it right now in Minecraft, with a different seed world for each conference, if you didn’t mind the hideous block-based art style (having lived through the first- and second-generation era of video games, I want something that looks better, thanks). In these online worlds, attendees’ avatars would be able to interact freely in a shared virtual environment, both during and outside of the scheduled presentations, using built-in text and voice chat functionality. It would solve the problems of spontaneous encounters, social events, and all those conference aspects that involve an embodied presence in a communal space. Yes, it would also introduce additional technological and user-skill barriers, but as we undergo the generational shift towards those who grew up with these types of worlds and interactions, the use of such spaces will be increasingly familiar and natural to a majority of participants.
As a former World of Warcraft player, I can’t think of anything more awesome than spending the day attending lectures in some beautiful fantasy castle library, having private side chats running with my fellow attendees throughout, then grouping up afterwards for a dungeon run or virtual pub crawl through the virtual city while discussing the day’s talks.