Dr. Joy McGregor attended the Canadian Library Association 2009 conference in Montreal from 29 May-1 June, where she presented a session called “Smart Information Use: Generating Knowledge and Avoiding Plagiarism”, soon to be available on the CLA website at http://www.cla.ca/conference/2009/. The presentation was based on the ARC funded research project she is concluding this year with Dr. Kirsty Williamson. It focused in particular on the understandings of plagiarism held by student, teacher, and teacher librarian participants and on the strategies developed by teachers and TLs to support students in avoiding plagiarism in their writing.The conference was un-themed, with topics ranging across the spectrum of possibilities, from Joe Janes’ (University of Washington) opening keynote called “Rethinking the Library” to Helene Blowers’ (architect of Library 2.0: 23 Things) closing address, “The Experience of Play”.
An online community was created for this conference at http://cla2009.ning.com. Photos were posted to Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/groups/cla2009/. Although these online communities attracted only small numbers of attendees this year, similar communities are bound to develop and grow exponentially over the next few months and years, as more people become familiar with social networking tools through their work. This trend of growing familiarity was apparent in many of the sessions Joy attended.
Since the Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des bibliotheques is bilingual, and especially with the conference taking place in Montreal, French language exhibits and sessions were everywhere.A French language kiosk at a Montreal street fair, however, demonstrated an unexpected cross-cultural experience—one could purchase kangaroo sausages. When asked (through a by-stander/ interpreter) what their connection with Australia was, the merchants indicated that there was no connection whatsoever. Interesting to speculate how this French Canadian ‘sausage sizzle’ came to be….
