AAAS 2009 annual meeting: our planet and its life: origins and future

Date07 August 2009
Published date07 August 2009
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/07419050911000481
Pages1-7
AuthorDanielle Mihram,G. Arthur Mihram
Subject MatterLibrary & information science
The 175th Annual Meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement
of Science (AAAS) was held 12-16
February 2009 in Chicago. The theme of
this year’s Meeting was Our Planet and Its
Life: Origins and Futures. According to
James J. McCarthy (AAAS President and
faculty member at Harvard University) this
year’s program recognized that 2009 is the
200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth
and the 150th anniversary of the publication
of his book, On the Origins of Species by
Means of Natural Selection: ‘‘N ew
understanding of the processes that
fascinated Darwin (notes McCarthy)
continues to be the focus of intense research
150 years later’’ (p. 4 of the conference
program).
The AAAS 2009 Annual Meeting
News Blog (http://news.aaas.org/2009/)
provided almost immediate coverage of the
highlights of the Meeting’s sessions,
including A Call to Action on Climate, the
Special Invited Address (14 February
2009) by former US Vice President A.A.
Gore, Jr. (http://news.aaas.org/2009/0214
gore-a-call-to-action-on-climate.shtml). A
streaming video of the AAAS President’s
Address (Opening Ceremony), as well as
the three Plenary Lectures (Remarkable
Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search
for the Origins of Species, by Sean B.
Carroll (University of Wisconsin,
Madison); Celebrating the Earth: Its Past,
Our Present, a Future?, by Susan W.
Kieffer (University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign); and A Neanderthal
Perspective on Human Origins, by Svante
Pa¨a¨bo (Max-Planck Institute for
Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig,
Germany) is located at http://www.aaas.
org/meetings/2009/program/lectures/ The
Program’s Summary is at http://www.aaas.
org/meetings/2009/program/schedule/
Over 7,000 individuals registered for
the main meeting and those who were
attending the two-day Family Science
Days (http://www.aaas.org/meetings/
2009/program/fsd/) which was planned
in cooperation with Science Chicago:
‘‘An ambitious, collaborative, year-long
initiative, Science Chicago brings
together more than 140 of the area’s
leading academic, scientific, corporate
and non-profit institutions to host
thousands of programs that provide
hands-on learning; spur thoughtful
debate; and build enthusiasm for the
pursuit of cutting-edge science.’’
(www.sciencechicago.com)
Not surprisingly, because of this
year’s primary focus on Darwin and the
ecology of the earth, there were very
few symposia that concentrated on the
application of technology outside of the
Life Sciences and of the Earth Sciences.
However, in view of the current
evolution of ‘‘cloud computing’’and the
formation of ‘‘mega grids,’’ there were
two symposia devoted to these topics.
There were content overlaps in these
two symposia and, ideally, had they
been scheduled sequentially on the same
VOLUME 26 NUMBER 7 2009
JULY
AN EMERALD PUBLICATION
262
LIBRARY HI TECH NEWS NUMBER 7 2009
CONTENTS
Conference Report
AAAS 2009 annual meeting:
our planet and its life:
origins and future . . ......... 1
Features
Library information and
communication technology
in Nigerian universities . . . .... 8
Distance education and the role
of library services in Iran:
a case study of Shiraz
University Distance
Learners ................. 11
New work spaces: wikis for
cataloging collaborations . . .... 15
Column
Current cite-ings from
the Popular and Trade
Computing Literature ........ 21
New & Noteworthy ........ 25
Calendar ................. 34
Library Link
www.emeraldinsight.com/librarylink
AAAS 2009 annual meeting:
our planet and its life: origins
and future
Danielle Mihram and G. Arthur Mihram
LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 7 2009, pp. 1-7, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050911000481 1

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