Access 2006, Ottawa Ontario Canada

Early this morning, 1:30 am I got home from Ottawa. It was a meeting sponsored by the Canadian Library Association Emerging Technologies section so it was heavy on the technology. It was very exciting to see some really innovative new library applications. These people are really brilliant. I decided to blog it on another blog where I will be writing about library issues. If you want to read about the conference go to http://blogs.library.oregonstate.edu/jpollitz.

I had never been to Ottawa before and found it to be a great city. It is the national capital of Canada and our conference was in a hotel close to Parliment.









This is the Rideau Canal which runs through Ottawa. It was designed to allow freight transport away from the threatening armies of the United States.







On Friday morning I skipped out on a couple of presentations to take advantage of the momentary good weather to sightsee. One of the more interesting things was the Parliment complex. The architecture had a distinct European flavor you don't see much in the US. Parliment is located on a hill overlooking the Rideau River and the provincial boundary between Ontario and Quebec. As I was walking around the buildings I came across this little complex of what looked to be doll houses. As I approached them for a closer look I saw that they were small houses designed for stray cats that inhabit the grounds. There is a "catman of the hill" who takes care of the cats. Now the government gives a small amount to keep the cats healthy and visitors donate money and food for the cats. People also come by and feed the cats.

Friday night we went out to dinner with a group of people from around the US and Canada to a nearby restaurant called the Blackthorne. The food was great and the restaurant was not flustered by our request for separate checks. The two guys in the front are from Vancouver BC and had attended the Code4Lib conference in Corvallis last year. Going down the left are Jane, Jeremy and Anne-Marie from OSU. Then way in the back, at the head of the table, is Dan Chudnov, from Yale, who has been helping Jeremy and Terry on LibraryFind. Next to him is Terry then Roy Tennant from the California Digital Library.