Conferencing in Crete

By Rachel

If you are presenting at a conference there are not many more appealing locations than Chania (or Hania) in Crete where we spent last week. The Qualitative & Quantitative Methods in Libraries (commonly known as QQML) celebrated its 10th anniversary by returning to the site of the first conference. And lucky me (and us) that it did! I had never been anywhere in Greece before and what a great introduction Crete was! Mountains, beaches, friendly people, old towns, new towns, and ancient sites.

Pippa has already written up her impressions of Chania, so I will try not to duplicate, and Neil promises to write about our visit to Knossos (the palace of King Minos) and the archaeological museum in Heraklion (the Minoan pottery is amazing!). My plan is to write a bit about the conference – that was why we were there, after all – and scatter throughout some of my pics from Chania. Eye candy if nothing else.

This was my second time at a QQML conference and I have to say that it is the most truly international conference I have ever attended. It is not huge, maybe 300 people, but there were people at the conference representing, I don’t know, 30 countries? When I think of the people I ended up chatting with, there were people from Singapore, Finland, Estonia, France, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, Italy, South Korea, England, and Japan, as well as Canada and the United States. Not to mention all the people making presentations! It really is humbling to meet so many great people from so many places (and to realize how lucky I am that the conference is in English – my native language. For so many of the presenters English is their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th language!). I had the great pleasure, too, of listening to the presentation by a colleague of mine at the UofS. It’s always amazing to learn about what the people who you work with every day are doing in their research – I am so looking forward to speaking with her some more about it! For those of you wondering, yes, my presentation went smoothly as well; people were there and asked questions and I’ve had one follow-up email about it already. All good.

So, all in all, enjoyable; great networking, GREAT location, great food, and some inspiring and interesting presentations. Can’t ask for much more.