Special Libraries Association Conference 2024 Wrap-Up!

by Elise Aiello on Jul 25, 2024

ByWater Solutions was an exhibitor and platinum sponsor at the Special Libraries Association 2024 Annual Conference held at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. The 3 day conference covered topics from continuing education, AI, acknowledgement management, competitive intelligence and more. The attendees ranged from Corporate libraries and information centers to Legal Firms and truly "special libraries". Jessica Zairo, Head of Library Sales and Outreach, commented, "we had quite a few international librarians who came up to our booth and talked about how they are using Koha and watched our videos!!"

Brian Pichman, Head of Support at ByWater Solutions, delivered the opening and keynote speech at the conference, and Jessica Zairo delivered the closing keynote sponsor talk.

Brian Pichman Delivers Opening and Closing Keynote

Brian's opening keynote presentation was called "Uncharted Together: Navigating AI's New Frontiers in Libraries" providing a good overview of AI and how library information professionals can use AI to help leverage their day to day work. He built an app that allowed users to provide feedback by chatting with AI bot about programs they attended. Over the next 3 days he also recorded all sessions and uploaded descriptions and titles of every session. Fast forward to the final day when he gave his keynote presentation "Charting our Course: Information Professionals as AI Navigators" he brought everything back together from all 3 days and interacted and asked the bot questions about the event. Attendees were engaged and asking questions.

Jessica Zairo Delivers Closing Keynote Sponsor Talk

Jessica's talk discussed the future of open-source AI Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAGs) and how these cutting-edge technologies can transform information access and management in special libraries. It dove into the open-source world, where transparency and collaboration drive innovation, and learn how these can enhance the precision and efficiency of information retrieval.