Attended three conferences this week - one at another university three hours away, two here on 'home ground'.

The first was a 140 librarians getting together (once every other year) - college and university librarians - which I attended with two colleagues. Excellent three days in lovely surroundings. Highlights included my table winning the quiz on the first evening (and $20 worth of book tokens each); the reception that the presentation we gave got - even though we didn't cover all the material we had; learning about QR codes (not exactly new!) for the first time.

The second conference was a day thing combining three faculties here (business, technology and creative industries). Again I was presenting, this time a slight variation on the one I've been touting about of late and this time jointly with H rather than our law librarian. I think she was a bit apprehensive about my laid back approach (but when you're on your fourth outing with the same subject material(ish), even I don't get quite so stressed about it). Again, it seemed to go down remarkably well given that as library staff we always feel a bit like interlopers at these 'academic' things.

The final conference was the science faculty version of yesterday, but focussed on the tutorial process and professional development. For once I wasn't presenting which made a change - although I was surprised by how much I could contribute in discussions. Particularly enjoyed a presentation from another support staff lady who I normally do my best to avoid. I knew she was very gorgeous and very bright - but I discovered she can also give a cracking presentation as well. Which didn't really surprise me.

All three conferences were interesting but what was most obvious from the close juxtaposition of them was the quality of presentation. With the first conference I didn't go to a bad workshop. All were engaging and well presented with good audience interaction (but not, generally, too much!). These were librarians who are not as a rule paid as academics (though some were). On the other hand, at the internal conferences I had to listen to several presentations from people who are indeed paid to professionally present information. They were very worthy and not generally uninformative and mostly very relevant - but just so dull. What is that?!