The 2000 WAAL Conference, Libraries: Guiding Lights on a Sea of Change, is scheduled for Wednesday, April 12 through Friday, April 14 at the Ramada Plaza Hotel, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Registration starts at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, and the conference concludes after Friday’s luncheon.

The Wednesday luncheon program features Judy Goldsmith, Dean at UW-Fond du Lac, who will explore the different ways men and women view the world and express those differences in the ways they communicate. Wednesday also features poster sessions and a reception, dinner on the town, and an opportunity to mingle in Walter’s Pub in the hotel while local band Rings entertains conference goers with their music.

Thursday's highlights include two nationally-known speakers. Gregory Leazer, Department of Information Studies, UCLA, our luncheon speaker, will address questions and issues surrounding bibliographic access to library collections in our ever changing technological environment. For our dinner program, Carol Tenopir, School of Information Sciences, University of Tennessee, will discuss electronic reference resources, patterns of use, and factors that affect use—some of which might surprise you.

On Friday, Lynn Miner, Executive Director, Research and Sponsored Programs, Marquette University, will conduct a three-hour workshop on grant proposal writing. Pre-registration is required and limited to 18 participants on a first-come, first-serve basis. Richard Hendricks, DeWitt Ross & Stevens, and Todd Roll, UW-Marathon County, creators of the web site Weird Wisconsin, will wrap up the conference with a luncheon program covering Wisconsin’s oral and "documented" history of ghosts, UFO’s, and other strange creatures, along with other spooky revelations.

Presentations, panel discussions, and poster sessions will be held throughout the conference on a variety of topics such as repetitive strain injuries, today’s generation of students, the Internet and privacy, cataloging Internet sources, designing an electronic classroom, and much more. Specific program information will be mailed to WLA members soon in the call to conference booklet.