I leave for Croatia tomorrow morning (early, early tomorrow morning) where I will be presenting at the 2016 ISIC: The Information Behaviour Conference. The conference will take place 20-23 September at the University of Zadar and I will present my paper on the morning of the 22nd.
The last week was spent preparing my presentation slides. I always find that to be a challenge because I need to be able to convey enough information to make people want to read the paper – but not so much to where I send them to sleep before my third slide. I am feeling pretty confident about my slides though and hope that the combination of my drawings, photos, humour, and interesting research keeps my audience entertained and engaged. (I will add a link to the slides the morning of the conference. Promise.)
I’ve also been preparing for a one-day doctoral workshop before the official start of the conference. I attended the workshop at the last ISIC conference two years ago and found it quite useful, and I’m confident that this year’s workshop will be just as beneficial. I am hoping to use the time to discuss how best to anchor a multidisciplinary thesis theme, such as mine, in the domain of information science when writing up my main thesis. Yeah, it’s a hard one to wrap my head around. Especially when my undergraduate and master degrees are from outside of the information science arena.
Now that all the academic preparations are completed, it’s time to prepare the practical things. Like mending and washing clothes before putting them in my suitcase. And backing up all of the files on my phone and laptop so that (God forbid!) if something gets lost, broken, or stolen I am only losing hardware and not files and photos. And I need to paint my fingernails too. Oh! And I should make sure my phone’s address book is up-to-date so that I can send postcards of Croatia to family and friends back home (both homes: America and Scotland).
On another note, I am really looking forward to the conference, but I am also a bit frustrated because I will be attending as a broken woman. I am in Phase II of recovering from a broken ankle and I won’t be able to manage the entire conference without my walking boot. Though I suppose it’s a great way to be noticed in the crowd: as the woman in a walking boot. Or, at times, the woman with a walking stick and an off-balance gait. Thankfully, three of my fellow PhD students will be there, too. So if needed, they’ll be there to help!
I really wish I could enjoy Zadar with two working legs, but I’d rather have the experience with a (healing) injury than not at all! Stay tuned for a conference update, and maybe a few fabulous photos from some of the great cultural sites I’m hoping to see in between doing serious academic stuff.