ACRL College & Research Libraries News

Association of College & Research Libraries

Web Day in Portland, Oregon

On July 14, 1995, while all of France was celebrating Bastille Day, library staff in the Portland, Oregon, area were celebrating Web Day, a full day of workshops dealing with various aspects of the World Wide Web. This event was sponsored by PORTALS, the Portland Area Library System.

PORTALS was established in 1993 to provide improved library and information services to the Portland metropolitan area. Members include twelve academic libraries, one public library system, and the Oregon Historical Society. Users enjoy access to 21 databases and improved access to member collections. Access is available through direct Internet connections and modem dialup. The State of Oregon and membership dues provide PORTALS’ funding.

Web Day featured introductory and keynote sessions attended by all participants, followed by five focused breakout sessions and a lab equipped with personal computers running Netscape and staffed with volunteers. Municipal and state government representatives, as well as Portland area library staff attended Web Day.

The introduction presented by Millard Johnson of PORTALS, “The Web, PORTALS, and the Virtual Library,” challenged the audience to consider the implications of a Virtual Library independent of traditional institutional identity. Gary Sampson of Portland State University delivered the keynote address, “The World Wide Web,” in which he provided an overview of the Web’s history, its present state, and speculations about its future.

Breakout sessions included “‘Cool’ Sites,” which explored selected Web sites noteworthy for their wide appeal and usefulness; “Home Setups,” which investigated the technological and financial issues involved in setting up a Web browser on a home computer. A “Netscape/Lynx” workshop covered the essential “how to” elements of navigating the Web. There was a “Creating Web Pages” session, as well as a “Spiders, Crawlers and Other Wondrous Things” workshop which compared various search engines.

Plans are under way to repeat Web Day this winter for those unable to attend the first one.

—Rhona Klein, Portland State University; e-mail: rhona@godzilla.Hb.pdx.edu