Headquartered in Alexander, VA, Special Libraries Association (SLA) is an international association, serving more than 12,000 members in 83. Special librarians are information resource experts who collect, analyze, evaluate, package, and disseminate information to facilitate accurate decision-making in corporate, academic, and government settings.

The 2005 SLA Annual Conference was the organizations ninety-sixth. Held June 5-8 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (MTCC) in Toronto , Ontario Canada , its purpose was to create an environment for networking, communication, learning and other developmental opportunities for information professionals. Located in dynamic downtown Toronto, MTCC is Canada’s largest convention center, offering 460,000 square foot of exhibit space.

For many years, Thomson Scientific and other Thomson businesses, especially Dialog, have been major supporters of the SLA meeting with elaborate booth displays, sponsorships, and contributions to a multitude of SLA divisions. As in previous years, Thomson Scientific planned several events designed to increase visibility, including ads in the SLA conference program and Information Outlook, direct mail, participation on panels, a breakfast workshop, sponsorships, and a gala reception.

 

As with previous conferences, Thomson Scientific made a striking presence with a 20 x 20 Island booth, rivaling the display booths of the hundreds of other exhibitors. The Thomson Scientific booth boasted large plasma screens, which rotated images that supported the “100 Reasons Why” theme—the 100 reasons why Thomson Scientific is a leader in innovation and delivering the highest-quality content.

Visitors to the booth could also get information and demos of a variety of information solutions, including ISI Web of Knowledge SM —which facilitates discovery by offering seamless navigation to the highest quality journal, patent and life sciences content, evaluation tools, and Web content; Thomson Pharma— the innovative dynamic information solution for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; Derwent World Patents Index ® —the world’s most comprehensive database of value-added patent documents; Delphion ® - providing access to full-text patent documents from the world’s leading patent authorities; Techstreet - offering a wide variety of engineering codes and standards; and the Thomson ResearchSoft bibliographic management products, EndNote ® , ProCite ® , Reference Manager ® , RefViz TM and WriteNote ® .

Another focus was the Century of Science TM initiative, which boosted Web of Science ® content with backfile and cited reference data and navigation from 1944 to 1900. With the Century of Science initiative, approximately 850,000 articles from more than 200 journals—carefully selected from the published research of the first half of the 20 th century—was added to Web of Science.

 
This year seven other Thomson companies were positioned in close proximity to one another to create an imposingly unified 'Thomson Village'. The other Thomson businesses included: Carswell, Dialog, Gale , RIA, Thomson Financial, Thomson International Law, and West.
 
EVENTS and PRESENTATIONS

The Thomson Scientific events commenced on the first day of exhibits (June 5 th) with a wine bar at the networking reception from 4:00pm - 6:00pm , jointly sponsored by Thomson Scientific and the other Thomson businesses. Attendees received a free glass of wine compliments of The Thomson Corporation.

On Monday, June 6 th from 11:30am-1:00pm , Andrew Bank, director of Business Development for Techstreet provide members of the Engineering Division with an update on the latest developments in standards and the Thomson Scientific plans for online access via the Web to standard collections.

 
Also on Monday from 3:00-5:00pm , Victor Camlek , director of market Intelligence for Thomson Scientific & Healthcare participated on the Chemistry Division Roundtable. He discussed the many market research techniques that provide a reliable way for vendors to align solutions with the needs of the customer. "For example, syndicated (published) market research provides an easy way to gage the overall customer business environment," explained Camlek. He also explained the benefits of customer satisfaction surveys and product concept testing.
 

On Tuesday from 1:30pm - 3:00 , Marie McVeigh , product development manager for Thomson Scientific, spoke before a ‘standing-room-only’ program. The panel was co-sponsored by the Science-Technology, Engineering, Biomedical & Life Science, Chemistry, and Physics-Math-Astronomy SLA Divisions.

McVeigh began by covering some of the changing definitions of Open Access. She later talked about the Thomson Scientific citation analysis of Open Access journals and their rank in journal performance metrics. She concluded by summarizing other recent studies on the effect of OA on article-level citation activity.

At SLA , Thomson Scientific is well-known for hosting lavish receptions to thank customers for their continued support. The reception, held at the Canadian Broadcasting Center , this year was no exception. With an estimated 1,200 attendees, it can be argued that the 2005 event was one of the best.

This year marked the first time that Thomson Scientific and Dialog jointly hosted a reception. During the reception, the DJ entertained quests with popular music past and present. In addition to dancing, quests could partake in guided tours of the CBC’s state-of-art studios.

 
During the reception, Dialog continued its tradition of announcing the recipient of Roger K. Summit Scholarship for the Americas. First Vin Caraher, president and CEO of Thomson Scientific addressed the guests and thanked customers for support.
 
Vin then introduced Dave Brown , executive vice president & general manager of Dialog. After also saying a few words of welcome, Dave introduced Roger Summit for whom the award is named.
 

In partnership, Dave and Roger announced that Laura Tuers , a graduate student at the University of California Los Angeles ’ Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, was the 2005 recipient of the Roger K. Summit Scholarship for the Americas.

After the presentation, the dancing and dining continued. At the end of the evening, in keeping with a long tradition, each quest received a commemorative ceramic tile

From the exhibits to the workshops and presentations to the reception, once again, the SLA proved to be a conference that businesses like Thomson Scientific must continue to support - for the building of relations, sharing of knowledge, and camaraderie.