REMEMBER THE BEATLES' lyrics, "It was 20 years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play"? The first Internet Librarian International (ILI) conference was held 20 years ago in London in 1999, co-located with the London Book Fair, at the Olympia Conference Centre. Sergeant Pepper did not make an appearance, nor did the Beatles perform, but librarians flocked to the conference to learn how the then-new internet technologies would affect their work. A short video on the ILI website (internet-librarian.com) outlines the highlights of the past 20 years, including the founding of Google and the appearance of SMS text messaging, also in 1999. It continues to developments since 1999 that have affected internet librarians. Although the internet is now an established part of our information professional world, new technologies and innovative uses of technology in libraries deserve our ongoing attention. That's what brought several hundred librarians from 28 countries back to London Oct. 16-17,2018, for the 20th ILI conference. Throughout the 2 days of the conference, the mantra, "We talk tech but it's about people," pervaded the sessions. ILI is a library technology conference, but it's also a community.
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