Week 3: Online Meetings

For our topic this week I chose OPAL, because they have a large section on Government Document information, which pertains to my job.
The session I viewed was:

A Brief Overview of Microfiche, Shipping Lists, and SuDoc Classification in the Federal Depository Library System presented in November 2009 by Valerie Martens Furino, Supervisory Librarian of Library Technical Services Support, U.S. Government Printing Office.

This webinar was very informative for such a brief session (25 min). It was nice seeing that some of the questions I have had were being asked by others too. The session was broken in half with 10-15 minute presentation and about 10 minute question and answer section. This would be a great session to have those who are new to Government Documents to be able to get a little more familiar with some of the basics. I am very eager to check out some of the other sessions when I have some more time available.
I would really like to see more meetings to happen like this. I have quarterly meetings that I attend and the group tries to have at least 1 OPAL/online meeting each year, but I think that it would be better for everyone(Library and Staff) to change to electronic meetings as the majority with in-person meetings limited to once a year. Especially as finances get tighter and tighter. I hope that the technology becomes more accessible to the general public, too. These could be used for agencies training people how to apply for unemployment, or how to FILE YOUR TAXES ONLINE for free.