Greetings:

Wish you were here, the weather is, finally, Minnesotan.
Well, it could be worse, it's colder, but not really cold, and it's
raining and not snowing.

The conference, on the other hand, continues to illuminate and, I hope,
inspire. No one has taken me up on the invitation to post their
impressions and observations of the conference, which is a shame as I'm
the worst person to try to convey a sense of what's happening at panels! I
continue to hear positive complaints (if there can be such a thing) that
there are too many things going on at the same time. Indeed, the panels
that I have been able to attend for at least a short while have been
first-rate. Until I step down from the presidency in two years I fear I'll
not hear many presentations at all. In some ways I suppose I am having an
experience similar to that of other attendees, as we try to choose between
concurrent sessions vying for our time and attention. That may, I fear, be
a more common experience for us, as I expect the conference will only grow
in size, and few of us can devote more than three or four days to
attending a conference and we must therefore hold concurrent sessions. I
would rather have it this way than to have the opposite, have a dearth of
quality and quantity, and I will hope that we can continue to maintain the
high quality of presentations and, importantly, the high level
(quantitatively and qualitatively) of interaction.

The keynotes have been stellar, and I am grateful for the keynote speakers
who have come a very long way and prepared excellent talks for us. The
reception and dinner last night was a wonderful occasion for socializing.
Dara O'Neil was presented with the student paper award at the dinner, and
AoIR was formally invited to the University of Maastricht, International
Institute of Infonomics next October, for its 2002 conference. A call for
papers and other conference information will be forthcoming in the next
few weeks.

We are, to put it colloquially, "in the home stretch" of this conference,
and I can already say that I will greatly miss the camaraderie, sharing
and learning that have taken place in Minnesota. I shall hope to post
again tomorrow, but given conference activities and travel I am not sure I
shall be able to. Consequently, I would like to take the opportunity to
thank the multitude of people who have contributed to this conference, the
participants, the AoIR executive committee, and particularly:

John Logie, conference coordinator

Leslie Shade, conference program chair

University of Minnesota administration, faculty, staff and students who
have contributed, including (and I'm sure not limited to) Laura Gurak, Dan
Burk, Terry Childers, Nora Paul, Joe Konstan, Pen Yew, K. K. Sinha, Lisa
Disch, Gerald Miller, Dean Charles Muscoplat, Dean H. Ted Davis, Dean
David Kidwell, Pat Benson and the entire crew of technology volunteers,
Bob Bohanek and Steve Rychly of Apple Computer, and Unisys Corp.
Thank you all!

I am confident that with last year's conference at the University of
Kansas and this year's at the University of Minnesota that we have set an
excellent standard for our meetings. I will look forward to next year's
conference and to the conversations that continue via air-l and other
opportunities for interaction.

Best wishes,

Sj