It is important to be informed and stay connected. When we need to find a connection to the past, present or future, we use our local library services to keep us in touch. When the Ontario Library Service (OLS) for Northern and Southern Ontario needs to keep their library operators—from approximately 330 public libraries representing cities, towns, townships, local service boards, First Nation Communities and Fly In Communities over a vast geographic area—connected, they call AVW-TELAV.

The symposium's objective was to collect input from library operators in all areas of the province in order to develop the plan of action for libraries up to 2020. Ontario Library Service-North alone assists and provides services to encourage library development in Northern Ontario. Some communities are in very remote locations. The Northern area of the province covers 88% of Ontario's total landmass, extends across two time zones, and includes communities that cannot be accessed by road.

Initially, AVW-TELAV provided a pre-conference online survey to all of the event delegates to solicit their input prior to the conference so the conference planners could gear the agenda to the specific issues of the library operators.

During the event, we provided a standard screen and projector to display PowerPoint presentations, questions to the audience, and image magnification. For in-room audience responses, we provided 600 of our Audience Response Plus+ (AR+) keypads which allowed for instant response times.

In addition, multiple attendees from 35 of the remote sites viewed the event via live webcast, with access to all audio, video, PowerPoint slides and ARS+ questions. The remote delegates were able to vote online live with the in-room delegates, while AVW-TELAV instantly tabulated both the in-room and on-line responses to provide real time data.

With the help of AR+, AVW-TELAV was able to instantly display the results to the delegates in-room and on-line for the entire group to briefly discuss. The results were then reviewed by their committee during the lunch break and drilled down into areas of most importance. AVW-TELAV was able to quickly incorporate new questions for the afternoon session based on the committee's discussions over the lunch period.

The entire event from start to finish was webcasted to the on-line delegates who could communicate with the room directly via an instant messaging system. An individual monitoring the system then passed the message along to the moderator for inclusion in discussions. As a result, all libraries in the province of Ontario had the opportunity to be represented and connected as if all in the very same room.