Belgium Rocks!

Brussels: it's like Paris, only smaller, cheaper, and it has french fries! (Ok, they call them Belgian Frites here, but you get the idea.) We have been so comfortable for the last couple of days, and I have been so busy at the conference, that I have not had time to collect my thoughts here. All I can say is that I wish we had spent the last two weeks in this flat rather than the one we rented in London. This city is very clean, the people are very friendly, and everyone seems to speak English without any sort of attitude.
The conference has been great, although I confess it has made me feel somewhat irrelevant. The emphasis has been entirely on digital records, and one presenter made the compelling case that “paper can wait” as archives prepare to set standards for an entirely digital world. Still, there will be a place for people with my very limited skills to do the descriptive work that puts documents in context, so I won’t lose any sleep. My favorite presentation was from two academics from the University of Saskatchewan who had done research into people’s expectation of privacy online and in the new social networking environment. Surprisingly their conclusions confirmed that many young people would prefer paper to online resources, although it is clear they do not consistently act on that preference.
The city itself is beautiful. Jayne and I will spend our last night here exploring all the side streets around the Grand Place, the elaborated cobblestone square

that is the site of the town hall and all the action around here. We took a horse carriage tour the other day, but now that the conference is over we will see what it is like at night. Jayne has more or less been homebound while I have been at the conference, so it will be nice to go out together on our last evening.