A Projector Story from #SBL10

Bob Cargill’s rendition of an official SBL projector

There was a lot of discussion prior to the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting about the fact that using a projector for PowerPoint would cost $25 if you requested it at the time you submitted your proposal, and $75 if you requested it later. Since I had two papers accepted, and did not decide immediately to use powerpoint (although I probably ought to have), it became clear that purchasing a portable projector made more sense than paying more than half the price of such a projector to rent one for my two sessions. So I bought a Samsung PICO projector, which costs less than $300 and can fit in one’s jacket pocket.

At the annual meeting in Atlanta, I stopped by the room in the Hyatt where I was scheduled to give my paper in the Intertextuality in the New Testament session. I discovered that there was no screen in the room, and worse, no flat wall onto which I could project clearly. So I asked at the front desk to see whether it would be possible to get a screen in there for my session, explaining that I had my own projector.

Their answer was “Yes” I could indeed have the use of a screen – but it would cost me $65!

I made some further inquiries, and was able to get for free a much more portable “screen” in the form of several sheets of white flip chart paper, kindly given to me by some of the AV folks in the Marriott, who seemed genuinely surprised that I would be charged for a screen by the Hyatt when I had brought my own projector.

And so all I needed to purchase was a roll of the special “screen to wall adhesive tape” pictured below, in order to attach the white paper to the wall.

I came prepared to do the same thing for the session on Blogging and Online Publication, but found that there was a projector and screen already set up. Bob Cargill (who also brought his own projector) made inquiries, and since the projector and screen were set up and would be remaining in the room, we were told to go ahead and use them.

If we had not been so pressed for time in that session, I would have made some remark about having brought the latest in portable projection technology (holding up the projector) and the latest in high-tech portable screen technology (holding up the rolled-up sheets of flip-chart paper).

This whole thing is a bit of a fiasco. I remember someone mentioning in the question and answer time after the blogger session that the key to computer integrating technology effectively and consistently into teaching and research is to not treat it as an optional extra that can be cut, but to treat it instead the way we do electricity and plumbing – also technologies, but ones we do not cut when the budget is tight. In the same way, wi-fi, projectors and screens should not be viewed as optional add-ons. Printing handouts merely so that someone can have the primary texts in front of them during a talk, when these could be projected on a screen or distributed electronically, seems wasteful. And assuming that delivering a talk without PowerPoint, Keynote or Prezi is the default is unhelpful.

Hopefully this message will be taken to heart by the leadership of SBL, and we’ll make sure that future conference venues provide everything that presenters need, without charging extra for microphones, podiums, glasses of water, chairs, or projection.

Until then, you may see me carrying a large roll of white paper around at conferences.