This past weekend, the Newman Numismatic Portal (NNP) sponsored the NNP Symposium. For three days, NNP used Zoom to facilitate 38 sessions about different aspects of numismatics. The topics covered everything from U.S. and foreign numismatics to discussions about the industry. The Numismatic Bibliomania Society held its Annual Meeting via Zoom, and Matt Dinger & Mike Nottelmann did a live version of The Coin Show. After listening to them for a while, I now see what they look like — I do not know if that is a good or bad thing.
I was able to attend several of the sessions and deliver one of my own. Every session I attended was interesting and informative. The only complaint I had was that I could not attend every session. However, the NNP recorded each session and will be making them available online.
If you wanted to attend the symposium, you had to register to receive the Zoom credentials. There was no cost to register and no restrictions on the device you used. I attended the session before mine, presented by Doug Mudd, using my iPad. Since he went a little long, I was able to log into my session on my computer while watching the end of Doug’s on my iPad.
The entire numismatic community must commend the NNP and Lianna Spurrier, who coordinated the online event. Spurrier did the call for speakers, training sessions with the speakers, and probably a lot more behind the scenes we did not see.
As a member of the Numismatic Literary Guild, if there is an award for excellence in facilitating education, please allow me to nominate Spurrier for the award.
The NNP Symposium came due to an unusual set of circumstances that has seen the ANA’s Summer Seminar and every major coin show canceled. The NNP hit a homerun with its effort. The symposium was such a success that I hope the NNP makes this an annual event.