Libraries Without Walls 6: Evaluating the Distributed Delivery of Library Services
An international conference organised by CERLIM -The Centre for Research in Library and Information Management
16 - 20 September 2005
Delphinia Hotel, Molyvos, Aegean Island of Lesvos , Greece
http://www.molyvoshotel.com/eng/hotel.htm
From their beginnings in 1995, the Libraries without Walls conferences have mapped a major change in the practice of librarianship. While library services are still concerned to provide users with physical access to their buildings, electronic access, often from remote locations, is becoming ever more dominant. Papers presented at previous LWW conferences have mapped this change and provided examples of how libraries are pushing out the frontiers of their services.
In 2005 we took a different approach. We asked the question,‘How do we know whether these new services are having a positive impact on our users?’
To do this we considered four broad themes:
- Theoretical approaches to the evaluation of these services, with an emphasis on qualitative methods.
- The user experience: what do we know about the users of these services?
- Assessment of the usability, including the accessibility, of services.
- Measuring the outcomes and impact of services.
Reviews
Reviews of Libraries without Walls 5, held in 2003, prompted these comments:
The conference was in many ways the high point of my professional career. (Penny Dale, Relay May 2004)
Ideas sparked by reading one paper are further provoked and challenged by reading another, resulting in a cumulative effect which leaves the reader with a critical overview of the contemporary issues and practice ... LWW6 should be very interesting indeed. (David Parkes, Ariadne, October 2004)
Previous Conferences in the Libraries Without Walls series can be found at http://www.cerlim.ac.uk/conf/
Conference Proceedings will be published by Facet Publishing, Email: info@facetpublishing.co.uk