Libraries Without Walls 7: Exploring 'anytime, anywhere' delivery of library services
An international conference organised by CERLIM - The Centre for Research in Library and Information Management
14 - 18 September 2007
Delphinia Hotel, Molyvos, Aegean Island of Lesvos, Greece
http://www.molyvoshotel.com/eng/hotel.htm
Keynote Speaker
Christine Borgman
Professor & Presidential Chair in Information Studies within the Graduate School of Education & Information
Studies at the University of California Los Angeles.
Disciplines, Documents, and Data: Emerging Roles for Libraries in the Scholarly
Information Infrastructure
The Conference
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. Library services are being integrated into virtual learning, research and personal environments. Papers presented at previous LWW conferences have mapped this change and provided examples of how libraries are delivering their services whenever and wherever their users need them.
In 2007 we aimed to encourage the widest possible range of papers to reflect the diverse current developments in library service delivery. Papers included the following:
- New kinds of service, especially those which open up new paradigms of 'library' - perhaps the library equivalent of YouTube or MySpace?
- Papers which describe the library's role within new models of scholarly publishing, including experience of developing services based on institutional or other repositories, and papers examining the responsibility of the library for digital curation.
- Service delivery in challenging environments, especially where the infrastructure may be sub-optimal as in some developing countries, or where the user group represents particular challenges.
- New technological solutions, provided these are presented to illustrate the impact on users of the improved services they make possible
- Delivery and assessment of information skills/literacies, especially where this is achieved through electronic environments.
Feedback from the last Libraries without Walls Conference included these comments:
"The wide range of perspectives and the high level of professionalism in research papers and discourse were among the best I have experienced in library conferences!"
"The Conference papers were both very informative and relevant; a very good match with what you promised there would be."
"Sharing is the strength of the Conference; the fact that there are people from all around the world, with different backgrounds and experiences. Very thought-provoking"
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, E-mail: info@facetpublishing.co.uk