Re-Inventing the Library. The challenges of the new information environment

The 39th LIBER Annual General conference will be organised by the State and University Library, Aarhus (Denmark), 29 June-2 July 2010

LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, invites papers and posters for its 2010 Conference on the theme of “Re-Inventing the Library. The challenges of the new information environment”.

1. The Library in the context of e-Science: including topics such as

• integration of library services in virtual research and education environments
• libraries in new research and education workflows
• support from the Library for data-producers
• content acquisition
• annotations, recommendations
• E-Science and digital repositories
• Open Access to scholarly information and data sharing
• collecting, giving access to, sharing and preserving primary data
• managing enhanced publications
• discovery and visualisation tools for exposing data
• co-ordination of repositories

2. The Library in the context of e-Education: including topics such as

• e-textbooks
• successful models for information literacy programmes
• new information literacies
• outreach to new communities e.g. schools
• case studies on delivering digital readings
• physical and virtual learning spaces
• analysis of user behaviour

3. Making collections digitally available: including topics such as

• strategies for systematic and mass digitisation of library collections
• public-private partnerships in digitisation activities
• integration of e-books into research and education
• managing collections of grey literature
• digital curation
• selection criteria of data for digital preservation and curation
• on-demand collection development
• making library collections visible through search engines
• library collections and the semantic web
• integrating library collections into commercial services (e.g. Amazon.com, Google Books etc.)

4. Library Management: including topics such as

• advocating the role of libraries in research institutions
• evidence-based library management or how libraries establish a culture of assessment, collecting qualitative and quantitative data for decision-making
• aggregation of library statistics and performance measures on a European level
• developing sustainable library services in difficult financial times
• organisational implications of E-Science and E-Research
• replacing traditional library services with new services
• developing a skilled workforce, re-skilling
• new organisational structures
• consequences of evidence-based library management on the profiles in libraries

Submissions are invited which consist of:
- Research papers presenting theoretical solutions, but with a clear illustration on how these solutions can be applied in libraries
- Position papers presenting opinions on some aspect of practice, or describing work that is still in progress, but sufficiently mature to warrant attention
- Experiences and case studies specifying requirements, challenges, or opportunities
- Best practices

Every author who submits his/her abstract for the LIBER Annual Conference will automatically apply for the LIBER Award for Library Leadership. The LIBER Award honours the three abstracts which best describe an achievement in the overall theme of the Annual Conference. The prize consists of the opportunity to present your paper at the LIBER Annual Conference 2010 in Aarhus, Denmark, free registration, plus travelling expenses and accommodation. The LIBER Award for Library Leadership was instituted by LIBER, with generous support from Elsevier.

LIBER libraries have created the Annual Conference Fund in order to stimulate participation from the following countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine.

For more information and for submission of the abstracts of your papers and posters

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