CONFERENCE TRACK DESCRIPTIONS
We encourage you to investigate the issues and topics described as part of the following seven track descriptions and to think about both the future of our field and the practices and plans that are helping us get there:
- Diversify our Interdependence: Building Relationships
- Evolutions in Higher Education
- Harness Lightning: Technology in the Service of Libraries
- Inventing Your Library’s Future
- The Shape of Tomorrow: Liberating Collection Development
- Unite with Users: Reinventing the User Experience
- You Say You Want a Revolution: Next Generation Librarianship
Diversify our Interdependence: Building Relationships
Just as our founding fathers knew in 1776 that our young nation needed allies abroad to wage a successful revolution, we have learned in these difficult economic times that our libraries cannot “go it alone.” To accomplish our goals we need to work with other constituencies on campus, other libraries locally, nationally, and internationally, as well as non-library organizations within the higher education environment.
What are the key partnerships on our campuses that we need to nurture? What are the challenges involved in creating and maintaining these relationships? Who are the outside vendors or organizations that we can partner with to accomplish mutually beneficial goals? What are those goals? How can we effectively work with IT staff members to create the complicated networked structure that we need to effectively provide service to our users who may be on campus or across the globe? How do we recruit, hire, promote, and sustain the diverse staff we need to accomplish our increasingly complex and varied goals?
Areas of possible presentation include, but are not limited to:
- Creative relationships with vendors in a difficult economy
- IT and its relationship to the library
- Collaboration and partnerships both inside and outside the library
- New roles for librarians on campus
- Global reach, local touch
- New professions in the library
- International students and faculty
- Serving multiple generations of students and faculty
- Multi-use space
Evolutions in Higher Education
Philadelphia is the “birthplace” of revolution in the United States, and the academy is experiencing an evolution of its own. As a profession, librarians are eager to engage in the conversation in higher education regarding the collision of budget constraints, technology advancement, demographic shifts, and the changing nature of scholarship. These changes impact academic libraries in ways we could not have foreseen just a few years ago. The opportunities for revolutions – large and small – are greater than ever before.
How are we participating in the evolution or pushing it on our campuses? Academic librarians are striving to play a more prominent role in the non-library aspects of higher education delivery or administration. How are you leveraging their participation on campus committees, through campus leadership positions, or forging partnerships to advance the revolution? Are you collaborating with faculty to introduce new teaching technologies? We invite and encourage dialog between librarians and other members of the campus community on these and other relevant questions.
Areas of possible presentation include, but are not limited to:
- Teaching and learning in an online learning environment and the changing instructional technologies
- Value added and Return On Investment
- Scholarly communication
- Assessment and accreditation
- New partnerships on campus, including campus-wide initiatives and outreach to nontraditional populations
- Using “library” expertise (metadata, digitization, instruction, organization, etc). elsewhere on campus
Harness Lightning: Technology in the Service of Libraries
The history of the interdependence of libraries and technology is a long one, but the pace and impact of the resulting changes have yet to lessen. Now more than ever, librarians are able to use new instruments to meet academia’s expectations by creating library services that are delivered quickly and efficiently and that allow information to be created, preserved, and shared easily. How can academic libraries plan for and manage the rapid rate of change while reducing disruption and expense? How can a library determine the best technology for its particular needs? Can our library users lead the way for us? How can technology fads be distinguished from innovations with lasting value?
We invite you to contribute to this track by exploring topics related to new technologies that improve library services and education. Share your successes, frustrations, and thoughts about the interconnectedness between technology and libraries. Programs in this track are likely to span a wide range of library activities, from cataloging and metadata practices to digitization projects to eBook reader circulation to reference transactions on mobile devices.
Other areas of presentation may include, but are not limited to:
- Encouraging the adoption of new technologies
- Teaching and learning with technology
- Assessing users and how to reach them using emerging technologies
- Mobile learning, mobile technology, and mobility
- Developing 21st-century literacies
- Use of mashups and APIs
- Gaming and virtual worlds
- Social software and user-generated content
- Location aware/geolocation applications
- e-books and e-readers
- New media and multimedia
- Cloud computing
- Increasing discoverability of library resources using technology
- Use of open source software
Inventing Your Library’s Future
When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia to form a new nation, the delegates shared a future for a democracy such as none the world had ever seen. Academic librarians are forward-looking professionals. Our concerns for today never limit our enthusiasm for what’s coming tomorrow. We are curious about the future of academic libraries and contemplate better ways to position ourselves, our libraries, and our institutions to meet the needs of future generations.
How are you and your colleagues using your creativity to generate new ideas and innovative programs and services? What initiatives have you implemented that could be described as “visionary” and could serve as models for other academic libraries? We invite you to share your forward-thinking ideas for the future of academic librarianship through proposals that communicate the ways you and your colleagues are exploring new territory. We are seeking proposals that demonstrate the entrepreneurial and enterprising character of academic librarians.
Here are just a few suggested topics—the only limit here is your own imagination:
- Creativity and innovation in the library
- Pioneering marketing techniques
- New ideas for fundraising and development
- Creating the sustainable library
- Visions for the academic library of the future
- Mapping out the digital future
- Inventive uses of metadata and tagging
- Inspired problem solving
- Applying design principles in your library
- Protecting intellectual liberties
- Propelling the profession forward
The Shape of Tomorrow: Liberating Collection Development
The concept of a complete, or universal collection, has long fascinated librarians and library users. Although the dream has been tempered by the reality of having to build collections within financial constraints, libraries have a long and rich tradition of using cooperation and collaboration to provide access to materials not locally owned. Academic libraries have become increasingly interdependent upon each other to satisfy user needs.
The Internet and digital formats have both had profound impacts upon the way that information is discovered and used. Technological advances in software and connectivity make local ownership less important to library users, as long as access or delivery is fast. It is now possible to extend the reach of local collections beyond the campus, to the state, to the country, and to the world. On the surface, it appears a simple thing to connect local users to resources worldwide, but many issues must be resolved before that can occur. Will the universal collection become a reality? What issues are involved with extending access to collections to a broader group of users?
Areas of possible presentation include, but are not limited to:
- Resource sharing
- Licensing and access management issues
- Collaborative collection development
- Digitization
- Collection assessment
- Scholarly communication
- Open access
- Privacy issues
- New material formats: e-books, data sets, archived discussion lists, blogs
- Copyright and intellectual property issues
- Special collections in the digital age
- Preservation
- Data curation
- Institutional repositories
- Future of bibliographic control
- Digital preservation issues
Unite with Users: Reinventing the User Experience
Our library users live in a world of heightened expectations for experiences, and as consumers they demand the latest and greatest products. We need to understand that as we develop innovative services to meet their needs, we also balance demands for traditional library resources and services. The library as a social space is now a given, and, for some users, a presence in social media spaces is now also mandatory. It becomes more challenging for us to remain “united in brotherly love” with all our users when staffing is lean and budgets are tight.
What have libraries been doing to reach out and connect to users, both new and returning? What issues or challenges do we face in meeting the different needs of increasingly diverse user populations with varying expectations, abilities, and knowledge? How has the library kept pace with the new methods of information delivery and public engagements? How has teaching and learning in the academy changed as a result?
Areas of possible presentation include, but are not limited to:
- Staffing patterns that work for user’s needs
- Virtual services that appeal to Millennial users
- User-centered assessment
- Information and learning commons
- Embedded librarians
- Innovations for improved user service
- Fully engaged librarianship
- Active instruction and other user instruction innovations that work
- Online learning
- Campus-wide initiatives
- Outreach to traditional and nontraditional populations
- User experience librarians
You Say You Want a Revolution: Next Generation Librarianship
Whether you have been a librarian for one month, one year or a decade or longer, there is always more you can learn and additional ways you can contribute to the profession. This track challenges you to think about where you are currently in your career, where you want to be in the future, and how you can bridge those gaps. It is a revolution of transformation brought about by changing technology, global interaction, and multigenerational blending. Jobs that once seemed permanent are becoming obsolete. How we lead and how teams function is changing. Regardless of discipline, professional development may be the one thing that makes the difference between our relevance and obsolescence.
Leadership and professional development are about getting involved and taking charge, collectively and individually, of the future of your career and of academic librarianship. Leadership and professional development are also about adjusting to professional and workplace changes, working with a diverse group of colleagues, and learning from both veteran librarians and new graduates. We invite you to consider the future, to think about the role of the profession in that future, and how you can develop in your career while helping inspire and train colleagues to become the next generation of library leaders.
Programs selected for this theme may include, but are not limited to:
- Leaders and managers
- Next generation” leaders
- The “always changing” workplace environment
- The multigenerational workplace
- The global workplace
- Recruitment and retention
- Mentoring through leadership
- Who is following the leader?
- Participation in the profession: getting involved how, when, and where?
- Staff training in a revolutionary environment
- Professional development throughout a career
- Everyone’s a leader: myth or reality?
- Leadership in an interdisciplinary environment
- The library as organization: how leadership (good, bad, or none) affects function
- Best practices for recruiting minority librarians to the profession
- Best practices for preparing minority librarians for advancement in the profession