SCONUL Conference and AGM 2007
20-22 June 2007, Jury's Inn Birmingham, 245 Broad Street, Birmingham B1 2HQ
- Conference presentations
- Conference programme
- List of delegates (PDF)
- List of workshops and visit participants (Excel)
- Speakers biographies
- Workshop and briefing session descriptions
Not so long ago academic libraries had clear boundaries and were differentiated in terms of mission, physical presence and services.
The library was probably the most easily recognised building on campus.
Now these boundaries are blurring and even disappearing as the landscape within which information services operate undergoes a radical
transformation.
The customers who use our services are more diverse in their background, their ability, their aspirations and in what they expect
libraries and information services to deliver. They want exactly what they need, they need it now, they expect us to provide it along
with all sorts of other services that have traditionally come from elsewhere.
Technologies are coming together to form radically new forms of communication. Institutions in higher education are looking for more
flexible approaches to deliver in which information services may be aligned even more closely with learning and teaching activities.
Content has long since broken free from physical entities such as books and printed journals and information professionals in higher
education have acknowledged and responded to this but new generation concepts such as Web 2.0 and informal social learning networks
are presenting even more challenging and exciting opportunities as well as potential threats to our services.
In other words the boundaries in our landscape are...well shifting.
Bringing together a range of high profile speakers and offering some timely workshops SCONUL 2007 will explore these aspects of our
changing environment and try to examine whether we are at the outset of a new paradigm shift.
If you are as excited by these challenges as we are we shall probably see you at Birmingham, a city that has shifted its own
boundaries to become one of the country’s most vibrant and dynamic cultural, retail and entertainment centres.