University libraries prepare for student 2.0
22 June, 2007
Libraries must drive change within higher education institutions or risk losing touch with modern students - according to debate at one of the biggest ever conferences of academic library staff from across Britain and Ireland.
The three-day Annual SCONUL Conference concluded in Birmingham today with a speech from Michael Zastrocky, Managing Vice-President of IT consultancy Gartner and a leading global voice on how technology is changing learning practices.
Anne Bell, Chair of SCONUL - the membership body for UK and Irish higher education and national libraries, who organised the conference - said,
"The process, practice and nature of learning and research is changing rapidly. Books and traditional academic sources are still important, but library managers know that the diverse and demanding university students of today need a whole range of new services such as mobile provision. Moreover, they often need those services delivered outside of physical entities such as the library itself and they need them now."
The SCONUL Conference welcomed around 200 delegates to discuss the theme of 'Shifting Boundaries' for academic libraries. It tackled issues such as how mass book digitisation programmes like Google Scholar might affect our academic libraries and what to do when increased demand and expectations do not come with additional resources.
Anne Bell said,
"The shifting boundaries for academic libraries are both a threat and an opportunity and handling this new demand will be as much about a change of attitude as it is about real physical changes. We must combine the best of technology with the best of human academic interaction".
"It is appropriate that our Conference on these vital issues should be in Birmingham a city that has undergone such remarkable change itself in recent years. Transforming from a waning industrial landscape to one of the country's most vibrant and dynamic cultural centres".
The conference also talked about whether more could be done to encourage participation in higher education libraries with one workshop citing the example of 'Sleeping Between the Bookshelves' a University of Wolverhampton initiative that encouraged teenagers to spend the night in the library.
Keynote speaker Michael Zastrocky, Managing Vice-President of international IT consultancy Gartner warned that universities must find the right balance between harnessing new technology and remaining a place for discussion, ideas and diversity. He said,
"A university is not simply a place where one purchases immediately-useful instruction. The future is not online .v. face to face contact it is about mixing it together to enable the best possible experience for our students"