BOBCATSSS 2009

In English In Finnish In Portuguese

BOBCATSSS 2009 symposium @ Porto, Portugal, 28—30 January 2009

Abstracts

Abstracts of the presentations, listed alphabetically. Abstracts have been published for the full papers, workshops and posters. There are also company presentations and workshops.

Full papers

“A Personal Information Adviser.” A new librarian’s role in the network society

Malgorzata Kisilowska

Maria Przastek-Samokowa

Institute of Information and Book Studies
University of Warsaw
Warsaw, Poland

The authors discuss a new librarian’s role (in particular public librarians) in a network society, regarding individualisation of other services offered to the public. There are several topics which have been described recently, and make a prerequisites for such a proposal, like: individualisation as a general trend of social life and economy, individualisation of electronic information services for selected users’ groups, intensification of activities concerning information literacy. The proposal is based on a literature review (mostly referred to the new trends in library and information science), as well as discussion (including SWOT analysis) with the BA students during an “Information Users” course. The role of a Personal Information Adviser (PIA) arises from a need of information in all different fields of human activity. A PIA does not always have to answer any question, but he/she shall either indicate/ select adequate information sources, or teach a method of information searching, i.e. develop information literacy skills in a selected area. Proposed new role of public librarians can be perceived as a way of adapting professional tasks to changes being realized in a modern society, with positive influence in particular in regard of professional image, indispensability, competencies, and attitude.

Full paper available for download >>

An investigation of the ‘creative consultation’ process and methods to capture and transfer good practice in public libraries

Hui-Yun Sung

Gillian Ragsdell

Mark Hepworth

Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough, Leicestershire, UK

This paper is based on early reflections from Sung’s Master’s dissertation and current Ph.D. research regarding the present ‘creative consultation’ practices in public libraries. Since the Ph.D. is in its early stages, this paper is an opportunity to offer a review of the main literature, related to consultation practices and theories.

An awareness of the importance of effective consultation is increasing. This paper aims to discuss the key features of community consultation in public libraries, investigate how public libraries conduct community consultation, and examine whether user consultation has a positive impact in promoting library services. Textual and visual investigation of innovative consultation methods are provided with emphasis on Birchfield Library Community Consultation Project by Birmingham Libraries and The Art of Community Consultation by Bolton Libraries.

Investigation of these approaches has prompted Sung to explore other participatory approaches to research, such as Participatory Action Research.

Full paper available for download >>

Challenges for the Implementation of Resource Description and Access (RDA): Case Study Germany

Ingo Caesar

Dierk Eichel

Department of Information Science
University for Applied Sciences Potsdam (UAS)
Potsdam, Germany

At the “97th Bibliothekartag” in June 2008 Susanne Oehlschläger from the German National Library spoke about the implementation of the new standardisation system RDA in Germany. As early as 2011 RDA will replace the German cataloguing standard “Rules for Alphabetical Cataloguing” (RAK). RDA is the successor system to AACR2 and RAK. The benefits of implementing RDA are (theoretically) internationalisation of national catalogue data and easier usage. Parallel to that implementation the Office for Library Standards of the German National Library is planning to combine the authority files for bibliographic description, namely the Corporate Body Authority File (GKD), the Subject Headings Authority File (SWD) and the Names Authority File (PND) to create one common authority file (Gemeinsame Normdatei, GND). If everything goes as planned, by 2011 we can expect a completely new body of rules and regulations for formal and subject cataloguing (RDA), a new exchange format (MARC 21 Authority) and a new authority file (GND). Nearly all of the now existing systems will be overhauled, updated or mapped to the new applications. The result will be the internationalisation and harmonisation of cataloguing which will facilitate the exchange of data across borders. We developed an online questionnaire for the qualitative evaluation of problems, opportunities and challenges which will emerge when RDA is finally put into practice.

Full paper available for download >>

Culture and Copyright, Coexisting: Preserving Culture in a Digital World

Jonathan McMichael

Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois, USA

From music to literature to film, an increasing amount of culturally significant information is being published in digital formats. Vendors like, the iTunes Store or Audible, are already specializing in digital only information. With copyrights restricting libraries’ usage and thus collection of digital material, there exists the potential of culturally relevant information (i.e. songs, works of fiction, visual content) to remain under-archived by libraries globally. The paper shows that legal constraints prevent libraries from pursuing a collection of new digital content as exhaustively as would be preferred, thus obscuring the library from various cultural elements being published today. This paper also details ways in which libraries are attempting to enter new digital formats within their collections and offers new perspectives on Creative Commons as an alternative means to collect cultural material in their digital collections.

Full paper available for download >>

Development of training courses in information literacy with regard to the librarian 2.0 – Learning and understanding theories, methods and marketing strategies

Marlies Bauhofer

Claudia Grzonka

On the behalf of the students of:
Master of Library and Information Management
Faculty Information and Communication
Stuttgart Media University
Stuttgart, Germany

This paper presents strategies and methods used at Stuttgart Media University in training courses for information literacy skills; its main focus is on marketing concepts. Prepared and carried out by students from the master study course of Library and Information Science, these training sessions had multiple target groups. Considering the diversity of several classes, the students had to create various didactical concepts as well as adequate marketing strategies. With the demand to be a “Teaching Library”, the marketing strategy proved to be a basic element of the training’s structure. The master students share their experiences and views on possible obstacles and give recommendations for the creation of a marketing strategy in information literacy training.

Full paper available for download >>

Digitizing old manuscripts in Morocco: A history research issue

Abdelhamid Boujdad Mkadem

Paul Nieuwenhuysen

Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussels, Belgium

The aim of this paper is to study the information needs of researchers via the analysis of their attitude towards an old manuscripts digitization project. This study is necessary in order to lay the foundations of a real digitisation project destined to safeguard and preserve invaluable collections of manuscripts all over Morocco.

This study is based on a survey conducted using a questionnaire distributed to a sample of students and researchers in the field of history in the University of Abdelmalek Essaadi, Tetouan/Tangier. The study shows that at a first glance a digital library of manuscripts does not seem to be very interesting for them. Many factors affect their awareness of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), availability of physical access to real collections and the fact the many of the collection holders are themselves historians and represent a great help for them.

Full paper available for download >>

Diversity Management as a Key Challenge to the Library in the Multicultural Society

Jessica Euler

Sebastian Wilke

Berlin School of Library and Information Science
Humboldt-University Berlin
Berlin, Germany

Libraries are strongly concerned with intercultural issues. They can play an active role as a social meeting place. Multifaceted activities and services provide groups of different ethnical backgrounds with possibilities to enjoy their cultural heritage as well as to cultivate their mother- tongue. Libraries facilitate learning the language of the new country and thus gaining access to the new society and participation in its cultural live. The challenge is how to create and promote library services caring for the special needs described above.

For this reason, a student-initiated anthology was published as the latest part of a book series realized at the Institute of Library and Information Science at Humboldt University, Berlin. ”Bridges for Babylon” offers different approaches to the subject of the intercultural library.

On this basement diversity management seems to be the key to successful multicultural library work. Only a general intercultural sensitivity throughout the library staff and a self-evident handling of the given diversity enable further activities.

Full paper available for download >>

Educating Library and Information Science Professionals in Kuwaiti Higher Education

Hanadi Buarki

Mark Hepworth
Ian Murray
Cliff McKnight

Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough, UK

The paper presents the results of 54 analysed interviews conducted to present the views and explanations of Library and Information Science (LIS) students, teaching staff and employers on the implementation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) skills into the LIS curriculum in Kuwaiti Higher education (HE). Semi-structured interviews were used to collect the qualitative data. The findings indicated that there was a lack of common understanding of the term ICT. LIS students lacked ICT skills. The LIS curriculum is outdated and the department uses traditional methods to teach ICT courses. Moreover, factors were found that negatively affected the students’ ICT skills development. The current students’ ICT skills did not satisfy the job market needs. The teaching staff ICT skills were not updated; ICT skills were not incorporated into non- ICT courses; and in general, respondents disapproved of the department’s name change from LIS to Information Science (IS). In order to satisfy the LIS professionals in Kuwaiti HE, initial indications suggest that LIS graduates should posses at minimum all the research defined skills in addition to other skills needed by the job market. The curriculum should be updated; more practical training should be provided; the department of LIS needs to add new ICT courses; support new learning methods to teach these courses; adopt professional associations’ standards to enhance the curriculum; collaborate with employers to meet their needs; the teaching staff needs to update their ICT skills and incorporate ICT skills into all courses. This initial phase of the research suggested that to overcome the negative motivational factors: students need to be motivated by family, friends and teaching staff; instruction of ICT courses should be in English; the same educational opportunities should be offered to males and females; and provide the necessary resources and facilities. These findings were recognised by the teaching staff.

Full paper available for download >>

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice: Introduction to key concepts and principles

Martina Weber

Cornelia Vonhof

Library and Information Management (Bachelor)
Hochschule der Medien
Stuttgart, Germany

Many library professionals excel in supporting their clients in their research activities, yet not all of them are good at undertaking research to improve their own library management practices. But research to support effective library decision making should become part of daily practice: to help library managers learn more about their work, to develop better services and to share ideas about best practice. It helps us build a body of professional knowledge that can benefit the entire profession.

The EBLIP-process aims at helping library professionals by working through the seperate stages of formulating the significant research questions, searching for the best available evidence to answer the questions, critically appraising the evidence, establishing the value of the anticipated benefits of the action plan that is developed, and reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness of that action plan.

The paper presents an introduction to the management approach of Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, its key concepts and principles. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice (EBLIP) is emerging as a key topic of discussion amongst many professionals in the library and information services sector, especially in the US, UK and Australia. In countries like Germany and other European countries EBLIP is still fairly unknown.

This paper paper is based on a workshop held by Prof. Gillian Hallam from Queensland Technology University (Brisbane, Australia) during the International Summer School at Stuttgart Media University in June 2008.

Full paper available for download >>

Folksonomy: The Manner of Data-processing and Organization

Ilva Paidere

Gunta Dogžina

Dace Ūdre

Department of Information and Library Studies
University of Latvia
Riga, Latvia

Nowadays folksonomy known as a manner of data- processing and organization within the Internet is very prevalent. The author of the document and other Internet users are allowed to put a keyword – a tag which helps to sort out the necessary data within the process of information gathering. Unfortunately most of the given tags are inappropriate and do not characterize the content of the document causing the possibility to meet the useless information.

The aim of investigation was to explore Latvian websites which offer the possibilities of folksonomy and to determine how informative tags are, as well as to find out how popular among the users the allocation of tags (democratic indexing) is.

Full paper available for download >>

High Touch Library Services: Reaching Faculty and Students Across Campus through Liaisonships

James Thull

Mary Anne Hansen

MSU Libraries
Montana State University-Bozeman
Bozeman, MT, USA

In this paper we will provide a definition of academic library liaison work, explain its benefits to patrons as well as college and university libraries, discuss the variety of activities that academic library liaison work entails and review successful methods for becoming effective academic library liaisons. The authors’ goal of this research is to reaffirm perceptions and practices of colleagues currently serving as library liaisons on their campuses and to provide an introductory guide for those just entering the field of academic librarianship. This paper includes the results of a survey conducted by Montana State University Libraries-Bozeman in the fall of 2008. The survey was sent to all faculty in the departments of Native American Studies and University Studies. In addition to these departments the survey was also sent to a small number of select faculty from other departments including Sociology and Education.

The purpose of the survey was to determine the awareness and effectiveness of Montana State University Libraries’ established liaison program; an additional intent of the study was to identify areas in need of improvement as well as any new services desired by the libraries’ patrons. The participants’ responses were kept anonymous and the survey consisted of 15 multiple choice questions with three individual comment fields. Participants were required to answer 12-13 of the 15 questions based on their prior knowledge of instruction and reference services offered by the libraries. The authors used Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) and distributed the survey link through non-library departmental staff, via the campus email service.

Full paper available for download >>

How to effectively use information in digital environment?

Teresa Silveira

Portuguese Librarian Archivist and Documentalist Association
Porto, Portugal

The never-ceasing flow of information made available by digital environment compels us to a reflection on people’s informational behaviour. To confront the reasons that lead them to the search of information, as well as the ways in which they access, select and use it in digital environment, are concerns to be held while trying to develop strategies aiming the profitability of the information use in this environment. So, in this article we will try to present some strategies to the effective use of information in digital environment, such as, for example, the investment in training as well as in Web pages quality evaluation.

Full paper available for download >>

Information ethics as reflected in LIS curricula: Comparative analysis of Croatian and Slovenian learning programs

Nikica Gardijan

Ivana Morić Filipović

Franjo Pehar

Srećko Jelušić

Department of Library and Information Science
University of Zadar
Zadar, Croatia

This paper aims to provide an introduction to the main concepts and resources of information ethics in Library and Information Science as well as to study different ethical issues.

Students of Library and Information Science are often not capable of solving ethical problems they encounter in a workplace. For this reason it is important to alert them to some basic ethical issues that may be useful in their work environment. “Codes of professional ethics for library organizations are mainly intended to guide the behavior of library professionals. However, these codes serve other functions as well. In particular, these codes of profes- sional ethics inform the public about what library profes- sionals are committed to doing. “ (Fallis, 2007)

This research will attempt to study the presence of information ethics in LIS programs and compare Slovenian and Croatian programs.

Full paper available for download >>

Information Literacy and Digital Reference Work: How can the Norwegian Ask the Library Service (Biblioteksvar.no) become an educational tool for school children?

Anne-Stine Husevåg

Tor Sveum

Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science
Oslo University College
Oslo, Norway

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the Norwegian Ask the Library Service (Biblioteksvar.no) may contribute to information literacy among school children. The challenge is no longer to find information, but to find good information from reliable sources. The methods applied are a qualitative analysis of transactions and dialogues from the ATL archive and interviews with teachers, school librarians and librarians working in the service.

The conclusion is that Biblioteksvar could become a better educational tool by focusing more on the patrons and their individual information needs and their search strategies. This implies obtaining enough information about the patron to be able to present the answer in a way that promotes information literacy. It is desirable to be able to filter the questions according to topic, user group and purpose before they reach the librarian. Using new technology in this manner will allow the librarian to focus more on how they can help patrons develop their information literacy. The paper examines the possible use of automation processes based on web technology to improve the service. This could be done by performing automatic searches in Google, Wikipedia and the chat archive of the ATL service while the patron is waiting for an available librarian. This paper looks at how new technology creates challenges and possibilities for reference librarians, and is aimed at everyone who are interested in how new technology can improve the educational quality of reference work.

Full paper available for download >>

Information Literacy and International Students: cultural barriers and language preferences

Joseph J. Lenkart

Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois, USA

Even with the prevalence of a global culture, cultural and language barriers continue to present challenges for information professionals. Furthermore, international students are increasingly turning to library instruction classes for discovering library programs and resources. With the presence of cultural and language barriers, information literacy initiatives are forced to address the disparity in cultural displacement. The inclusion of language preferences in library instruction classes and information literacy initiatives would benefit international students and information professionals. The paper demonstrates that language and cultural barriers hinder international students from fully experiencing a library and its resources. Furthermore, this paper shows that limited exposure to library resources affects international students negatively by limiting their participation in the academic discourse. With a review of relevant literature, this paper calls for the inclusion of language preferences in information literacy initiatives and instruction classes. Moreover, the paper calls for a review of training methodology for information professional to addresses the concerns of international students.

Full paper available for download >>

Information literacy in Portugal: A perspective from European Higher Education Area

Viviana Fernández Marcial

Maria Manuela Azevedo Pinto

Leticia Silva

Faculty of Humanities
University of Corunna
A Coruña, Spain

This paper takes as its general reference the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), whose creation endeavoured an educational approach across all the European Union countries. A new educational model must foresee the development of new skills and information skills constitute one of the most important requirements that university students need in the Information Era. These skills were effectively prioritized in the conception of the European educational model and, consequently, they should have an impact on the teaching-learning process.

So, it is important to know and understand how these students are prepared in terms of competences and skills, regarding the access to, use, (re)production, and diffusion of information gathered and applied in different contexts. It is also necessary to establish a connection between training and the acquisition of information skills prior to university, during the university attendance period and at the end of the university degree.

This configures a comprehensive approach that will consider the educational context, the students’ informational behaviour and their personal and social contexts and demands.

An ongoing research project, that supports the present paper, has incorporated these elements and they are positioned at the core of the work. It configures an information behaviour study focused on the issue of information literacy in the current Portuguese and European learning models, the determination of the contextually acquired competences, and the intrinsic abilities to search for and use information.

Full paper available for download >>

Information retrieval in MEDLINE®: Searching for literature about critical care

Olívia Pestana

Faculty of Arts and Humanities
University of Porto
Porto, Portugal

More than ever, update of knowledge and decision- making in health care are based on the use of recent scientific information. The effects of the information society’s technological transformation are visible in the most frequent options of clinicians, being common the use of databases, in order to keep pace with the rapid growth of scientific publications. The most frequently used database is MEDLINE. Thus, in order to understand its functioning, especially related to subject searching, the way information is represented and the possible forms of retrieval will be analyzed. In this context, a study carried out to get update information about subject information retrieval will be presented in the detail. The results are interpreted based on recognized effectiveness measures of evaluating information systems.

Full paper available for download >>

Media wisdom? Media literacy and the changing position of libraries

Jelke Nijboer

Patricia Roos-vanTricht

Esther Hammelburg

Institute for Media and Information Management
University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam
Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The attention for media literacy is increasing in recent years. The European Commission and several national governments are nowadays very involved in the importance of media literacy among their citizens. In the Netherlands (and other EU-countries) new media literacy programmes or pilot projects are being implemented.

This paper discusses the importance and theoretical foundations of media literacy. The practical implementation of the new policy on media literacy in Europe and The Netherlands is discussed. Finally the implications for libraries will be addressed. Is the library suitable for implementing these policies? How can the library position itself within this field? No definitive answers will be given. A pilot project ‘journalistic’ media wisdom by the Public library of Amsterdam is presented as a promising example of a new direction in media literacy.

Contributors of this paper have taught a course on media literacy (Media Wisdom) for students of Information and Media at The Institute for Media and Information Management in Amsterdam.

Full paper available for download >>

Perceptions on the use of electronic journals at Catalan universities: results of a qualitative survey

Candela Ollé

Àngel Borrego

University of Barcelona
Department of Library and Information Science
Barcelona, Spain

This study reports the results of a qualitative e- survey of 137 academic researchers. The main goal was to improve knowledge of the perceptions, opinions and use of electronic journals in academic libraries. Findings show an increase in the range of journals read and a reduction in the number of physical library visits as a result of the growing number of electronic journals. Web browsing, database searching and table-of-contents (TOC) e-mail alerts have become the main ways for academics to stay up to date. Web-based search engines such as Google and Google Scholar are supplanting traditional indexing and abstracting (I&A) databases, while personalised information services are little used. Abstracts and background information on authors are the key criteria for determining the value and relevance of an article. Finally, researchers admit to having significant information management problems.

No full paper available.

Practice and academy, or working as learning: internship course at the Universitat de Barcelona LIS Faculty

Jesús Gascón

Facultat de Biblioteconomia i Documentació
Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, Spain

In degrees related to technical professions, cooperation between university –teaching its theoretical foundations— and professional world, is necessary to ensure that training is nor abstract neither unrealistic. Internship or placement programs give to students the chance to combine theory and practice in a subject, applying theoretical concepts to a work environment, and inducing new knowledge from practical activities. Students become actors and responsible for their learning. Professors and internship center advisors are other players involved in this process. To ensure its success, all three must believe firmly that internship programs are educational and learning processes. As an instance, the internship model at Universitat de Barcelona LIS Faculty is presented. It is based on good relations between centers and the Faculty. The current internship syllabus is explained, as well as some features of the new curriculum, adapted to ECTS. Located in the seventh semester (of eight), internship is directly linked to other subjects; so, students may take advantage from the stage educational value to enhance their performance in other subjects. The comprehensive nature of internship allows students developing their ability to associate ideas and concepts, analysis and synthesis. Student assessment also aims to be comprehensive, assessing theoretical knowledge, practical skills and abilities, through an evaluation shared by advisors and professors, with written and oral parts. Some problems detected in interns (misconception of the internship educational nature, bad written and oral expression) are useful to propose corrective elements in the new curriculum. Students also evaluate the development and quality of internships.

Full paper available for download >>

Practicum in Library and Information Science in Spanish Faculties: The Demands of the European Higher Education Area

M. Rosario Osuna Alarcón

Departamento de Biblioteconomía y Documentación
University of Salamanca
Salamanca, Spain

In all European universities the subject known in the different countries as Practicum, Tirocinio, Estagio, Apprentissage, Stage, Berufsarbeit, Prakticum or Practices (in companies, institutions… etc.) should be given special consideration on the part of teachers because it is a powerful tool for achieving the Bologna objectives.

We furthermore deal with the different options of European financing that makes it possible for students to do the practicum in countries other than their own, and look into the different student exchange options. This will evidently promote one of the objectives of the Schengen Agreement: the free circulation of persons.

Based on the changes to the curriculum proposed by Bologna, ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credits will correspond unequivocally to the same number of hours taken by students in faculties throughout the EU. But this is not the only change promoting convergence in European Higher Education Area. These changes primarily affect the way the teaching-learning process is carried out, that is, the procedure followed to attain the objectives proposed. In this paper we highlight three areas that we believe are fundamental to addressing the practicum as a subject in the Bachelor’s Degree in Library and Information Science, now assigned 12 credits. The three aspects we deal with are the following:

1.Modularity with academic guides as a tool.
2.Continuous assessment: with academic and professional tutoring as a tool.
3.Assessment method with the practicum report as a tool.

We shall present the conclusions drawn from implementing these practices as a pilot project for the practicum in the Faculty of Translation and Library and Information Science in Salamanca University.

Predictions for the future world of work: challenges for information professionals

Linda Ashcroft

Liverpool Business School
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool, UK

There are challenges for the new information professional. In recent years technological development and changes in the quantity of and access to information has influenced the nature of information work. Predictions for the future include the ‘cybrarian’. Yet various studies demonstrate the continuing need for a physical place which plays a vital role in the informal gathering of community members. While traditional library support functions may continue, there are many changes to the nature of place, particularly to become also a welcoming environment with access to food drink, group areas, computers and events and a place that is almost always open. The development of the physical library according to changing needs brings another skills challenge for the information professional. A current trend for the profession is the growth of consortia partnerships between various libraries for best provision of resources. Other partnerships and collaborative initiatives are now also evident, such as joint use libraries, and partnerships between libraries and other agencies for the provision of services, such as life long learning. Thus information professionals will need to continue to develop alliance building and political skills to be successful. Leadership will become more important to the profession. The leader of the future will be more than a good manager or someone who has attended the right courses. A leader must have experience, vision, integrity and an understanding of the potential of the organisation and the people within it, desiring to take his/her place as part of the profession.

Full paper available for download >>

“Premises for lifelong learning”: Creating a business plan for literacy events in junior high schools

Sarah Vogel

Department of Information
University of Applied Science
Hamburg, Germany

Due to the escalating complexity of rapid technological change, today’s information society is confronted with an abundance of information sources and therefore has to face the defiance of tapping and understanding it. Uncertain quality and expanding quantity of information pose large challenges for information search. If there is no understanding which information is needed and how it can be found, evaluated and used, the abundance of information will not in itself create a more informed but rather a more confused society. In this context information literacy services become more important. More and more universities offer courses to communicate information literacy. Not only higher educational students need guidance in how to use information the correct way. This also holds true for the remaining society.

So while studying Information and Library Services, I created a three- phase curriculum. Its courses build upon each other to communicate information literacy to students of class eight, nine and ten (at the age of 13, 14 and 15) in cooperation with public libraries.

The events attend to abilities that cannot be attended to in the everyday school life because of time famine. Nevertheless, information literacy is really nowadays. This concept provides an opportunity for schools to communicate these abilities without a cost of time or teaching stuff

Full paper available for download >>

Public library development project “Trešais tēva dēls”

Silva Suhanenkova

Gunita Mozulcika

Agnese Veitas

The Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Latvia
Riga, Latvia

In the fall of 2006, the Latvia received 16,2 million US dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), for development of Latvia’s municipal public libraries. The grant given to Latvia is the first outside of the Americas and the first in the Eurasian continent. All means are used to develop Latvian public libraries in the fields of information and communication technologies. The aim of the project was to ensure free access to computer and internet connection in all Latvian public libraries, to train librarians to work and to train library users to work with the new equipment and software, as well as use the electronic signatures and other innovative library activities. In essence, the project is cooperation between BMFG, the government and the local authorities.

Full paper available for download >>

Quality Management and Innovation in Information Services - The case study of the Documentation Services of the University of Minho

Susana Raquel Carvalho Guedes

University of Minho
University of Porto (FEUP/FLUP)
Porto, Portugal

The present paper is based on a curricular traineeship, part of the Degree in Information Science, under the theme of the implementation of Quality Management Systems, occurred at the Documentation Services of the University of Minho (SDUM).]

The SDUM have their main purpose in providing the best resources, services and easy access to all the community of the University of Minho (formed by students of several areas, teachers, collaborators and investigators). In order to fullfil the users’ needs, it was essential for SDUM to grow and mature as an organization.

The main objective of this paper is to give a general vision of all the work executed at SDUM, emphasizing this project, pioneer in Portugal: the implementation of Quality Management Systems, based on ISO 9001:2000 and Balanced Scorecard, in order to obtain the services’ certification.

Between the amount of steps needed for a complex process as this one is, it is important to have the perception that Libraries are now dealing with a new “generation” of users and it’s important, not only to understand their needs, but knowing how to satisfy them and supplant what their expecting. The Quality, allied, most of the times, to Innovation, is a new opportunity to change what is not working the way it was supposed to but, more important than that, to involve and motivate all the collaborators, making them feel as a real team. And it will surely reflect in the services rendered to the users.

From mapping processes, to documental management, passing through the Quality Manual, Benchmarking and the issues related to the human side of this question, the present paper aims to be an example of what is Quality applied to this area and also encourage everyone to take a step ahead into the future of Libraries.

Full paper available for download >>

Readers 2.0. What kind of library do they need?

Marta Wontorowska

Department of Information Science and Bibliology
Nicolaus Copernicus University
Toruń, Poland

Nowadays we often encounter names of many different disciplines containing 2.0, such as Culture 2.0, Science 2.0, Law 2.0 and Library 2.0, what means that they realize principles of Web 2.0. This paper aims to show what elements of this new trend create Library 2.0 and how does this institution fulfil the needs of readers in the information age. Moreover, a research conducted among students of Nicolaus Copernicus University showed which components of Second Generation Library are truly required by users, and which of them constitute empty buzzwords with no meaning. Conclusions of this paper can be used in (re)building library web page or in creating Library 2.0 community.

Full paper available for download >>

Return on investments in libraries: A meta study of library valuation research

Svanhild Aabø

Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science
Oslo University College
Oslo, Norway

The paper is a meta-analytical review of library valuation studies and return on investment (ROI), which is a fast growing research field within library and information management. The return on investment figure tells how high the return is on each dollar invested (here: in libraries).

To give an overview of the variation of the empirical library valuation studies and their return on investment results, tables are produced and presented.

Full paper available for download >>

Supporting Information Literacy Learning: Implementation of the National Recommendation in a Science Library

Anne Kakkonen

Antti Virrankoski

Kumpula Science Library
University of Helsinki
Helsinki, Finland

Information literacy (IL) has been under active discussion within Finnish academic libraries from the beginning of this millennium. In theDevelopment Plan for Education and Research 2003-2008 The Ministry of Education emphasises the role of the university libraries in contributing to the development of teaching and studying methods, thus ensuring that graduates have good information literacy. Finnish universities have implemented several projects in order to create standards and teaching aids promoting information literacy education and learning. The first major project was “Standardising the management of information literacy 2001-2003” by the Undergraduate Library of the University of Helsinki, the aim of which was to translate the ARCL’sInformation Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

In this paper we present a national project coordinated by the University of Helsinki and funded by the Ministry of Education from 2004 to 2006, the primary aim of which was to enhance integration of information literacy into the academic curriculum. We will present the main results of the project, the current situation in information literacy education in the University of Helsinki and the future of it in Kumpula Science library.

Full paper available for download >>

The empty library – or where are the books?

Jack Andersen

Laura Skouvig

Royal School of Library and Information Science
Copenhagen, Denmark

The paper analyses the different view points that were present in the debate and concludes that there are fundamental dichotomies regarding the expected role of the public library in the contemporary Danish society.

The debate was initiated by a December 2007 interview with the newly appointed director, Pernille Schaltz, of the main public library in Copenhagen. She stated that books need competition from the new media. The lending department of the library should not be seen as the library’s stock but as a show case for the library’s services (Politiken, December 28th, 2007). Soon after, the first critics entered the scene and voiced the fear that these statements meant the death of quality fiction in the public libraries. The critics relied in their arguments on the assumed truth that a library is equal to a collection of books – and that a library without books is not a library. The more librarians who argued for an inclusion of new media in the library’s collection, the more writers and publishers feared for the future of books in the library – in particular for the less popular part of fiction literature. This means that the debate has revitalised a long buried debate on quality as a principle for selecting materials in the public libraries. But any discussion on what materials the public library should contain is, in fact, a discussion on what kind of library we (the society) want. Thus, the article demonstrates that the recent debate made explicit a discussion of the role, vision and legitimacy of the 21st century Danish public library.

Full paper available for download >>

The Fall and Rise of the Physical Library

Casper Hvenegaard Rasmussen

Henrik Jochumsen

Royal School of Library and Information Science
Copenhagen, Denmark

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the present situation for the physical library. It is our argument that the uncertainty for the future of the public library as a place which characterized the 1990’s today is replaced by a new belief in the importance of the physical library. This belief is not only strong among librarians but also among scholars, politicians and city-planners. The paper introduces this renewed interest in the physical library, emphasizes new trends in library-development and finally pinpoints an essential challenge when new libraries are being planned or built.

Full paper available for download >>

“The Information Professional facing the impact of Search Technology” – Transform everyone into an Information Professional?

Hannah Verhoeff

Anke Vellenga

Content & Knowledge Engineering
University of Utrecht
Utrecht, the Netherlands

“Finding a needle in a haystack”, refers to the role of an Information Professional, but today it also points out the core function of the Search Technology. Is ‘Search’ taking over the differentiating task of the person that has always been in charge of managing the information or specialized in finding the right information, in the right place at the right time? Would an Information Professional become less professional if he or she would use a search engine? What is the future of an Information Professional if everybody can find the information they need by using Google or other Enterprise Search solutions? This research answers the questions: (1) What are the main tasks of an Information Professional and of Enterprise Search, (2) what is the impact of ES on the tasks of the IP, in terms of similarities and differences and (3) is this impact expected to change in the future? This paper draws up results which are crucial for the future of the Information Profession.

Full paper available for download >>

The Librarian 2.0 and the Visual Information Professional

Laurits Rasmussen

Royal School of Library and Information Science
Aalborg, Denmark

Based on the last decade of development in the field or domain of Library and Information Science, the role of the Information Professional and the qualifications and competences of the Librarian has also changed. In line with the electronic, digital and virtual development in the same period of time there have come new and interesting rooms and spaces for the Librarian to interact within.

These rooms and spaces can be both an advantage and a disadvantage for the library and the librarian however both parts are forced to interact or at lest take position in this new 2.0 time. The current impact of the new technologies in the life of the Information Professional is relevant to involve in the discussion of the role of this new Librarian 2.0 between the physical, digital and virtual library (figure 1). In relation to this point are it important to define the difference between especially the digital and the virtual library in connection to increase the role of the librarian in those libraries.

The rise and fall of physical libraries is the focus for this paper and in relation to this matter the paper will discuss the difference of the three above mentioned library forms partly the physical, partly the digital and partly the virtual library.

Can the library today have all three parts included and fairly divide the resources relevantly between them? Is it relevant to have a virtual library? In this context the virtual library can be the library service in virtual worlds like Second Life. We still experience libraries in the virtual communities and on this point is Denmark absolutely not behind, but is it used by anyone? What about the digital library versus the virtual library? – And versus the physical library? The questions and possible answers will be discussed.

Full paper available for download >>

The need for information literacy skills among users of European Union information

Ana Lúcia Terra

University of Coimbra
Coimbra, Portugal

The aim of this paper is the assessment of information literacy skills related to European topics, among a group of 234 users of 55 European Documentation Centres (EDCs), from 21 European Union Member- States.

We will present the results of a survey European information. So we will analyse the answers given by the users of the EDCs relating to aspects like the best sources to access trustworthy and impartial Europe information. The factors determining access to information on the EU and the frequency of this access will equally be analysed. The reasons the users gave for the ease or difficulty in accessing European information are also included and pondered on. Parallel to this, we will evaluate the aspects most valued by the users of this kind of information. Our findings on the use of European information available on the Internet, especially the knowledge and making use of databases will be presented.

Based on this analysis the paper will demonstrate the need to develop information literacy competencies to identify, use and access European information. Doing so, some potential components of information literacy skills adapted to European information will be introduced.

Full paper available for download >>

The Rise, Fall and Rise of the British Public Library Building

Anne Goulding

Department of Information Science
Loughborough University
Loughborough, UK

Focuses on recent developments and controversies surrounding public library buildings noting that despite predications of the death of the library due to the information revolution and the availability of digital resources, library buildings are attracting renewed attention and, generally, increased use. Suggests that the public library building may have an important role in the new local government philosophy of “place shaping”, and particularly in the “community engagement” agenda which is part of this approach. Explores the debate about the nature of the public library space and whether policies which emphasize the role of the public library as a welcoming community space run counter to many people's idea of the library building as a quiet place for silent contemplation and study. Suggests how public libraries may take forward the community engagement and user consultation agendas through use of the public library space, focusing particularly on the potential of reader and reading development activities for bringing people together and encouraging their contributions and ideas about public library services. Concludes with a discussion of how an emphasis on the role of the public library building in community engagement activities may impact on the ideals of community librarianship.

Full paper available for download >>

The value of collaboration: who, how, why

Ana Novo

History Department
Évora University
Évora, Portugal

The qualitative analysis done on interviews to 20 teacher librarians, about their perceptions on factors that might impact students’ educational success seems to reveal that collaborative work is one of the conditions for this success to exist and one of the biggest challenges to those teachers. The theme collaboration appears in the discourse of all interviewees and it was not found significant differences of opinion, in what refers to its importance, between teachers with and without specific training to perform their tasks in the school libraries belonging to schools with diverse characteristics and geographical location. Nevertheless, it was not identified any real collaboration practices between teachers but only cases of coordination and / or cooperation. Some of the conditions most referred by the interviewed teacher librarians as “against” to and “in favour” of collaborative work and educational success, where respectively, lack of time and the existence of a full time teacher librarian.

Some suggestions and / or recommendations are done to the responsible for the organisation and development of school libraries as to gather efforts to get the teacher librarian post institutionalised, and to the school management boards to implement and stimulate true collaborative work between teachers and teacher librarian, aiming at the students’ educational success. specific training might have on students’ educational success, and to gather diverse opinions, TL with (WT) and with out (WOT) specific training, to perform their duties at the SL were interviewed. The interviews were taped, with the interviewee’s agreement, and their qualitative analysis was supported by the use of ATLAS.ti software.

Full paper available for download >>

Towards improvement of information literacy in the digital era through useful and meaningful educational programs. If you can’t find it on Google, it does not exist?

Barbara Devilee

Media en Informatie Management (RMP)
Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands

This is an account of the quest of a beginning lecturer in media publishing and ICT (higher education) who is trying to find the best way to make new students (more) information literate.

I started my quest in the classroom, giving assignments to my students. They had to write an essay for which they were supposed to do research. During this process I collected their complaints about the problems they encountered. I wrote those down and analyzed them until I had a clear picture of their difficulties.

To get a better idea of their educational background, I read several reports on the teaching of information literacy in Dutch primary and secondary education which entailed among other things longitudinal and quantitative research on the use of ICT in education and reports on the skills of pupils and teachers.

Also I wanted to find out what people had already written about the shift in information seeking strategies and the impact of the digitized information age. This would help me put into perspective this so called ‘Google generation.

In order to find an answer to next question on how technology changes human behavior, I read many articles, theses and books to help me discover the nature of the issues the student have with finding relevant information. I found many articles and many views on the topic and decided to focus on a few recurring themes, which I related to the different problems my students seemed to have. I would like to use the Bobcatsss conference as a testing ground upon which I shall introduce recommendations for improving information literacy and awareness among students.

Full paper available for download >>

What Libraries and Information Professionals Can Learn from Project and Knowledge Management

Edwin-Michael Cortez

Monica Colon-Aguirre

School of Information Sciences
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN, USA

Few professions have seen as rapid change over the past several decades as the field of library and information science (LIS), due mainly to information technologies. Computers not only provide the backbone of today’s libraries and information agencies but they are also changing in fundamental ways how these organizations operate. Dennis Lee et. al. in their article “Critical Skills and Knowledge Requirements of IS Professionals” (1995) espouse the view that these changes in information technologies and their use create different demands on and new expectations for the jobs of information professionals in such organizations as libraries and other information environments. Employers, educators as well as students have raised concerns regarding the knowledge and skills that are required for information professionals to function effectively in these changing environments, as well as how university and corporate training must be revised to meet the changing needs. Two areas useful for building the needed skill sets are knowledge management (KM) and project management (PM). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the application of KM and PM practices best suited to meet the challenges confronting librarians and information professionals in today’s workplace. Four broad categories of critical KM and PM knowledge/skills will be examined. 1) technical knowledge; 2) administrative knowledge 3) social knowledge; and 4) system knowledge.

Full paper available for download >>

Why does the library collect immigrants’ memories? A study of a multicultural memory group at a public library in Oslo

Synnøve Ulvik

Oslo University College
Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science
Oslo, Norway

The paper contents a presentation of the work of a multicultural memory group at the Torshov branch of Oslo public library, the reasons why the library initiated this work, and the expectations connected to the results. The memory group is part of a larger project at Oslo University College, Department of Journalism, Library and Information Science, PLACE, aiming at investigating the library as a physical meeting place.

Immigrants in Norway use public libraries frequently, but there is little communication between them and native Norwegians. Libraries can be important arenas for integration when groups of people from different cultures meet and communicate. Activities organized by the library, like this memory group, can make a change. It is considered especially important to recruit women. This paper aims to show that a memory group situated in the library can contribute to the building of bridges between people with different cultural backgrounds. Other effects of the work can be the creation of stronger feeling of belonging in the local community, increased self confidence and language skills. All this is important to obtain information literacy and thus be able to take part in the society. This paper emphasizes on the importance of public libraries as physical meeting places.

The method used by the memory group is reminiscence work. Reminiscence is the act or process of recalling and sharing one’s memories. Using the library as an arena for reminiscence work among immigrants is new. If successful, the work can be a model for other public libraries. The group has not yet completed its work, but is aiming at an exhibition as a visible documentation of the work.

Full paper available for download >>

Workshops

Assessing Social Networks: Benefits and Limits of a Popular Concept

Olaf Eigenbrodt

Najko Jahn

Universitätsbibliothek
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Berlin, Germany

“Social Networks” is one the most promising concepts in Library and Information Science. It allows both analysis and interpretation of several kinds of phenomena. By addressing benefits and limits of this concept and its applications, the workshop discusses methodological and ethical issues in conducting research in Library and Information Science on Social Networks.

If we describe manifold objects of investigation with the very same concept, methodological problems arise. Some put the descriptive question to what extent it may be possible to measure social relations in scientific communities and in semantic web environments with the aid of Social Network Analysis. Others see the normative force of the concept to explain an alleged participatory power of Web 2.0 applications or, more general, a networked society.

What seems at first glance as a methodological puzzle has on closer examination serious ethical consequences. Many claim that they lack representation within existing evaluation methodologies based on Social Network Analysis. In case of Web 2.0 applications, the network paradigm excludes sporadic users and drop-outs. Also the paradigm of a networked society seems to be neither democratic nor including.

Because the given concept of Social Network and its application is very complex, we share our theoretical and methodical knowledge with the participants through short introductory remarks and hypotheses. The workshop allows discussing methodological and ethical issues as proposed. We aim to inspire the participants to apply interdisciplinary approaches in their research that are both sensitive to the objects of investigation and social aspects.

Community Informatics and the New Information Professional

Claudia Șerbănuță

Terry Weech

Sarah Jackman

Graduate School of Library and Information Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, Illinois, USA

This workshop will provide an introduction to the developing topic of “Community Informatics”(CI) and compare it to other information professional areas of research and application. It will be structured to provide a brief introduction and history of community informatics, relating it to other information professions. The presentation will then turn to the specific experiences with community informatics projects at the University of Illinois, looking at why students, faculty and communities still find it relevant. The workshop will then ask for input from the workshop participants on how the community informatics programs detailed compare to projects that may exist in their communities and how Community Informatics might be applied in the future to the information environment in the countries and cultures of the participants.

Individuals, families, communities are all important factors in initiating and determining information needs. In an information society the human factor is suppose to continuously adapt to and catch up with the new technology. The educational process in formal settings is often slow in adapting to information and communication innovation and in using the technology at its full potential. The communities however might have the capacity to adapt technologies to their particular needs in much less time. How communities apply technology to implement their community vision and how they can be helped in this process are some of the questions that Community Informatics (CI) tries to answer.

“Fab four: cool new libraries”: Opportunities and threats for the physical libraries of the future

Jon Kjær Amundsen

Henrik Dybdahl

Henrik Horn

Ole V. G. Olesen-Bagneux

Royal School of Library and Information Science
Copenhagen, Denmark

The purpose of this workshop is to discuss new sorts of physical libraries. The interior design and structure - or the absence of those factors - are viewed as an asset for new libraries, not as an obstacle preventing fast information sharing. Therefore movement, space and knowledge are considered quite different than in the physical library of today in the ambition of understanding what could be the essence of learning, enjoying and enlightenment.

Four quite different views on how to respond to the challenges of the future library will be presented, compared and discussed. The questions underlying our research are among other: What are the main characteristics of new library structures? Can these libraries be implemented all over the world? What are the possibilities of establishing such physical libraries?

This workshop adds to the ongoing discussion on the (physical) library and presents new views on how to develop it.

First and foremost this is a subject for discussion. The four quite different answers to a new physical library show the diverse opportunities of the future library. The way ahead is to be aware of these endless opportunities, to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed and continue thinking of new ways to develop the physical library.

How to stimulate and guide young information users and professionals?

Paul Nieuwenhuysen

University Library
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Brussel, Belgium

This workshop fits well into the general theme of this conference: “Challenges for the New Information Professional”. One of these challenges is how to spend less attention and effort to collecting and preserving physical documents, so that more attention can be spent on increasing the level of information literacy of information users in your environment. How to assist others in increasing their expertise in the information landscape that is evolving quite fast? Then we face more specific questions like how to increase the knowledge and skills of various types of users and perhaps even of colleagues information professionals, in the area of our expertise: information sources, retrieval, management and presentation. How to teach and train others? Another formulation is preferable in my view: How to communicate with a target audience and how to stimulate the members of the target group, in an efficient way?

As the audience of this conference consists mainly of young people with their own study endeavours fresh in their mind, the hope is to come to a lively, interactive workshop session, so that we all learn from each other’s experience, likes and dislikes, to improve the methods that we apply to stimulate others in their activities related to information management at their appropriate level of information literacy or expertise.

Looking at the future – Trends and scenarios and the impact on information professionals

Ilse de Boer

Niek Hummel

Chen Kuang Chich

Jorge Palanca Montero

Yvette Peters

Department of Information Services and Information Management
Hanze University Groningen, University of Applied Sciences
Groningen, The Netherlands

Today’s world is rapidly changing. In the next 5 to 15 years the technological, economic and educational trends will influence the way information is produced, distributed, used and reused. There will be a lot of changes because of these trends. We studied the possible future of the information world and the changing role of the information professionals.

Using scenario-planning techniques we have developed a few possible future scenarios that we will present in this workshop. Using them, we will try to make the attendees aware of the possible effects of the trends on the world we are living and working as information professionals. It also shows the possible impacts it has on our personal life and the way we are working.

During the workshop we will take the opportunity to discuss the outcomes of the scenarios. We also want to challenge the participants to think about new ways of dealing with information in this new fascinating world. The following questions will be part of the discussion:

- How can we prepare for this future?
- How can we be prepared for these scenarios?

Our starting point was “Wikinomics” (2006), bestseller by Don Tapscott & Anthony D. Williams, which had a triggering effect on us, as so as the blogosphere, TrendWatching reports and interviews we did. This research gave us surprising and inspiring proof that these scenarios really could become true.

User behaviour in Norwegian public libraries: Counting the traffic - with students as observers

Tord Høivik

Faculty of Journalism, Library and Information Science
Oslo University College
Oslo, Norway

Standard library statistics reveals very little about activities inside libraries. In this workshop we teach you how to gather and analyze observational data on in-house activities in a simple and practical way. We have labelled the method CTT – or Count The Traffic. In the English- speaking world it is also known asseating sweeps.The method has been tried out with good results in more than thirty Norwegian libraries, with library students or staff as observers.

Libraries are more than collections - they are places where people participate in a wide range of activities. For many years libraries have measured their success by the number of loans per capita - based on the population served. This statistic is still important. But usage patterns are changing. In the Nordic countries, the amount of lending is clearly going down. To understand what is happening inside libraries, we need new indicators.

The method is simple: once an hour observers walk through the public areas. Using a standardized form they note the numberof visitors, and what they are doing, invarious parts of the library. Data collection should be continued for at least one full week. All the information is entered into spreadsheets and analyzed. Activity data are interesting as such- and are also very useful for the libraries concerned. Organizations canuse this information for advocacy, for organizational planning, and for measuring the impact of specific events or changes, such as exhibitions, marketing campaigns, weeding, and redecoration.

“WHOIS Librarian 2.0”: creating a characteristic of librarian of the future

Aneta Ostrowska

Institute of Information Science and Book Studies
Nicolaus Copernicus University
Torún, Poland

There has been questions about services using tools of Web2.0 in library, then on Library 2.0 itself, the logical consequence is a question on Librarian 2.0. Who would be the best librarian in the nearest future? Which skills are most useful for librarians? Is librarian 2.0 old-fashioned already and should we look for a librarian 3.0 or other? Those are the question to which we might be able to find answers during the workshops.

The workshop would give a point of view of librarians, information professionals, academic teachers and students. The opinion of those people is significant, because it gives an insight in how they (we) librarians would like to become in the future or how we think expectation of users might be.

The workshop’s introduction part is going to be theoretical. Afterwards the main question shall be asked: WHOIS Librarian 2.0? Participants shall work in groups to focus on one of the issues: skills, education, personal characteristics. There is a discussion to be on characteristics and skills chosen by participants. If there is time left discussion may be provided on: goals of personal development of librarian 2.0 and ways to achieve it. According to that we should get a list of skills and characteristics, that modern librarian should have. Such characteristics may show the direction of development for librarians, who would become more effective and achieve more satisfaction of their job. Users might benefit if their demands were satisfied, because it would rise the quality of services.

Virtual worlds: Is there a life after second life?

Ahmed Taher

Aris Pantieras

Jurjen Dontje

Markku Ruottinen

Department of Information Services and Information Management
Hanze University Groningen, University of Applied Sciences
Groningen, The Netherlands

The world in which we are living has become a 24 hours-economy in the past few years. Thanks to the information technology that is innovating everyday we don’t have to look far to find any information but the information comes to us. Today millions of people are involved within the virtual worlds, but until now the focus has been on entertainment. What will the future virtual worlds look like in the near future and for what purposes will they be used?

The Second Life hype is over and that means: space for serious and professional use of virtual worlds. In the future the virtual worlds will be more varied and will evolve to commerce centers where companies can advertise, prototype and sell goods. More and more people are willing to spend their money in virtual worlds. But virtual worlds will house more than just commerce; they will be used as communication tools, information services, educational environments and social networking. With easier access through mobile phones, virtual worlds will become a part of our everyday life.

In this workshop we will discuss the future possibilities of virtual worlds for the information professionals.

Virtual Superstars: “Teaching new media literacy’s”

Anne Nieuwpoort

Ilona van der Vijver
Martijn van Beek

Institute for Media and Information Management
Hogeschool van Amsterdam (University of Applied Sciences)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

New internet-technologies are reshaping the media landscape as we know it. Whereas the bulk of all media traditionally used to be produced, controlled and transmitted by big media conglomerates, these new internet technologies are now putting individuals (back) in control. A shift from media consuming individuals to media producing individuals is taking place. In a society, in which media isn’t only a by- product, but where on a certain level it is also shaping society, developing a minimum level of media- literacy is required to be able to fully participate in this new media-rich society. The new literacy’s almost all involve skills developed through collaboration and networking.

In teaching these new media literacy’s, three key elements are of importance: - coaching/ inspiration - awareness/ attitude - participation.

In our interactive workshop “Virtual Superstars” we’ve picked out some of the skills as described in Henry Jenkins’ paper “Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media Education for the 21st century”, to work with:

• Performance: the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
• Judgment: the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
• Collective intelligence: the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with each other towards a common goal
• Networking: the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information.

Examples will be given of individuals who already proved to have obtained some (or all) of these skills, risks (often privacy-related) involved with this media-producing individuals will be addressed.


Posters

Poster session 1

Collections and Calamity – Disaster preparedeness and preservation for threatened physical libraries and archives

Libraries and Archives have been confiscated as spoils, censored beyond survivability, looted in war, and destroyed as casualties of natural disasters throughout history. Inaction is never an option for librarians whose archives are so universally and immediately threatened, and responses vary widely across context, history, and collection. In light of the attention being paid in recent years to lost artifacts in Iraq and to libraries in areas beset by the extreme natural disasters of the last decade, it is more important than ever to reexamine our past to preserve its future.

Sarah Jackman

Developing quality online tutorials for information literacy

The purpose of this paper is to define which elements should contain every online tutorial to help users in developing information literacy competences and gaining information literacy skills. By using a comparative analysis as a method we compared two library online tutorials for learning information literacy: first was developed in The Undergraduate Library, University of Helsinki, Finland, under the name of “Library Tutorial”, and the second was developed in The National and University Library, Croatia, under the name of „Virtualna ucionica NSK“ („Virtual classroom of The National and University Library“).

Based on the research findings we plan to prepare and propose an online information literacy tutorial for students at the University of Zadar to be offered by the University Library.

Karolina Ivaniševic, Franciska Jurišic, Dora Rubinic, Ivanka Stricevic

Examination of information searching attitudes of users in university library environment

The goal of this paper is to describe information searching practices and strategies of lecturers and students of the University of Debrecen, and to define user categories on the basis of user attitudes appeared during information searches. Our examination analyses log files of Corvina’s OPAC from the point of view of formulated user questions in accordance with examination goal.

Maria Borbely, Marianna Medveczki

Information Literacy at the School Library – conception, reorganization, opening

Sandra Rümmele and Franziska Sievert have worked together with ten other students on the reorganization the school’s library of the “Comprehensive School Bahrenfeld” in Hamburg. The team recreate the school library which is now a prototype for new and developing libraries in Hamburg schools. Pupils at this school do not only learn facts about information literacy but also soft-skills and communication talents are now cultivated there too.

Sandra Ruemmele, Franziska Sievert

Meeting the information needs of exchange students: A cross-media and interdisciplinary approach

In May 2008, a group of interns started a radio show by and for international students sustained by a website. The radio program is a great success and offers all kind of information (nowhere else available in English) on “how to survive” in Groningen. Now the website has to be optimized to become “the perfect services” for international students to saturate their need for information. A group of students of the specialization Information services would be pleased to inform you about this cross-media information service during their poster presentation.

Yannicke Gerretsen, Jasper van den Berg, Pien Rijpstra

Multicultural Information Literacy and an intercultural “buddy- system”

The poster visualizes the organization and the methods used for a conference on Multicultural Information Literacy held at Stuttgart Media University in January 2009. The conference was prepared by students from the Master study course. Presented in form of a tree, the poster communicates the central ideas of diversity and dialogue the conference was based on: The organizational structure (interactive “buddy system” between the students and the other groups involved) is illustrated by the root system and the trunk, whereas the conference topics and outcomes are represented as branches and leaves.

Miriam Hölscher, Jennifer Kempf

Prefered information sources: first year university students

The aim of this work is to know which methods of information search, first year university students from some Faculties of the University of Porto use in the first place, namely the Internet versus the Library.

Ângela Miranda, Grisel Capitão, Filipe Moreira, Francisco Vaz, Hugo Freitas, Joana Correia, Fernanda Martins

The use and implementation of electronic resources in the FLUP Library

This study aims to understand the degree of knowledge showed by the users of the FLUP’s library, namely, the familiarity with the electronic resources available and their regular use. It also analyses if those resources are public and used by them. Results showed that age, gender and academic qualifications are important to determine the interviewees’ degree of knowledge and how they use the electronic resources available also affecting the importance users give to the presence of those resources. This work may eventually be a source of information to implement knowledge, education and training, namely among the users of academic libraries.

António Silva, Mariana Selas, Julieta Peixoto, Raquel Graca, Fernanda Martins

What management style is obtained in Lithuanian libraries?

Today’s information management and information have edged into another level. Growing IT surrounded culture now demands more than a standard services found in a library. In order to adapt the demand conditioned by the developing technologies, librarians have to accept other than traditional functions. One of the biggest concerns for the modern librarianship is that elder librarians are more conservative in to modern technologies. Meanwhile younger generation is full of ideas and is easier adjusting. The success of developing the right librarians’ perspective and being able to manage different attitudes of personnel particularly depends on the library director management style.

During the presentation of the poster the findings of the librarians opinions on library management style which were drawn by analyzing results of a survey carried among the major Lithuanian national academic libraries will be presented. The findings are based on the Kristina Lymantaite‘s master thesis “Management styles in academic libraries of Lithuania“ which was maintained on 2007.

Edvaldas Baltrunas, Aiste Lileikaite, Jurgita Rudžioniene


Poster session 2

“Croatian public libraries: physical or virtual?” Pilot study of Zadar and Osijek public library

This poster presents the findings of a pilot study about the e-services offered by Croatian public libraries. For this purpose two public libraries of similar size serving similar-sized population are contrasted - City and University Library in Osijek and Zadar City Library. Osijek public library is more traditional in its approach and services whereas Zadar public library is extremely modern and proactive in its approach to users and services (including e-services). The findings confirm the hypothesis that the users of Zadar public library are aware of library e-services and are using them heavily, whereas Osijek public library users are more traditional in their library use.

Marinela Šmider, Ivan Špoljaric, Kornelija Petr Balog, Romana Jadrijevic, Gorica Lovric, Ana Prtoric, Marijana Tomic

Information Literacy – A Challenge for Practising and Prospective Primary School Librarians

Being defined as a person’s lifelong need, information literacy starts already at school and is required later for work and efficient participation in the society. The poster presents findings of the field research which aim was to determine whether and how the primary school librarians are involved in the development of the information literacy among students, as well as how this issue is perceived by the present library science students who study at the Department of Information Science. This study might be of significant importance for the improvement of future status of the school librarians and for raising the awareness with regard to the development of information literacy in general, thus contributing to the more intensive and higher quality work in acquiring information literacy knowledge and skills.

Ivanka Stricevic, Ivana Martinovic, Blaženka Cuic

Institutional Repositories in Faculty Libraries at the University of Zagreb

A web questionnaire about institutional repositories at faculties of the University of Zagreb was set up. Respondents were librarians from faculty libraries. The poster illustrates results of our survey – how many institutional repositories are set up; which softwares, metadata and document formats are used; how many authors deposit their papers; how many papers are deposited; who maintains repositories; how they handle IPR issues and which are the main problems related to the repositories. The librarians whose institutions do not have repositories were asked about their plans – will they set up repository in future; which are the main reasons for not having a repository; what kind of papers they attend to deposit; who will maintain their repository; who will finance it; which software, metadata and document formats will they use. When talking about institutional repositories of Faculties at the University of Zagreb, we can say that some steps are being done, but librarians and faculties still have to do a lot to make more of their collections available online.

Ivana Hebrang Grgic, Ana Barbaric, Iva Dzambaski

Open Library for Higher Education

Alice Ribeiro, Bruno Giesteira, Diamantino Freitas, Rita Sousa

Organising collection at Zadar University – contribution to preservation planning

The purpose of this work is to show an innovative approach in the initial organisation of a certain book collection that contributes to the more efficient preservation. Starting point was to create and select a most appropriate set of elements for describing quantitative and qualitative condition of a collection. The results showed that the collecting of this kind of data is very useful for preservation planning and management but also for organising collection in general. Outcomes of such approach to preservation issues contribute to the efficiency of collections preservation and organisation that are of special importance for cultural heritage.

Josipa Bašic, Damir Hasenay, Maja Krtalic, Ana Nakic, Margareta Petrov

Personal Information Management

The poster presents ideas of Personal Information Management(PIM) and answers the question why PIM is so important for information specialists and other people today. One idea of PIM is that we always have the right information in the right place, in the right form, and of sufficient completeness and quality to meet our current need. This poster shows you how to: • find and re-find information • keep and organize information • maintain for now and for later. It is also a presentation of personal information managers (tools) and an organic model for individuals that helps people deal with information overload.

Damian Zalewski

The Impact of Institutional Repositories on the Life of the Information Professionals and the Scholars they Serve

The poster will present an overview of the problems with scholarly communication and how institutional repositories may address those problems. Specifically, the project examines the state of institutional repositories at the universities that belong to the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), a consortium of twelve universities in the United States. The poster will present the findings of interviews with the managers of institutional repositories at Ohio State University, the University of Michigan, and the University of Illinois. The findings will give an idea of the challenges and successes of institutional repositories.

Mara Degnan-Rojeski

"Together can we progress": call for strategic alliance of LIS students, educators/researchers and librarians/ information professionals

Beáta Kollerits, Ágnes Kovács, Péter Móricz, Mihály Pálvölgyi, Péter Murányi, Katalin Bognár Lovász, Mónika Ördög Kovács, Katalin Barki

Unused Possibilities of the Subject Headings System in the Field of Library and Information Science

The purpose of this poster presentation is to explore the use of subject headings in the field of library and information science in the University of Zadar Library’s WebPAC and Scientific Libraray in Zadar WebPAC. In the first phase, records with subject headings in the UDC group 02 were determined. We identified the number of records with authorized subject headings, uncontrolled subject terms, and those with both of them. In the next phase we analysed the use of subject headings in search strategies preformed by students of librarianship to measure precision and recall.

Lucija Martina Vežic, Josipa Zrilic


Poster session 3

Analysis of the agreements for educational co- operation at the Faculty of Library and Information Science at the Universitat de Barcelona, 2005-2008: New labour market opportunities in ICTs?

The progressive growth of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has led to an increase in cooperation agreements with museums, mass media and business consultancies. Although traditional tasks continue to be highly important in these environments, new technologies have greatly impacted and renewed how to perform them. In the case of purely technological tasks, a progressive growth in web publishing and webmastering is observed jointly with a slight decrease in database management and a further drop in digitalisation tasks. The poster also compares these results with those obtained in previous studies (Comalat-Espelt-Rubió, 2003).

Constança Espelt, Anna Villarroya, Núria Jornet, Eli Ramirez, Enric Zapatero

“All About Schmidt” - Developing a marketing concept, an image analysis and communication strategies for the library of the Helmut Schmidt University

The library of the Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg is an excellent scientific library. It serves officers as well as the interested public - unfavourably the wide public does not seem to know. In order to change this situation, a team of students at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences analysed the public image, the marketing mix and the competition area of the library. The team created a marketing concept as well as communication strategies. Products resulting from these investigations were, amongst others, ideas for a new brand, a well as a new mission statement and a new corporate design. The team also provided drafts for an image booklet and proposals for the marketing mix.

Mareike Lappat

Connecting young information professionals: Experiences of a student’s project at Frankfurt Book Fair

German-speaking LIS-students were involved in a large, unique project called LIS-Corner. It was launched for the first time at Frankfurt Book Fair 2008 and represents the first cooperative presence of German-speaking LIS students from different universities. This joint stand, completely organized by students, gave them the chance to present their courses as well as to show the broad variety of projects they are working on as LIS newcomers to the audience. Furthermore the project enabled the students to build up networks for the community and to work on the image of the librarian profession. Hence the project was such a success it is intended to establish LIS-Corner as a regular stand at Frankfurt Book Fair.

Jessica Euler, Diana Marten, Diana Marti, Sebastian Wilke, Dierk Eichel, Sabine Kobold, Anastasia Schad

Implications of 2.0 World on library curricula

This paper discusses changes in library curricula, in response to the changing information environment in which today’s librarians operate. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the importance of introducing Web 2.0 facilities as topics in the library curriculum. The need for taking this step is proven by two studies recently performed in public libraries of Lithuania which are examining users demand for web 2.0 tools and services and the readiness of librarians to facilitate and consult them.

Tomas Aleksejevas, Ugne Rutkauskiene

Librarian 2.0 and Collection Development: Is There Benefit to Adding User Generated Content to Collections?

Librarians have started to embrace social media, but most using it to enhance services and not considering if, when, and how to add content to library collections. Is it necessary to add user generated content, such as podcasts, blogs, and wikis, for future scholars? Will it be in the future, and if so, how could access be provided? This study explores current opinions about collecting user generated content and hopes to fuel a discussion about the future of collections in the digital age where anyone can publish on the web.

Michelle Chronister

“Newsletter of Information Science”: A new channel to students and professionals

“Newsletter of Information Science” is an opportunity to show that’s not possible to dissociate the information’s production and dissemination from the use of technologies and the communication process. In fact, we felt the need to develop a new information and communication resource, based in open source tools and related with information science field, which enhance access of relevant information in a monthly Newsletter. Mainly directed to Portuguese information science students and professionals, the first version was launched in Portuguese and has some fixed items such as: News; Agenda; Interview; Personality; Mobility; Publication of works/papers. The Newsletter repository location is www.fe.up.pt/ci/newsletter.

Ana Luísa Alves Marques, Filipa Rente Ramalho

Sustainable Libraries 2.0: Wikis, Blogs, Environmentalism and Libraries

Libraries are in a unique position to lead communities in sustainable development, design, and practice. For our project we were interested in discovering the degree to which libraries were using Web 2.0 tools to engage with library users, colleagues, or friends to address the topics of sustainable development and/or environmentalism. Not only were we interested in the degree to which libraries or librarians were using Web 2.0 tools, but also how effective these tools were in connecting with users. The use of these new tools provides a greater understanding of how libraries might enhance virtual spaces beyond their physical walls.

Anne Mostad-Jensen, Elizabeth Nelson

Visual tools for subject search in databases Information Visualization

Information visualization (hereinafter referred to as IV) is the way how to show data in visual form for its better understanding and management. Nowadays an information specialist faces a great challenge – information overflow – IV stands against it showing classified results to users. Moreover it shows their hierarchy. The author did two research projects in year 2007 and 2008 among acting and would-be information specialists to get to know their opinions about IV – it’s advantages and disadvantages. The author visually shows also the difference between the usual search and the search using visual tools.

Marite Butane

What do students know about searching in the Internet? – The Information Retrieval Course at the Nicolaus Copernicus Univeristy

The main reason for this research was to verify the knowledge of information sources among the students of different faculties and years at the Nicolaus Copernicus University and to become acquainted with their way of searching the information in the Internet. Secondly, the aim of the classes was to teach participants how to use online sources. Mostly the participants used one search engine to seek for data and they used to abandon searching after few abortive attempts. Minority of participants used the advanced search option in search engines or employed catalogues or subject gateways. Also the bibliography retrieval in library online catalogues turned out to be problematic. The requirement for information retrieval courses at university appears to be a great challenge both for students and university workers, especially academic librarians. The Information Retrieval Course was the initiative of members of the Information Specialists Students` Association.

Marta Wontorowska, Paulina Łapińska, Dominik Piotrowski

Wikis Connect the World – Library 2.0 Technology to Overcome Physical Barriers

This poster illuminates how wikis, websites in which users generate and edit content collaboratively, are being used to connect elementary and secondary education librarians, teachers, and students to each other within a school and to one another in schools around the world and how academic and other libraries may benefit from what has been learned by Library 2.0 librarians in school libraries. With concrete examples of best practices of wiki use in the school library, this poster aligns Library 2.0 trends with practical applications in various types of libraries.

Natalie Sapkarov


Company presentations

Quantum²: Adding Value to your Information Services

Gabrielle Derriks

Graduate Education Programme & Training Consultant, IPMD – Dialog ProQuest

Quantum² is an innovative skills development program provided free of charge by Dialog. The program is designed to help Information Professionals expand their services, increase their visibility and value and improve the flow of information within their organizations. It consists of a mixture of tools and resources to help information and knowledge workers evolve professionally, define clear strategies and gain support from decision makers in their organizations.

The session Adding Value to your Information Services is about adding value to research evaluation and analytical processes or products generated by the “Information Center” or by the “Library”. In today’s business environment, adding value is a unique selling proposition that information professionals can offer to their organizations choosing between one form of information service delivery and another.


Company workshops

Dialogclassicweb

Gabrielle Derriks

Graduate Education Programme & Training Consultant, IPMD – Dialog ProQuest

This workshop will showcase DialogClassic Web, a fast and highly flexible command-driven interface for power searchers that gives access to over 400 scientific, technical, medical, business, news and intellectual property information. A Business Intelligence Research case on Dialogclassic web demonstrate where the competitive edge of such a powerful databases aggregator lies and how the searcher productivity can be maximized. It will also highlight the Dialog Graduate Education Program, a unique opportunity for all students in library sciences and related disciplines to develop and acquire those competencies needed to become leaders in their disciplines.