IFLA Congress 2013 Singapore: Sponsorship for delegates of developing countries

The Singapore Government is pleased to offer *partial sponsorship for delegates of developing countries to attend the IFLA annual conference during 17-23 August, 2013.

*The amount of the sponsorship covers:

1. Accommodation at a designated hotel (check-in one day before the start of the conference, and check-out one day after the last day of the conference)
2. A daily per diem of SGD40/day from the first day to the last day of the conference
3. Local airport transfers
4. Group Accident and Hospitalisation Insurance during the stay in Singapore
5. Airport meeting services

(please note: the sponsorship does not cover conference fee and airfare)

Deadline

Application deadline is 28 February 2013. All selected applicants will be notified via email by April 2013.

Offer is on first come first serve basis for eligible applicants. We apologise if we are unable to accept your application due to overwhelming response.

All decisions are final and we will not be responding to any queries on the outcome of application.

Details at 

The Atlas of New Librarianship

After hearing the keynote of R. David Lankes at Internet Librarian International, I am trying to read his The Atlas of New Librarianship

The vision for a new librarianship must go beyond finding library-related uses for information technology and the Internet; it must provide a durable foundation for the field. Lankes recasts librarianship and library practice using the fundamental concept that knowledge is created though conversation. New librarians approach their work as facilitators of conversation; they seek to enrich, capture, store, and disseminate the conversations of their communities.

This book must be read by all library science teachers, and by practicing librarians. Supplements are available from http://www.newlibrarianship.org/wordpress/

ORCID is the DOI for an author/researcher

For an author, ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes themu from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between you and your professional activities ensuring that your work is recognized. They can include their ORCID identifier on their Webpage, publications, apply for grants, and in any research workflow to ensure them get credit for their work.

ORCID is the DOI for an author/researcher. They work or corss link with major A&I databases and publisher's ID systems (like Scopus Author ID or Thomson Reuters’ ResearcherID® )

ORCID just launched their Registry

Other researcher identifier systems are currently in use serving specific populations or types of research work. ORCID does not compete with these systems, but rather provides a switchboard for crosslinking. Elsevier is providing a way for researchers to link their Scopus Author IDs to ORCID and synchronize their publication information between the two systems. Thomson Reuters’ ResearcherID® will link to ORCID and allow researchers to synchronize their publication information. Several research information system providers are also planning to integrate ORCID identifiers, including figshare, KNODE, Faculty of 1000, and ImpactStory. Through its affiliate ORCID EU, ORCID is working with DataCite to link ORCID identifiers with research datasets.

This needs to be informed to your researchers and faculty.

Is OPAC dead or dying?

Melissa A. Hofmann and Sharon Q. Yang from Rider University disclosed their study results on 260 academic libraries OPACs in the USA. They found discovery tool use has practically doubled in the last two years, from 16 percent to 29 percent. A total of 96 percent of academic libraries using discovery tools still provide access to their legacy catalog. The percentage of institutions using ILS OPACs with faceted navigation has increased from 2 percent to 4 percent. Combining the use of discovery tools and faceted OPACs, at least 33 percent of academic libraries are now using a faceted interface. Discovery tools that aim to be the “single point of entry for all library resources” are the most recently popular. The findings identify trends that may inform academic libraries in the quest to providing next generation interfaces to their varied resources.

Most of them use AquaBrowser, EDS, Encore, Endeca, Mango, Primo, Summon, VuFind, WorldCat Local  etc to provide discovery tools to their patrons.

Discovering” what’s changed: a revisit of the OPACs of 260 academic libraries
Library Hi Tech, Vol. 30 No. 2, 2012, pp. 253-274
DOI: 10.1108/07378831211239942

Internet Librarian International 2012

I have presented this year's Internet Librarian International 2012 at the session Seamless and digital - lessons from new libraries (London 29-31 October 2012)

 

 With my wife Manju (KAUST Library Admin Consultant)