It is indeed a very rare opportunity for any professional to experience attending international conferences, seminars, workshops and trainings especially outside the country. I was lucky enough because the USL administration approved our request to attend the International Conference for Academic Librarians at Chiang Chen Studio Theatre, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, Honghum, Kowloon, Hong Kong on March 11-12, 2010 which was participated in by academic librarians of different nationalities.
The said academic undertaking was part II of the conference held on April 2007 as explained by the organizers. This second Academic Librarian Conference has the theme: “Academic Librarian 2: Singing in the Rain Conference towards Future Possibilities” where academic librarians who attended were inspired by several speakers from different nationalities concerning the skills and positioning of the Academic Librarian, the impact of the library, its organizational patterns and the value delivered to its owners and clients. It was also emphasized that in the current context of a global recession, we should focus on the possibilities where the future is full of challenges and opportunities: what has changed and what needs to change.
As suggested by the conference’ subtitle "Singing in the Rain", a new generation of academic librarians cannot survive without optimistic, positive and thoughtful attitude towards the future. There were four major themes discussed such as 1) Theme 1- Librarians of Tomorrow for which ten topics were discussed on this theme. However, the topics were simultaneously conducted in two separate halls of PolyU which started from 9:15am to 12:20pm. The resource speakers tackled about the roles, values, positioning and relevancy in the future information environment, professional competencies and skills for the future and professional education, and continuous career development.
The second theme -Quality Enhancement focused about return-on-investment, contribution of the library to students, faculty and the university, evidence- based impact analysis and performance measurement and benchmarking and best practices among Academic Librarians. There were also ten topics discussed in this theme but as in the theme 1, it was done simultaneously in a separate hall which was termed as track A and Track B and was done in the whole afternoon of the first day.
The third theme - New Tools and Culture concerned on Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and innovative tools for knowledge discovery and information literacy, new channels and attitude for service delivery, library advocacy and branding, and new organizational culture/structure to foster library transformation.
The theme 4 emphasized the Collaboration and Networking. Invited speakers talked about local, regional, and global collaborative efforts amidst the global financial crisis, consortia-vendor dynamics, and love-hate relationship with other stakeholders; e.g. Google and other cyber.
At the end of the second day of the conference, Prof. Harry Bruce, Dean and Professor of the Information School at the University of Washington, USA rendered a very interesting, inspiring and challenging topic on “High Impact Leadership Roles for the 21st Century Academic Librarian”. As regards the closing speaker, he extracted on the major themes- a collection of insights into the future of academic libraries and librarianship. He focused particularly on the future of academic librarianship in terms of impact and leadership. He ably stated that as academic librarians move into the second decade of the 21st century, university education and research are challenged to confront the big issues facing our world- energy, the environment, global health, mass-urbanization, etc. He reiterated that these issues demand solutions that are interdisciplinary, data-centric, global and multi-lifespan. Lastly, he ably stressed that the university community will require information leadership from its academic libraries.
The theme of the conference’ subtitle “Singing in the Rain towards Future Possibilities”, pointed out that as libraries move their focus on print collection to digital resources, the library-user relationship also changes dramatically. Hence, Academic Librarians need to be ready and prepared for all the possibilities that may come in as far as technology is concerned. Everything is stored in the clouds and every possibility for change arises very quickly as technology develops. Accordingly, if these possibilities pour down, are we all ready (already) to catch them? How ready we are to absorb these possibilities? Do we all have our umbrellas any time as soon as the rain comes? or Do we have to just enjoy the rain when it pours even without the umbrella?
Lastly, said conference was re-echoed to the library staff on July 5, 2010 at 3:00PM-5:00PM held at the ERC.