Why in the world don’t libraries have their own services like Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, Pandora or Spotify? On closer examination, it becomes clear that there really are no good reasons other than a lack of understanding, a lack of effective leadership, a lack of coordination….and plenty of greed. With market trends and technological ubiquity clearly telling us that content in electronic form is what will dominate the information landscape in the coming decades, what can we possibly do at this late stage? Well, for starters, you can come to this session and chime in with your thoughts and ideas. You can also get some new information on real things you can do now to help work towards solutions. Come to share and learn and discuss and debate. It is unfortunate that it is still rare to have time like this to gather and discuss these issues in an open yet focused way, but this is a great place to start.

Electronic resources consume a large part of a library’s resources. That puts the electronic resources librarian at the center of short and long term strategic decisions. How can electronic resources librarians leverage this to become library leaders? Join in this discussion of what leadership is, what type of leadership administrators look for, and how to leverage the role of an electronic resources librarian to be an effective leader in any library.

Publishers have historically oriented their business around the production of specific containers: books, journals, magazines. These formats were not simply convenient vessels for content – the format is inextricably linked to the content itself. Put another way, the content is shaped by the intended container. As publication moves online, the containers have remained fundamentally the same. Journals have become ejournals. Books have become ebooks. As new technologies – social, mobile, semantic – develop and become widely adopted, the formats are becoming increasingly permeable. Publishers and librarians are beginning to think about content as distinct from format. The breakdown of these formats of information containers—or “boxes”—has profound implications for
publishers, librarians, students, researchers, and other information professionals.

The American Institute of Physics is providing 2 generous travel grants for two students traveling to ER&L in Austin. The travel grant includes (1) Full conference registration, (2) air travel costs, and (3) Hotel accommodations totaling up to $1500 per winner. 2011 Student Travel Grant Applications are being accepted now and will be adjudicated by an ER&L volunteer committee.

Application Requirements: This grant is open to currently enrolled students wishing to attend ER&L 2011. Student applicants will be required to supply contact information as well as to answer a questions related to how access to ER&L can assist the applicant in achieving professional and academic goals.

Deadline: Applications are being accepted through Wednesday, February 2, 2011. Winning applicant names will be posted to the website no later than Monday, February 7, 2011.

Part II of this two-part session on standards, moderated by Todd Carpenter of NISO, will examine CORE and ESPReSSO. Libraries, publishers, and federations cooperate to ensure easier access to e-resources through federated identity management. NISO has examined the problem and developed guidelines and best practices. (ESPReSSO) While many challenges remain for publishers and federations, sharing tips and tricks eases our way forward to implementation of Shibboleth and other SSO-systems.
The Cost of Resource Exchange (CORE) Protocol provides a common method for the transfer of cost data and related financial information between automated library systems. This session provides an overview of the protocol, and describes potential use case scenarios for libraries.

This first of two sessions on standards will be introduced and moderated by Todd Carpenter of NISO. Chad Hutchens and Julie Zhu will provide information about KBART Phase 1 electronic file holdings format and discuss future developments that the Phase 2 group is currently working on. Also addressed will be benefits to libraries, a value proposition for content providers, and details on how to work with publishers and vendors in the effort to make KBART a widely adopted format. In addition, Adam Chandler will present on the description of tools the NISO IOTA (Improving OpenURLs Through Analytics) Working group are developing to make dynamic reference linking more effective.

This panel will explore the changes that the widespread adoption of a demand-driven acquisition (DDA) model will necessitate for academic libraries, approval vendors, and e-book vendors. Speakers will examine purchasing patterns for demand-driven materials, suggest ways to better manage DDA, and consider what DDA means for the future of monographic acquisitions.

At a time when libraries compete with information resources ‘in the wild,’ there exists a great deal of pressure to adopt new services to benefit end users accustomed to non-library tools. However, libraries cannot abandon established goals of delivering reliable services, excellent user experiences, and curated collections. How can novel end user services be evaluated in terms of helping librarians achieve these goals?

Just like the prank of cow-tipping, changing our processes to support e-resources in libraries is more often talked about than actually accomplished. It’s also hard to get started, but once begun, usually happens quickly and can’t be reversed easily. It’s also likely to upset many of the sacred cows of our profession. Libraries have long known that the focus of technical services departments needs to shift from the print to the digital. No one knows this better than the technical services staff who saw and continue to see their roles and responsibilities change on a daily basis. But change in library organizations is slow to emerge and difficult to accomplish. The Claremont Colleges Library is no different – changing roles to support electronic resources has not been accomplished in a quick and efficient manner over the past decade. Instead, with no organizational support for ending print-based tasks, technical services was essentially still designed to handle traditional processes related to print materials management. This talk will focus on our efforts to move from an organization whose structure was designed to support print collections into one whose first focus is on electronic resources.

Sept 1 – Dec 15, 2010: $120 ($60 with discount)

Dec 16 – Feb 10, 2011: $150 ($75 with discount)

Feb 11 – Feb 24, 2011: $200 ($100 with discount)

Volunteers will be required to report on a minimum of three (3) assigned conference sessions. These reports will be published on the conference’s website alongside the session’s presentation materials.

Guidelines for reports are as follows:

1. The reporter’s name will appear in the byline as the author of the report
2. The deadline for submitting reports is March 18, 2011 (about two weeks after the end of the conference)
3. Reports are to be summaries of the presentations’ main points and must be full prose (not outlines or notes) and be between 300-700 words.
4. The committee seeking volunteers reserves the right to edit reports to any degree, or not to publish any report it deems inappropriate or unsatisfactory.

Further guidelines will be provided as we approach the conference.

Application Details

Applicants should submit notification of their interest to http://goo.gl/Pqw9u by January 31, 2011.