Audio version

2012 CONTENT AREAS


Libraries of all types and sizes are transforming in a dynamic and increasingly global information environment with changing needs, expectations, demographics and technologies. Join us to explore and influence the many dimensions of this transformation.

Transforming: Community Relationships

Shift your focus from the library mission to the library’s role in helping to meet the community’s mission. Look at the skills required to identify and bring stakeholders together, to collaborate. Focus on outcomes – community impact.

Transforming: Customer & User Expectations

User expectations are changing. Libraries must increasingly focus on assessment criteria relevant to users. Research suggests that users want services their way, at their convenience, with a balance of high-touch and high-tech. Libraries focus on the user experience. Learn more about what research on user expectations is telling us.

Transforming: E-Book & Collections

Fundamental changes in the publishing and distribution of content – stemming from both technological and economic change – raise many issues, including: e-books and devices, digital rights management and access, preservation of digital content (both born digital and digitized), data curation, co-creation of content with users, new tools for collection organization and access.

Transforming: Library Leadership Expectations – Staff and Boards

Are you facing: New demands for assessment and accountability? Competition for volunteer time? Increased emphasis on fundraising? The need to build new collaborations? Legal issues? Perception management? Demands that you do “more with less” – when you thought you already were? Broader and more effective advocacy? Succession planning? Explore new possibilities with colleagues.

Transforming: Library Workforce

Grapple with an array of workforce issues: up-skilling current library staff, integrating professionals from other disciplines, meeting the need for multilingual and multicultural staff, demands for new skills in areas such as psychology and design, the impact of the economy on workforce mobility – and more.

Transforming: Physical Space

Talk about the library as space -- transformative spaces, community spaces, training & coaching spaces. Explore the integration of physical and virtual spaces.

Transforming: Services

Learn how libraries offer services where the users are. Talk about how you know when to let go of “legacy” services. Explore connections to e-government, the library as a community repository. Look at the ways new technologies are changing traditional services

Transforming: Teaching & Learning

What 21st century skills do we need to teach? How has “social” affected the way we teach? What’s new in the learning commons? Join colleagues to explore these and other issues.

Transforming: Virtual Space

Hear about new collaborations and the impact of “social,” digital content, instant communication, and remote services.

Books & Authors

Hear today’s leading authors talk about the creative process. Get recommendations from the reader’s advisory experts. Celebrate the award-winners.

Information & Public Policy

From budgets to privacy, copyright and intellectual freedom – issues related to information policy and library-related public policy are always critical. Be informed on current issues and strategies and on implications for your library.

Career Development

If you’re starting a career, looking at mid-career changes – or somewhere in between, there’s something here for you. Sessions are focused on networking, skill building and continuous learning. Meet your online personal learning network colleagues or begin building your PLN.


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