http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12308374

is it really the end of the print book as we know it?

The conference is in Brisbane, Australia (11 to 13 May 2011).

Image reproduced under a Creative Commons licence from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cyron/256757561/

It is hosted by the University of Southern Queensland in collaboration with Athabasca University, the Open University, Thompson Rivers University and Emerald Group Publishing.

Nicky Whitsed (OU) has posted the call for papers on LIS-LINK today. The conference will bring together researchers, technical developers, managers and library practitioners to exchange experience and expertise and generate ideas for future developments.

The organisers are seeking papers on the following themes:

1.      Emerging mobile technologies (including platforms, devices and software)
2.      Delivering new mobile services to users
3.      New mobile applications (technical)
4.      Mobile users (e.g. studies of requirements and/or behaviour)
5.      Development of content for mobiles (including OERs, commercially published, user‑generated etc.)
6.      Privacy and mobiles
7.      Copyright issues for mobile delivery

Abstracts (up to 300 words) should go to M‑Libraries‑Conference@open.ac.uk by November 1st. So, if you fancy Australia in May, get an abstract in and we might just see the third M-libraries conference fielding a NoWAL speaker!

SLIC/SCURL/MmITS/SALCTG
Working in a digital age: the Tenth Anniversary Ebooks Conference Edinburgh 21st October 2010

With Amazon predicting that e-books will overtake paperbacks by the end of 2011 and libraries around the country launching digital collections there’s never been a more appropriate time to discuss ebooks and libraries.

We are pleased to announce that our programme includes presentations on:

•    the strategic landscape for ebooks and libraries
•    digital literacy
•    the Google generation
•    mobile learning
•    the implications of the Digital Economy Act 2010
•    e-procurement

The event is being held in the magnificent surroundings of Edinburgh’s Playfair Library and includes a supplier exhibition. A full programme will be available shortly.

Booking is now open and delegate rates are being held at last year’s prices:
Earlybird rate (until end of September) £65 + VAT (thereafter £85 + VAT)

Online booking can be completed at: http://www.slainte.org.uk/events/EvntShow.cfm?uEventID=2507

Brian Lamb is manager of emerging technologies and digital content at the University of British Columbia.

Reproduced under a creative commons licence from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/400029598/

He called for open access to academic knowledge – and by this, he did not just mean content. THE quotes him:

“Yes, we want open content, but also open source tools, the adoption of open standards, open data and open and transparent practices”.

He went on to add that the social imperative for institutions to share knowledge on the web was, in his view, self-evident.

Brian Lamb has a blog, which he titles: Abject learning – social learning, open education and petty battles with rivals over power and money…

The THE coverage is at http://bit.ly/a3tO3n

NoWAL folk might want to look at this – the piece has already attracted a healthy crop of comments. Many of these address the question of whether or not intellectual property has ‘tangible value’ like physical artefacts.

In the words of the pdf document which has now been added to the ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk site:

“UK researchers and students will have easy,  flexible and ongoing access to content and services through a collaborative, aggregated and integrated resource discovery framework which is comprehensive, open and sustainable”.

The document also contains a diagram showing the vision in graphic form, together with:

• How the vision came into being
• The objectives which it is intended to achieve
• Necessary preconditions for success
• Proposed implementation
• Proposed timescale
• Key targets to be met by 2012.

The vision document is available here and a full account of the development of the vision is available at

http://rdtf.jiscinvolve.org/

Reproduced under a Creative Commons licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/cowlet/354911838/

There’s are article on this subject here by Mary Piorun and Lisa Palmer http://www.bit.ly/aoyqgu

from UKPubMed Central – although the University of Massachusetts Medical School has a better success rate from their authors than Chester’s 50%!

I’ve previously used WordPress but in quite a formal way and so need to find out about inserting images and other formats that might be of interest and brighten up my blogging. Unfortunately as a contributor I don’t have the link to upload the lovely image of a microfiche reader that I’d found in Flickr!

We’re here today at the University of Liverpool, fiddling with wordpress and talking about;
a – the use of technology in blogging but also
b – how we engage contributors, and what the guidelines about ‘corporate’ blogging might look like.

Some questions that are being asked include;

How do you turn a negative view of blogging (through seeing nasty anonymous commenting, and trolling) into a positive one you can engage with?

How do you insert video and other media?

What should a contribution look like?

How do you do blogging? Can you give me a top tip to help us learn?

thanks to – http://www.flickr.com/photos/antigone/457089364/sizes/m/

You may see some test posts appearing in the next few days where contributors will introduce themselves. For some, this will be a first experience of blogging and it would be very useful if we could have engagement from the community in terms of commenting that will show how these elements work in action.