Theme & Subthemes
The Conference theme "Small Step and a Giant Leap: Reorienting Towards a New Environment" captures the need for libraries to adapt and thrive in an evolving landscape by embracing both incremental changes and significant advancements. We are excited to announce the conference theme has been carefully crafted to build upon the inspiring ideas of the 2023 theme.
Subthemes
Shaping the Educational Environment
In recent years, libraries have transitioned from traditional in-person classes to online-only, flipped classrooms or provision of asynchronous learning resources. This shift raises questions about how to effectively engage students and encourage learning in this new environment. Additionally, to ensure continuing relevance and improvement of teaching and learning resources, it is essential to evaluate the effectiveness of classes and learning resources in teaching new digital skills. This theme also explores the involvement of libraries in education, both formally and informally, and considers the target audience, such as para-medical personnel, students following a specific curriculum, patients, or the general public.
Indicative topics:
- a – Designing Learning Experiences for Different Audiences
- b – Gamification in Education:
- c - Engaging users through Interactive Learning
- d – Evaluating Training Sessions and Resources
- e – Creating Learning Materials in New Environments
- f – Designing for Sustainability
- g – Traditional or New Learning Spaces and Methods
- Research & open science
Libraries can provide support for research and practice in various ways in a Open Science environment. This encompasses strategies, resources, and services designed to assist researchers and practitioners in their work. The topic may explore areas such as library collections, training for researchers, research data management, managing research publications, open science, libraries as publishers, access to scholarly resources, collaborations with faculty or researchers, and the promotion of evidence-based practices. The aim of this topic is to share insights, best practices, and innovative approaches that enable libraries to effectively support research and practice across different disciplines and professional domains in a scenario of Open Science.
Indicative topics:
- a – Open research to support rigour and public access
- b – Research Data Management
- c – Maximizing the Visibility & Discoverability of Research Data
- d – Effective Data Handling and Storage in Repositories
- e – Sustainable Scholarly publications models
- f – Revolutionizing Discovery – Finding Evidence
- g – Supporting and Protecting Intellectual Property and Patents
- h – Supporting Systematic Reviews and Searching
- i – Research Intelligence
- j – "Open merit" judgement of quality
- k – Transformative agreements
- l – Approaches to negotiation with publishers for economic benefits
- Libraries as change agents
As some universities undergo changes from traditional academic institutions to more research-oriented hubs, the theme explores critical aspects of research library transformation needed (both: internally and externally) for a successful transition into the 21st-century multicultural environment. The sub-theme involves various fields, such as: libraries as dynamic partners or agents of change, how to keep pace with digital libraries, emerging resources, and services, transformational change and thought-provoking ideas for the future of research libraries and academic librarianship, library management and development, change management and professional development.
Indicative topics:
- a – Libraries as Engaged and Trusted Partners
- b – Enabling interdisciplinary collaborations
- c - Preparedness: change management, upskilling the organization, horizon scanning
- d – Challenging inequities and misconceptions
- e – Creating Opportunities for Risk and Play
- f – Workforce health and sustainability: empowerment of staff, surviving emotional labour
- Visibility & Strategic presence
How can we enhance a library's online and physical presence, engagement, and accessibility through practices, research, and developments. It encompasses strategies and technologies to increase the visibility of library services, optimize user experiences both - in virtual and physical environments, and facilitate access to resources and events.
Indicative topics:
- a – Development of new strategies (mission, vision)
- b – Service branding
- c – Communications strategies
- d – User experience
- e – Aligning with institutional strategies
- f – Demonstrating value
- g – Partnership with other institutions
- Technology & Tools
How do we leverage technology to support and engage users of health-related information and data? The concepts of Big Data have transitioned into practices and techniques that support automated processes with various types of data. As part of critically engaging with these tools and techniques, we need to understand their affordances and constraints, the underlying 'code acts,' and grasp the range of ethical considerations.
a – Text and data mining
b – Artificial intelligence and machine learning
d – Technology-rich learning spaces or research environments (in-person or online)
f – Technology support for sustainability?
g – Technology for supporting Open Science: managing repositories, APIs, programs for anonymization, data management plans.
