Citation
O'Connor, S. (2010), "Academic Librarian: Singing in the Rain", Library Management, Vol. 31 No. 8/9. https://doi.org/10.1108/lm.2010.01531haa.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Academic Librarian: Singing in the Rain
Article Type: Editorial From: Library Management, Volume 31, Issue 8/9
I was so impressed with the conference “Academic Librarian: Dinosaur or Phoenix (ALDP)” I had to seek the agreement to conduct a sequel. The ALDP conference was the brainchild of Dr Colin Storey from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). It was held on the CUHK campus in 2007. Many of the excellent papers from that conference were published in the pages of Library Management. I am most indebted to Colin for agreeing that a sequel could be run at the Hong Polytechnic University Library, and also that he agreed to serve on the Conference Committee. So this important conference: “Academic Librarian: Singing in the Rain” (ALSR) was born.
The conference design was an active collaboration between the library staffs of this University as well as the CUHK. This kind of collaboration is excellent. The two Academic Librarian conferences now position Hong Kong as centre for debate and discussion on the future of academic librarians globally. I trust that there will be a further sequel in the years to come. Hong Kong is an ideal location for this conference, situated neatly geographically between the various centres of the world. It is therefore very pleasing to see that there were speakers and delegates at ALSR from Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, England, Finland, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Nigeria, Qatar, The Philippines, Scotland, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the USA, and of course Hong Kong. The perspectives and views from such widely different systems and circumstances provided much food for thought.
The circumstances in which universities find themselves today are very different from those of even a few years ago. The pressure on university budgets is intense, as also is the need to further improve research and quality outcomes while achieving improved rankings in benchmarking with universities globally. These pressures also fall on our university libraries to think seriously about how they see and organise themselves and what purpose. It is also crucial that they consider closely how they spend their resources and how they justify the expenditure of the funds made available to them. The funds are limited and in competition while the university curricula and informational need is much more immediate than previously. Collection development and management of that content resource and the staffs that reach out to their communities dictate new and vibrant skills. There are challenges also in how academic publishing is effectively given away to publishers and how we as a community might address this.
The coming generation of university library leaders will be different; they will need not only to be highly effective managers of people, technology and resources, but will also need to be very responsive and in synch with their parent institutions and the pressures they are under. The future (or wai lai) of the library (or Tushuguam) is not as a “resource centre” or a “knowledge centre” but as a library. Changing the name does not release a new role or magically bestow new rites of purpose. Nor is it the case that libraries should continue as they have in the dim, dark past. It is the revitalisation and re-definition of the role and purpose of the library that will yield a central place in the heart as well as the physical and virtual campuses of the university. It is the embracing of different ideas, partnerships and perspectives that will transform this wonderful place of knowledge and resulting excitement.
The ALSR conference and the ALDP conference before it will have achieved their objectives if all the papers published here stimulate the reader with ideas and views about the future possibilities.
Organising the conference with my excellent colleagues at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University Library was so satisfying and enjoyable. The pleasure which my staff got from this work and which they gave to the delegates made it a most memorable conference in this wonderful city. I have never attended a conference that had such a buzz about it from the first moment to the last. The excellent papers are therefore commended to you to read and enjoy.
Steve O'ConnorHong Kong