Library and Information Studies

New and notable

• Emerald announces 9th IFLA International Marketing Award
• Interactive content now available for all on 'Library Management' journal at http://intouch.emeraldinsight.com/lm
• Emerald announces first open access articles through special partnership with IFLA

Call for Chapter Proposals

Mergers, Alliances, Collaborations, and Partnerships
Advances in Librarianship, Volume 36

While corporate mergers make headlines, similar efforts in library and information science are less vociferously touted. They are occurring however amongst libraries, degree programs, and enterprises such as networks and consortia. Public libraries partner with community groups in order to strengthen the political clout of both. They are occurring as governments mandate consolidation of operations amongst agencies under their purview in order to reduce or curtail expenditures. On campuses, libraries are partnering with other internal units such as writing centers and externally with agencies such as research laboratories. North America has experienced increasing numbers of public library and museum collaborations as well as public library and school media centres partnerships.

This volume of Advances in Librarianship seeks to provide a comprehensive review of the factors that lead to mergers and other alliances, the methods used to ensure effective and successful collaborations, and descriptions of the factors which contributed to less successful efforts at consolidation. Original research, case studies, literature reviews and conceptual papers are sought as chapters for this volume.

Topics of interest for proposed chapters can include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Structural and operational mergers such as technical services and collection management in two or more library and information science environments;
• The impact and benefits of expanding electronic tools such as social networks, and shared digital spaces such as Dropbox and Google Docs on blended or joint initiatives;
• Experiences in higher education with combining programs and other educational experiences for students and faculty across disciplines and spanning two or more institutions;
• The fiscal results of mergers and multi-institutional operations amongst groups of libraries of all kinds;
• Policy, work reallocation and structural changes within merging operations;
• Research about corporate experiences and the lessons or guidance it can provide for the not for profit sector;
• Changes in workflow and organizational structures and other behavioural issues arising in merged organizations;
• The lessons, successes and failures in creating teams across previously separate organizations;
• Human resource implications and impact on unions in settings that have joint or merged services and operations;
• Studies of the factors that stimulated formation of merged entities, alliances amongst diverse groups/entities.

Author guideline and further information on the Advances in Librarianship series can be found on the website.

Please submit chapter proposals by the end of April 2012 to the Editors awoodsworth@emeraldinsight.com and dpenniman@emeraldinsight.com. Questions and comments should be submitted via e-mail.

Schedule of due dates:

Proposal outlines: April 1, 2012
First drafts: September 1, 2012
Revised drafts: December 1, 2012

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IFLA Library Theory And Research Section (LTR) and Education And Training Section (SET) – Joint Open session

LIS educators, scholars, practitioners, students and community partners from around the world are invited to submit an abstract for consideration for a paper to be presented at the LTR-SET Open Session, in collaboration with the LIS Education in Developing Countries Special Interest Group (SIG) at the 78th IFLA General Conference and Assembly 11-16 August 2012, Helsinki, Finland. The theme for the open session will be International and Comparative Librarianship: Valid, Relevant and Authentic Research and Education.

Visit the website for more information.

Kind Regards
Library and Information Science Team

Collection highlights

• 2011 issues of Collection Building, Library Hi Tech News and Library Review are online in preprint form
• Library Hi Tech issue 4 2010 is dedicated to the work of Best Young Professionals
• Issue 9 of Library Review is dedicated to ‘Open Source Software Applications in Libraries’
• OCLC Systems & Services; international digital perspectives has published issues on ‘Open Source Digital Tools’ and on ‘International Digitization Projects’
• Online Information Review has published an issue dedicated to ‘Open Knowledge Management in HE’
• Records Management Journal is publishing a series of special 20th anniversary issues
• Internet Research, which published the first article about the WWW, has published its 20th anniversary issue
• The Bottom Line has published a special issue on ‘The effect of the current global recession on libraries’

Community updates

• 2010 German Library Hi Tech Award presented at the 1st DGI Conference, Frankfurt, Germany, 7-9 October 2010
• The Emerald Research Grant Award, open to ALA members, will soon be inviting applications for 2011.
• Jim Walther will be attending the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2010) in St. Louis from December 12 - 15, 2010. ICIS is the major annual meeting of the Association of Information Systems (AIS), which has over 4,000 members representing universities in over 95 countries worldwide. In addition to academic sessions and keynote presentations the programme includes Chief Information Officer panels where industry representatives take questions. Emerald will be co-sponsor of the doctoral event.
• Sister company ASLIB’s conference, Translating and the Computer 32, has just concluded. Download the 2011 Training programme.
  

Useful links

• Related subject areas:
  - Emerald Education Subject Collection
  - Emerald Information and Knowledge Management Subject Collection
  - Emerald Library and Information Studies Subject Collection