More conference presentations now on the website

Just a quick post to let you all know that the majority of slide sets from the conference are now available on the UKSG website:

• plenary session presentations are here
• briefing session presentations are here

Also, we've just updated the branding of this blog to reflect the design of the new-look UKSG website. Please do let me know if you encounter any oddities whilst viewing the blog!

UKSG write-up: Fantastic Adventures

T. Scott Plutchak of the University of Alabama at Birmingham diverted us with his presentation, the final one of the morning, "The Librarian: Fantastic Adventures in the Digital World".

Plutchak clearly is an advocate and passionate supporter of both new innovations and the role of the information specialist.

For him, it is the librarian who is important, and not the library. They are not synonyms.

So what does the librarian do in the digital age, and how does this fit in with the dictionary definition of them as 'a specialist in care/management of a library' (Webster's Dictionary)?

Well, argues Plutchak, the librarian connects people to knowledge ... but why keep in the building to do that? Why not take the leap out into the world?

Libraries are not irrelevant or inessential ... but they are becoming less relevant.

Move into technologies, repositories, be the bringers of digital knowledge and be a specialist wherever you go ... MySpace, Facebook, Second Life ... don't just interact and stand still ... make an effort to 'get out there'.

Is, in fact, the great age of librarians just beginning?

An excellent presentation, this gave tremendous food for thought as we headed for the first buffet lunch of the conference.

UKSG write-up: The Internet Comes Of Age

"The internet is coming of age," said Phillippe Columbet of Google, informing us that there are now more than 1 billion people online.

Again, Web 2.0 developments were mentioned when considering user behaviour - podcasts, video, messaging ...

The internet, he feels, has moved from the periphery to the centre of life - with people turning to it for entertainment, publishing, innovation, commerce, and communication. This was the framework into which Google's products were introduced and promoted in an interesting talk.

Some of Columbet's statistics:

• 76% of internet users regularly use email
• 69% use news sites and feeds such as RSS
• 64% are social networkers
• 56% are instant messengers
• 50% watch and listen to streamed content
• 40% are blogging

Consumers now want to choose what they want to see and hear, when they want to see and hear it! They wish to contribute to and shape content (O'Reilly's "Rough Cuts" product was mentioned, which allows internet users to purchase a book in rough draft form and make suggestions to change and improve its content - more information can be found at http://www.oreilly.com/roughcuts/).

Innovation brings libraries ... publishers ... users together in a chain or circle of communication. Link resolvers and the role of products like Google Scholar were discussed (and led to an interesting post-talk question on whether Scholar will be populated with advertising like the other Google products).

The search to bring offline content online ties in nicely with the Microsoft presentation's assertion that 95% of information is not available on the internet ... yet.

UKSG write-up: "The Wikipedia Problem"

It's been over a month since UKSG, so time to reflect on the presentations which took place there.

"The Wikipedia Problem" is a quote taken from Clifford Guren (Microsoft)'s opening of plenary one, where new Microsoft products which seemed in direct competition with established ones from Google were showcased and discussed within the framework of internet use statistics and comment.

Several statistics of interest emerged:

• 25% of internet users contribute the largest share of internet search revenue. These were described as the 'internet optimisers'
• 87% of internet users carry out research on scientific topics; and the internet is the most popular place for young adults to find information on science
• 75% of internet users report they do not check the source or the date of health information on the internet. So there is no examination of the quality or accuracy
• 21% of faculty professors feel that search engines understand their queries ... and 10% find what they want on a first search attempt
• BUT ...
• Only 5% of all the information available in the world is available online

If the above are accurate there is much food for thought for the information world. We need to ensure that our libraries are not populated by customers who think that knowledge begins and ends with what is on their computer screens.

This is where the "Wikipedia problem" may be a contributory factor. Open to any internet users to start a topic or amend an existing one, it has some 280,000 current volunteers contributors and is the 6th most popular site on the internet.

Guren argued that the needs of 'Generation Next' (the heavy users of technology, text and IMs rather than email, heavy users of social networks) will have a major impact on information delivery.

This would be a major theme running through many presentations at the 30th UKSG.

He finished by quoting the poem by Kay Ryan, "We're Building The Ship As We Sail It". The text of this poem can be found at http://journals.enotes.com/poetry-journals/146693070. (Incidentally, Microsoft's Live Search found the contents page this poem is in, but not the poem itself - Google found both).

UKSG Publishes Final Report into Link Resolvers..

..and the Serials Supply Chain. We have posted the full text here (freely available): www.uksg.org/projects/linkfinal and would welcome your comments and feedback!