View PDF |
||||||||||||||||||
|
Exchanging Opinions
Thirty-eight academic librarians attended our Library Connect Seminar, presented in conjunction with Boston Library Consortium and NELINET. The event opened with a welcome from Barbara Preece, Executive Director, Boston Library Consortium, and Susan Abell, Director, Marketing and Sales, NELINET.
The program provided opportunities to discuss a range of topics relevant to today’s academic libraries. The most dynamic aspect was the exchange of views during the librarians’ panel session. The panel, moderated by Barbara Preece, offered views from Miriam Allman, Science Bibliographer, Tufts University; Linda Hawkes, Reference and Electronic Services Librarian, Quinnipiac University and Eleanor Uhlinger, Assistant Library Director, MBLWHOI Library, (Marine Biological Laboratory/ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) Woods Hole, MA.
One insightful analogy was made by Eleanor Uhlinger, who cautioned that many research library collections are beginning to resemble the Mall of America. “Pretty soon,” she said, “you will walk into research libraries anywhere in the world and their electronic collections will all be the same.” 
Left to right: Weiguo Bao, Associate VP, People’s
Education Press; Kirsten Chrisman, Director, Life
Science Editorial Offices, Elsevier; Chrysanne Lowe,
VP Account Development and Channel Marketing,
Elsevier; Xinxin Tan, VP, China Educational Publications
Import & Export Corporation; Xiwen Zhang, Electronic
Resources Librarian, California State University at
San Bernardino.
Chinese Delegation Visits Elsevier
Electronic Resources Librarian Xiwen Zhang with California State University at San Bernardino led 29 Chinese library directors and publishers as they toured the US. Their stops included the Library of Congress, Harvard University, California State University, San Bernardino and Elsevier’s San Diego office.
According to Xiwen, “Our visit to the Elsevier location turned out to be the highlight of the US tour for the delegation from mainland China. Elsevier’s innovative, technology-based business model greatly impressed the group. Participants agreed the visit helped them understand new aspects of publishing.”
Elsevier’s VP of Account Development and Channel Marketing Chrysanne Lowe gave a presentation and led discussion among the group. Delegates were especially interested in activities involved in building close relationships with and providing high-quality services to librarians, authors and customers. Other topics covered and of great interest to the delegates were the transition from traditional publishing to electronic publishing and the globalization of the business.
“Through this visit,” said Xiwen, “my Chinese colleagues were able to see the future of publishing and consider new directions for development of their own projects and plans.”
Sharing Information with Corporate Librarians
As the year came to a close, the Elsevier Life Sciences Sales Organization held its fourth annual Europe, Middle East and Africa workshop, attracting information specialists and librarians from leading pharmaceutical companies.
Guest speaker Roger Brown, Contracts and Licensing Manager, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), lent insight into customer directions and implications of conducting research in an electronic-only environment by addressing GSK’s important move last year to a virtual library. “This workshop is an excellent opportunity to work with the market players to better understand their content and service needs,” commented Michael Rai, Elsevier Regional Sales Manager.
Technology @ the Forefront
Forum participants from left to right: Geoffrey Adams,
Elsevier; Mike Visser, Endeavor; David Gewirtz, Yale
University; Chrysanne Lowe, Elsevier; Karen Hunter,
Elsevier; Daviess Menefee, Elsevier; Warren Holder,
University of Toronto; Bridget Taxy, Elsevier; Johan
Steenbakkers, KB; Jonathan Clark, Elsevier; Rick Luce,
LANL; Miriam Blake, LANL; Ann Okerson, Yale University;
Tim Tamminga, Endeavor; Chris Shillum, Elsevier; David
Bousfield, Elsevier; David Perrow, Oxford University
Library Services, Bodleian Library; Andrew Braid, British
Library; Syun Tutiya, Chiba University; David Marques,
Elsevier; Darrell Gunter, Elsevier; Arie Jongejan,
Elsevier; and Peter Brantley, CDL. Not pictured: Carole
Moore, University of Toronto; Roland Dietz, Endeavor.
Our second annual Strategic Partners Forum brought together thought leaders and innovators from libraries worldwide for an open exchange of experiences and ideas for the future.
Participants discussed such diverse topics as the open source movement, digital preservation and some new authentication initiatives. This year’s guest speaker, Peter Brantley, Director of Technology at the California Digital Library, provided an overview of developments at CDL in the field of digital repositories. David Marques, Elsevier’s Chief Technology Officer and head of our Advanced Technology Group, reported on new technologies and developments at Elsevier, including the Innovation Lab (see page 11).
The forum concluded with a session in which Arie Jongejan of Elsevier, Marianne Parkhill of Endeavor, and Richard Luce of Los Alamos National Laboratory provided a publisher’s perspective, a software vendor’s perspective and a librarian’s perspective of some key future issues facing digital libraries.
Interacting @ ALA Midwinter
Left to right: LIS journal editors Toni Carbo, David
Kohl, Connie Foster, Beverly Greer, Jim Mouw, Lisa
Janicke Hinchliffe and Jennifer Dorner at the Elsevier
booth.
At this year’s ALA Midwinter, Elsevier staff had many opportunities to meet you at the booth, in sessions, at the Elsevier Dessert reception and at the Endeavor Digital Breakfast where over 250 librarians listened to a thought-provoking talk by Roy Tennant of the California Digital Library. Now a regular feature on the booth, the Editors Panel drew quite a crowd this year. LIS editors gave hints on how to publish in the field as well as insights into their own journals and experiences.
Down Under @ VALA 2004
Customers kept us busy at the 12th VALA Biennial Conference and Exhibition by visiting the booth for a chat or an update or just to rest in the comfortable armchairs we provided. VALA has historically been the forum to showcase new products and innovations of the library world and the highlight for Elsevier this year was MDL’s DiscoveryGate.
"It was exciting to be part of a conference that was so upbeat and positive, with all attendees valuing the opportunities it provided to learn, mingle and contribute," said Lyn Bosanquet, Elsevier Regional Sales Manager. “We’re proud to have been a Silver Sponsor this year where the conference theme ‘Breaking Boundaries’ was a familiar echo to Elsevier’s own message to the library community — ‘Building Insights. Breaking Boundaries™. ’ We’d like to thank everyone who visited our stand. We hope to see you again at the ALIA 2004 Biennial Conference in September on the Gold Coast!”
Marjorie M. K. Hlava, Past
President, NFAIS, and
Dr. John Regazzi,
Managing Director of
Market Development,
Elsevier.
Regazzi Delivers Invited Lecture
In recognition for his contributions to the field of information science, Dr John Regazzi, Elsevier’s Managing Director of Market Development, delivered the 2004 Miles Conrad Memorial Lecture at the NFAIS conference earlier this year. He discussed recent developments in the A&I industry, and suggested a new supply chain could be emerging as scientists begin to rely more on search engines than they did in the past. He also explored the impact this dynamic could have for libraries and users.
Seminar participants at
the University of Warsaw,
Poland.
Product Training and More
The University of Warsaw and the Gdansk University of Technology hosted successful Library Connect Seminars this spring. Thanks to the promotional activity of our hosts Jerzy Gasiorowski in Warsaw and Iwona Alaaie in Gdansk, more than 120 librarians, information specialists and researchers from the 64 institutions in the Polish Academic Consortium attended the two full-day programs.
The consortium recently renewed its ScienceDirect Onsite license through which members have access to approximately 1,700 full text journals. The programs gave Account Development Manager Sandra Grijzenhout a chance to provide training and updates on ScienceDirect features and functionality, as well as information about new content, such as reference works, book series and backfiles.
Customers provided their feedback on Elsevier products and services in lively question and answer sessions. Account Manager Lukas Mayerhoff, Product Sales Manager Joost Gerdes, and Regional Sales Managers Barbara Kalumenos and Nick Turner gave updates on related products such as LinkFinderPlus and EMBASE.com. Institutes with access to Compendex on the EngineeringVillage2 platform received an update on new developments.
“It was inspiring to discover how many new elements and possibilities exist in well-known products. Learning never ends, so we are looking forward to more of Elsevier’s warm and user-friendly workshops and trainings,” said Jolanta Stepniak, Director Main Library, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland.
“This professional and interesting training we received from our Elsevier colleagues at this seminar has enriched our knowledge and shown us new horizons,” commented Iwona Alaaie, Librarian, Gdansk University of Technology, Poland.
