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Books, bingo, blogs! All the world’s a stage
 Mad libs go to Taupo
How do librarians and publishers add value to content? Library Connect Seminars in Japan and Korea shed some light
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Books, bingo, blogs! All the world’s a stage
eBooks, eBooks, everybody’s talking about eBooks. During a recent Library Connect Seminar in Chennai, Indian Institute of Science Librarian Dr. S. Venkadesan gave a talk on the benefits of eBooks. In June, topics covered at Library Connect Forums in Germany included eBooks as well as new access and business models, Scopus developments and journal publishing. At the same forums, Dr. Rafael Ball — the library head at the Research Centre Jülich GmbH, spoke on current developments in the science information industry. Forum participants gave the events thumbs-up all around.
“Books Bingo” - a new interactive game about Books on ScienceDirect - debuted in the Elsevier booth at the Special Libraries Association annual conference in Denver in June. Dick Kaser, vice president at ITI and former executive director of NFAIS, commented, “Elsevier’s clever Books Bingo . . . once again Elsevier sets the standard.” See www.infotodayblog.com/?s=bingo.
Speakers in Hangzhou (from the left): Carol Tenopir, University of
Tennessee; Jane Treadwell, Know Where Consulting Ltd, New Zealand;
Arthur Chen, Computing Centre, Academia Sinica; Ekaterina Polnikova,
St. Petersburg State University; and Samson Soong, Hong Kong University
of Science & Technology
Speaking of books, Harvard University neurology professor Dr. Steven Schachter, who spoke in May at Elsevier’s seventh annual Medical Library Association luncheon for medical librarians, doesn’t just fill his spare time serving as editor of the journal Epilepsy & Behavior http://info.sciencedirect.com/. He’s also written the book Visions: Artists Living with Epilepsy. His talk on that topic drew rave reviews.
“Change,” another hot topic of the moment, got people’s attention at Library Connect Seminars staged in conjunction with PALINET in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in April. John Tagler, Elsevier’s vice president of customer marketing for academic and government libraries in the Americas, spoke at the seminars and said we’re all dealing with change and we have to “face it and embrace it or we’ll all fall behind.” Read more on Nicole Engard’s blog at www.web2learning.net/archives/960.
The Library Connect Seminar in Hangzhou, China in April attracted 150 library directors. Elsevier CEO S&T Herman van Campenhout delivered the welcome speech, and five experts from Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, Taiwan and the US talked about search behavior, digital information management and the changing role of librarians.
Colby Ellis, Engineering Information
CEO, presents the Librarian of the
Year award to Sara Davis of Jacobs
Engineering.
Along with change come innovation and awards. On June 5, at SLA, librarian Sara Davis received the Special Libraries Association's Engineering Division Librarian of the Year Award — sponsored by Elsevier’s Engineering Information. And in March, the American Chemical Society’s Division of Chemical Information scholarship program funded by Elsevier MDL presented awards to five graduate and postdoctoral students. Two, Huijun Wang and Xiao Dong with Indiana University, were featured in the last issue of this newsletter. The other three are Barun Bhhatarai and Raghava Chaitanya Kasara with Clarkson University, and Sebastian Rohrer with the Technical University of Braunschweig.
The Elsevier/LIRG Research Award encourages research and innovation in library and information science. This year's winners are Jacqueline Chelin with the University of the West of England and Laura Jeffrey with Durham University.
(Left to right) LIRG Chair Biddy Fisher and CILIP
Treasurer Nigel Macartney enjoy the moment, as
Laura Jeffrey receives the Elsevier/LIRG
Research Award from CILIP President Ian Snowley.
And now for something completely different. Thanks in part to a sponsorship from Elsevier, in April, four librarians in New Zealand — Denise Clarkson, Marilyn Edwards, Sheila Ford and Andrew Peacocke — found irresistible the challenge of walking 100 km in less than 36 hours and raising money for Oxfam. Andrew has written an entrancing article about the daring quartet’s doings. Here’s a teaser: “There was an option to break up the walk with six hours sleep but we were advised that for most people the struggle to remotivate oneself after sleep was more difficult than to keep walking through the night.” To read the rest of Andrew’s story, you’ll have to visit this issue online!
http://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/lcn/0503/lcn050313.html
For four Wellington librarians, Denise Clarkson, Marilyn Edwards, Sheila Ford and myself, the challenge of walking 100kms in less than 36 hours on April 14 and 15, and raising money for Oxfam was irresistible. Although we were all experienced walkers the longest distance any of our team had attempted was a 42 km marathon. The rules of the event required the team to complete the walk together. We trained individually and as a team, on occasions walking the hills around Wellington at night to get accustomed to walking over rough terrain with head torches lighting the way.
There was an option to break up the walk with six hours sleep but we were advised that for most people the struggle to remotivate oneself after sleep was more difficult that to keep walking through the night.
We started at 8.00am on Saturday and walked continuously (except for seven 20 minutes breaks) until 12.28pm on the following Sunday, giving us a total time of 28 hours and 28 minutes. The walk crossed a variety of scenic points around Taupo; native forest, areas of thermal mud pools and steam vents, and trails beside the mighty Waikato river and across a bridge over the spectacular Huka falls. It included many views of the lake itself and the snowy peak of Mount Ruapehu beyond.
At night thousands of glow sticks lit the way (and in a forested area, glowworms) and the head-torches of a few of the other 250 teams were usually in sight. The toughest bit was about 4.00am on Sunday morning when the diurnal cycles are naturally in standby rather than active mode, but as we walked into the sunrise we perked up and the lack of a night’s sleep didn’t seem to reduce our energy.
Sheila’s husband John, and Marilyn’s husband Jeremy provided support at every one of the rest points throughout the walk, delivering encouragement, custard squares, sausages, first aid and brewed coffee from the hired camper van.
The weak point for some of us was where the foot hits the turf. At about 60,000 landings for each foot during the 100 kms the accumulated pounding takes its toll on the tender feet of librarians, with various blisters developing. Marilyn's feet proved the most robust and she was the only one walking normally on Monday.
We also noticed that during the later stages of the walk that while the active muscles kept working well, other muscles lost their flexibility, so that climbing fences became an awkward exercise.
Immediately after the walk we took advantage of the massage facilities at one of Taupo's geothermal spa pools, had a few hours sleep and then celebrated at the Tipsy Trout restaurant, where we agreed that it had been a wonderful experience but not one that any of us wanted to repeat, ever.
The team appreciates the generous support of Elsevier Singapore and Elsevier Australia in sponsoring the team.
How do librarians and publishers add value to content?
Library Connect Seminars in Japan and Korea shed some light
T. Scott Plutchak speaks
in Tokyo.
Three recent Library Connect Seminars in Japan and Korea addressed the theme of “Adding Value to Content.” Wowing the crowds was T. Scott Plutchak, associate professor and director of the Lister Hill Library of the Health Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who spoke about librarians finding success in the digital world; librarians’ new roles, relationships and opportunities; and the publishing cycle. Joep Verheggen, the director of ScienceDirect, spoke about the role of the publisher, and two local speakers – Fumio Iizawa, the director of the Meiji University Library, and Kei Kurakawa, an associate professor with the National Institutes of Informatics) – shared their experiences.
More than 160 librarians attended the Tokyo and Kyoto seminars, co-sponsored by NII. Attendees said the seminar inspired and motivated them. A librarian with Shiga University commented, “I was able to understand the importance of communications between librarians, publishers and faculty. The presentations made me aware of the need to change the way I should work with faculty and publishers.”
At the seminar in Sokrisan, South Korea, two local speakers, Hyung-Soon Kim, a professor with Inha University, and Jae-Ro Park, with Samsung Medical Center, spoke on “Author Support.” To help participants gain insights into how to apply what they had heard to daily life in libraries, a break-out session convened small groups to discuss Scott’s presentations and then share key points. Scott and Joep, joined by Honam Choi, the director of KESLI, judged the groups’ presentations and selected three winners. Young-Hee Lim, a librarian at Seoul National University, found the program very useful and said, “I’m sure I can practice what I’ve learned from this seminar.”
Would you like to see slides delivered at the seminars? Visit www.elsevier.com/librarians/presentations
