Tuesday, December 16, 2008

LIS Library Closure?

Library Journal December issue mentions that the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign officials had recommended closing the school’s physical LIS library, citing low usage, shift to electronic sources and other factors. It seems that library school libraries are also facing the closure like public libraries and some of the corporate libraries. However, this plan met with some resistance as Caroline M. Nappo, a PhD student of Library school circulated a petition to save the space.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

SLA Asian Chapter's ICoASL 2008

I attended SLA Asian chapter's conference ICoASL at Delhi. It was a welcoming change to see that each speaker got minimum of 10 minutes to present their paper. They had two parallel sessions. Very few library conferences in India allow paper presenter to spend 10 minutes. Depend on chair person of the session, some speakers even got more than 15 minutes.

Also, SLA folks came to the conference and organized membership drive in Indian rupees. I was told over 30 new members joined. I think SLA is trying to be global in their membership. As a member once can attend atleast one free onlin learning program every month through their Click University. It helps library professionals continuously learn new things. I wish Indian association do arrange such things.