You will really be missing out if you don't attend the most significant
evidence based library and information practice event to take place in
Europe for a decade!

Energise your practice - not just for the rest of the year but for many
years to come - with the stimulus from the conference's strong
information literacy, research support and lifelong learning themes.

Speakers include Jonathan Eldredge from the United States, making a rare
appearance this side of the Atlantic, and other internationally
recognised figures (See Keynotes below).

For details of registration go to:
http://blogs.kib.ki.se/eblip5/conference-registration.html

And Remember - you only have until June 1st 2009 to place your registration.

See you there!

Andrew Booth
Co-Chair of International Programme Committee - EBLIP5.

*Sweden**, and the **Karolinska Institutet University Library*
<http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp;jsessionid=as2lP_hn75R4_rgV_v?l=en&d=167>*,
invites you to the 5th Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
Conference, in Stockholm, Sweden, June 29th – July 3rd 2009.*

**

Stockholm This exciting international conference has grown out of an
increasing interest in using the best available evidence to improve
library and information practice in all types of libraries.Take the
opportunity to experience a conference with high quality papers, dynamic
discussions and workshops, and at the same time enjoy the “white nights”
of the Nordic summer. The timing of the conference is in the midst of
the summer season, and we hope for warm and sunny days. As a tourist
city Stockholm has excellent possibilities for cultural as well as
outdoor experiences. Situated where Lake Mälaren meets the Baltic Sea,
Stockholm is built on several islands, and is often called Venice of the
North. Whether you enjoy a maritime environment or the woods, nature is
never far away in the capital of Sweden.





     Keynote abstracts

*Bridging the Gaps: Linking Our EBLIP Questions to Our Decisions*

/Jonathan Eldredge, PhD/

The EBLIP process consists of: formulating important and answerable
questions; searching for evidence relevant to answering these questions;
critically appraising evidence; making decisions; and, evaluating these
decisions retrospectively. Although this process resembles other forms
of evidence based practice, EBLIP questions and forms of evidence
sometimes differ significantly from professions such as medicine or
public health.

EBLIP serves the primary purpose of making sound professional decisions.
While EBLIP practitioners need to attend to iterative possibilities
while pursuing their processes, as time-sensitized practitioners we
normally do not have the luxury of academic researchers who can pursue
more time-consuming, multiply iterative processes in which questions
might undergo a series of revisions.

This interactive session will focus on the special kinds of questions
that initiate the EBLIP process, with attention paid to clarifying EBLIP
questions to avoid repeating the EBLIP process while en route to making
sound decisions. Current information technology has led to the emerging
trend of “mutual mentoring” to leverage our limited resources when
practicing EBLIP. Can this information technology also assist in
establishing the foundation for an international EBLIP research agenda
by networking EBLIP questions emerging from different national consensus
fora?

There are many types of questions that we might experience in our
professional, educational, or personal lives. Questions in the EBLIP
process represent a specialized and select subset of all questions we
experience. The question formulation stage in the EBLIP process can lend
insight, however, into how we might anticipate the future direction of
our EBLIP movement.

Download the abstract
<http://blogs.kib.ki.se/files/jonathan_eldredge_keynote_abstract.pdf>

*Bridging the gap between users and systems – the potential contribution
of Social Informatics to Evidence Based Library and Information Practice*

/Dr. Anita Mirijamdotter/

Evidence based library and information practice (EBLIP) is concerned
with asking the right questions and obtaining relevant evidence.
According to the linear process of EBLIP, the evidence is then reviewed
and, if judged promising, applied. Finally, the impact of application is
assessed and evaluated in relation to the problem that prompted the
question and started the whole process.

Social informatics, on the other hand, is focused on studying the use of
information and communication technology (ICT), something that the EBLIP
process heavily relies on. However, the purpose of studying ICT use is
design oriented, i.e., to improve the design of systems and products. In
this context, methodological aspects of finding out, modelling,
assessing and evaluating becomes a main concern for the design, as well
as conceptualising ICT systems as part of organisational processes.

To bridge the gap between users and systems, the design methodology
needs to be interactive and participative in nature. Further, it needs
to include techniques for explicating different stakeholder
perspectives, which, when explored, may raise critical and ethical
issues. Such a methodology has been combined with the EBLIP process of
posing questions, gathering evidence, assessing alternatives, valuing,
and deciding on actions to later be evaluated.

The interactive and participatory EBLIP approach has been applied in
three university library organisations, in Scandinavia and in the U.S.
The main idea was to gather as rich evidence as possible to enable new
ways of understanding and by that open up new possibilities for
improving the situation. Evidence is here interpreted in broader terms
than in its medical model counterpart. This keynote will report on the
latest application.

The conclusion so far, a fruitful way forward for professional
development is posing open questions, learning from various
perspectives, evaluating frame of references, and use systems thinking. *

*Download the abstract
<http://blogs.kib.ki.se/files/anita_mirjamsdotter-1.pdf> *

Bridging the Gap between Service Provision and Customer Expectations*
/Professor Sue McKnight/

Expectations for service provision constantly change as the environment,
personal experiences of customers, and technology and other service
delivery options evolve. This poses an ongoing management challenge to
understand customer expectations, to see what is happening on the
horizon that will impact on customer service and the capacity of the
service to respond to the changes, and better still, to proactively
engage in service improvements, understanding what the customer expects.

This presentation will draw upon research undertaken in Australia and
the United Kingdom to identify customer values, and irritants to service
delivery, and the process used to engage staff in identifying actions
that bridge the gap between current performance and customer expectations.

The literature on customer values is most common in the commercial
sector but much less so in libraries and in other not-for-profit service
organisations. However, drawing on the methodologies of business, and
instilling a true customer-focussed culture amongst library staff, is
important for achieving service excellence.

By embedding a management framework that requires customer consultation,
staff engagement, and constant feedback, evidence is gathered that
enables informed decision-making and provides the basis for a two-way
communication between customers and stakeholders and the service
provider. And success breeds success!

<http://blogs.kib.ki.se/files/sue_mcknight.pdf>Download the abstract
<http://>

*
”Bridging the skills gap – Shaping the information professional of the
future”*.

/Birgitta Olander/

The last two decades have seen rapid and extensive changes in society
and an explosive development in information and communication
technologies. This has created a new and different arena for library and
information services placing new demands on the skills of their
professionals. There are no indications that the rate of change will
slow down in the medium-term future, in spite of the global recession.
Planning for the university education of LIS professionals one has to
take into account not only the general aspects of progressive change in
working life structures but also the impact on the library and
information sector of technological development and organisational
transformation. This kind of planning is based on environmental scanning
and involves a large portion of forecasting, educated guesses and
reasonably well-argued predictions about the skills required by library
and information professionals of the future. This keynote will identify
and discuss some of the criteria that may be used as tools for such
forecasting. The LIS students of today can anticipate a professional
life of 30-35 years after having completed their degrees. This means
that the skills they now acquire at university should be relevant also
in 2040 – which is an absurd scenario. It is obvious that life-long
professional education is required in addition to the university degree.
This is not the same as on-the-job training but rather a professionalism
founded in the LIS university education and further developed during the
course of one’s career. In order to accomplish evidence based library
and information practice each professional must know their subject area
as well as the context of the services they provide. It is vital that in
addition to their command of library and information science theory -
pure and applied - the LIS professionals have learnt how to learn. My
keynote will also address the pedagogical challenges facing LIS
educators today.

Download the abstract <http://blogs.kib.ki.se/eblip5/birgitta_olander.pdf>

*Conditions for research use in library and information practice – a
matter of learning *

/Ola Pilerot/

This keynote concerns the relations between research activities in
library and information science (LIS) – including the outcomes of these
activities – and professional library and information activities. The
aim of the presentation is to increase the understanding of how
knowledge grounded in, and influenced by, LIS research can develop and
become relevant and useful within professional practice. To conclude
this main theme it is necessary to describe the relation between
research production and -utilisation. The starting point is that the
matter of learning constitutes a central part in this relation. How
people learn, and negotiate what is important in their specific
practice, is a question that can be answered in various ways. Arguments
in favour of a socio-cultural and discursive perspective on learning are
put forward; a perspective that emphasise the role played by culture and
language in human development, and the mutual dependency between social
and individual (or organisational) knowledge formation. In particular,
the keynote focuses on how these relations can be described within a
specific area of LIS, namely between research on information seeking and
the teaching of information seeking in order to support information
literacy. Examples are taken from the area of teaching information
seeking as this is described in the literature, and from the authors’
own experience of teaching information seeking. The presentation
concludes with a suggestion for how research on information seeking
possibly can be used by practitioners that teach for information literacy.