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.