The Association of Independent Libraries
Libraries in a Digital Age
A one-day conference on the
problems and opportunities facing libraries
in the age of the Internet
to be held at the
Royal Astronomical Society,
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BQ
Thursday 14 October 2010
10.30 a.m. – 4.30 p.m.
Programme
10.30 Coffee and Welcome
10.45 Social networking: just a lot of twittering? Gwyneth Price
Gwyneth Price is Head of Collection Development Services at the Institute of Education (London) and is
particularly interested in information literacy and the use of social networking software in libraries. Her
presentation will focus on some examples of Web 2.0 technologies and how they impact on libraries in
the digital age.
11.30 A plan for the future of our public library service. Tim Coates
Tim Coates is an author and was head of Waterstone's bookshops in its early years. For the last decade he
has become widely known for his pursuit of the improvement of the public library service. For his address
to the conference on libraries in the digital age Tim has indicated his intention to use this opportunity to
make a major statement on the state of libraries in England and what needs to be done for them to survive
and fill a role for future generations.
12.15 The Oxford-Google Book Digitization Partnership. Michael Popham
Michael Popham is Head of the Oxford Digital Library, a core service of the Bodleian Libraries, serving
the University of Oxford. Michael has been working in the fields of digitization and electronic text cre-
ation for more than two decades, and co-ordinates Oxford’s collaboration with Google Books.
The Bodleian Library was one of the first five libraries to began collaboration with the Google Books Li-
brary Project (see http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html). This presentation will outline the
Partnership’s efforts to digitize the Bodleian's entire holdings of out-of-copyright C19th material, and the
lessons we have learned from this challenging endeavour.
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Merchants of Culture: the publishing industry in the 21st century. Professor John B Thompson
John B. Thompson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Jesus College,
Cambridge. His publications include Books in the Digital Age (2005) and Merchants of Culture: The Pub-
lishing Business in the Twenty-First Century (2010).
The book publishing industry today is facing some of the greatest challenges it has known since Guten-
berg. Caught in the pincer of an economic downturn and a digital revolution, everyone involved in the
book business - publishers, agents and booksellers - is being forced to rethink what they do. Based on ten
years of in-depth research on the publishing industry, Thompson analyses some of the key changes that
have transformed the industry in recent years and shows how publishers are seeking to rethink their prac-
tices in the face of an uncertain future.
14.45 Copyright and the Knowledge Commons. Martyn Everett
Martyn Everett, writer, historian, former librarian and Chairman of Saffron Walden Town Library Society.
The internet and digitisation provide the opportunity to create a knowledge and information Commons in
which libraries could play a key role. Yet the combination of new technology, commercialisation, and
changes in the nature of ‘copyright’ threaten to constrict and regulate access to information as never be-
fore. Which side are you on?
15.30 Tour of the Royal Astronomical Society Library
including a short talk about the Library’s digitisation programme by Librarian Peter Hingley.
16.30 Concluding remarks
Timings are approximate and the organisers reserve the right to change the programme without
notification
Cost £40 per person including lunch.
Please make cheques payable to “The Association of Independent Libraries’
and send to:
The Association of Independent Libraries
c/o The Leeds Library
18 Commercial Street,
Leeds LS1 6AL
Tel: 0113-245-3071
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