SAOUG Conference: 3-5 June 2008

Most of you have heard that the SAOUG conference will be on 3-5 June 2008. The registration is now on. Visit http://www.saoug.org.za/ to register and view the prelimenary details of papers and workshops.

The keynote speakers are:

* Derek Law - Head of the Information Resources Directorate, University of Strathclyde.

* Geoff Hoy - Geoff has been associated with UCT libraries for many years, and is now involved with TENET, the tertiary education network which is used by all tertiary academic institutions in South Africa.

* Christof Appel - Christof has presented in the UK, USA, Dubai and South Africa. He has wowed audiences with his entertaining and thought provoking business presentations.

The following workshops will be presented on 3rd of June:

- EVIDENCE-BASED LIBRARY AND INFORMATION PRACTICE (EBLIP): The Basics: What, Why, How, Who and Where

- Practical Presentation Skills for trainers

- THE DEEP END: PLANNING A DIGITAL STRATEGY FOR YOURSELF

These are some of the papers that will be presented on 4-5th June:

- Changing Users: Have They or Should we?

- Training End Users in the Mining Industry

- The Training Monster

- Changing Roles of Libraries and Librarians with Emphasis on the Technology (Working Title)

- Getting Executive Buy-In: The Value of Technology Demonstrators

- Don’t Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater: A Case Study Regarding a News Alerting Service in the Engineering Industry

- Establishing an Online Reference Service

- Life after Graduation Day: The Reality of the Information Industry

- The Institutional Repository Toolbox: How to Successfully Implement an Institutional Repository

- Databases, Institutional Repositories (IR) and Organizational Workflows

- Establishing a Knowledge Commons at the CSIR

- African Journal OnLine: The Journey towards African Learning Translating into African Development

- Digital Scholarship and the Role of the University Library

Other interesting initiative is: ROUND TABLE DISCUSSSION BOX LUNCHES. The topics are:
- Patent Searching Support Group (Facilitator: Louise Mitchell)
- End User Training: Best Practice
- Institutional Repositories
- EBLIP (Evidence Based Library and Information Practice)
- Life after Graduation: the Gap between Theory and Practice
- Mentoring
- Library 2.0

The social event:

Wednesday evening – 4th June : 17:00 – 22:30

Barnyard, Menlyn Shopping Mall for the following show: The Musical tribute to the King – Elvis Presley. “Put on your Blue Suede Shoes, get ready to Shake Rattle and Roll because this show promises to rock both young and old in true Elvis spirit.”

As a member of the SAOUG committee, I hope you will come and have an experience of a lifetime.

Bates latest InfoTips: April 2008

I have received yesterday this April Newsletter alert from Mary Ellen Bates/Bates Information Service. This is what tips for searching she gave:

Yahoo:

"In an act of faith that Yahoo! will survive its possible absorption into The Borg, otherwise known as Microsoft, I'll mention one interesting Yahoo! search tip. If you enclose your search terms in [square brackets], you will only retrieve pages that have those words in that order. Mind you, this isn't a phrase search -- those two words may be anywhere in the page, but the first term must appear before the second. So, for example, the search [subprime crisis] will retrieve pages with "subprime mortgage crisis", "subprime lending crisis" "the subprime mortgage industry is in crisis right now" and so on. It will not retrieve "there is a crisis in subprime mortgages", however".

Conference Tagging

"I mentioned Technorati.com in my March 2008 InfoTip, but I had one of those epiphanies today and thought up another use for this blog-search tool. When bloggers attend a professional conference, they often talk about the sessions they find particularly noteworthy. In fact, they will sometimes transcribe the speaker's PowerPoint presentation along with their own thoughts. Conference organizers are now encouraging bloggers to use a standard tag to identify blog posts about the conference, so that anyone can search for blogs about that conference. What that means is, if you can identify the appropriate tag, you can search for all blogs with that conference tag, and get at least a sense of the key themes and most thought-provoking sessions. See, for example, the blog entries that were tagged with CIL2008, the agreed-upon tag for the Computers in Libraries conference"

Click on the TITLE to read more about this and the previous Bates Newsletters.

LIASA Tenth Annual Conference - 2008

The Tenth Annual LIASA Conference provides an opportunity to debate, share and learn about the changing roles of LIS in South Africa, Africa and globally in the new millennium. In South Africa, different LIS sectors have experienced the South African Society in transition. LIASA is entering into its second decade of existence. Funding has been finally made available to the public libraries and will relieve some of the pressure that public librarians have carried for a decade.

Academic libraries have gone through a series of changes as a result of the mergers. How well has the LIS sector fared in contributing to a democratic South Africa, nation building and the creation of a society that values and respects diversity? How does the LIS sector position itself for the next decade in the transformed society of South Africa? What is the role of LIS on the African continent in the second decade of the new millennium? What is the role of South African and African LIS in the global space and how can it be realized?

Local and international professional colleagues and partners are invited to participate in discussions and workshops around the proposed topics.

Date: 6-10 October 2008
Venue: Cape Town, Cape Town Convention Centre
Theme: Looking ahead: the changing role of LIS

You are invited to submit proposals for papers & posters that will focus on areas related to the theme of the conference. The deadline for receipt of proposals/abstracts is 28 March 2008. Topics such as the following will be considered for inclusion in the conference programme:
* Partnerships for the future
* The future role of national libraries
* The future role of public libraries
* The future role of academic libraries
* The future role of special libraries
* The future role of school libraries
* The future role of LIS associations
* Libraries and preservation of national heritage
* Access to information and freedom of expression
* Information literacy
* Indigenous knowledge systems
* Knowledge management
* Nation building and development: the role of libraries
* Education and training
* Reference in digital environments (Instant Messaging, Text Messaging (SMS), and other emerging modes for offering reference services and Web 2.0 applications)
* Digital Library applications in e-science, e-learning, e-government, cultural heritage, etc.
* Bridging the digital divide
* Service delivery in challenging environments, especially where the infrastructure may be sub-optimal as in some developing countries, or where the user group represents particular challenges
* Electronic Theses and Dissertations: Current status and strategy
* The future role of ethics in the management of libraries
* Institutional repositories/ self-archiving
* The future role of standards in the management of libraries
* Research agenda in LIS

Knowledge Management & Innovation Conference: 9 & 10 April 2008

The Knowledge Management & Innovation Conference will be held on 9 & 10 April 2008.

Venue: Premier Regent Hotel, Cape Town

Presentations will be from the following organizations:

o South African National Centre for Informatics Knowledge Management and Knowledge Economy - SANCIKMKE

o Development Bank of South Africa - DBSA

o Research Institute for Innovation and Sustainability - RIIS

o University of Witwatersrand o Datacentrix

o Knowledge Integration Dynamics

o I-Kno

o Steve Bayhegyi & Associates

o Suritec

o IBM

o Symbiosys Consulting

Objectives

o To establish the relationship between knowledge management and organizational transformations.

o To harness expertise to effectively implement knowledge management strategies.

o To apply knowledge management principles, techniques and tools into leadership.

o To structure the storing of information using knowledge management systems.

o To learn and understand technologies that support knowledge management initiatives Audience Individuals and teams with a serious business interest in knowledge management and the knowledge-based economy. Executive who are especially interested in new ideas on how to get a better return on their investments. Knowledge managers, creative strategist, architects, and executives who seek faster, smarter, better and most cost effective ways to generate optimum knowledge performance

TO REGISTER CALL TEL: +27 11 472 5388 - FAX: +27 11 472 5304 Email: info@ingwecom.co.za

Conferences: Call for papers

If you are interested in writing paper for a conference, these are your current opportunities:

NINTH SOUTHERN AFRICAN ONLINE INFORMATION MEETING, 3-5 JUNE 2008
CSIR CONFERENCE CENTRE MEIRING NAUDE ROAD, PRETORIA
Preliminary Announcement and Call for Papers

Suggested Topics for Papers include (but is not limited to):
Web search Federated search Social networking & Global best practices Taxonomies, folksonomies Evidence-based librarianship Information policy Web site usability Needs assessment Collaborative working
Career development talks
Content Management
RSS Feeds
Embedded Librarian
Web search engines
Planning next generation users
Disappearing mouse – touch screens/voice
Knowledge Sharing & Collaboration Training and teaching
Internet resources Managing e-resources Mobile technology Library 3.0 Distance learning, e-learning Multimedia searching Innovative projects Incorporating new technologies Web design Content management Development & Competency issues/skills

Call for Papers: Whilst priority will be given to contributors on the suggested themes, presentations on other relevant topics will also be considered. · Concise papers (20 minutes maximum) based on practical experience or practical applications of information technology are preferred. Supporting and supplementary detail may be included in the complete, written paper. · If you wish to submit a paper, please submit your 250 word detailed abstract by no later that 14 March 2008.
E-mailed to Dr. Glenda Myers: glenda.myers@wits.ac.za
If your paper is provisionally accepted, you will be asked to submit the complete paper in machine readable format by 16 May 2008 at the latest. · The decision of the selectors is final, and no correspondence with regard to acceptance or rejection of submitted papers will be entered into.

10th ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON WORLD WIDE WEB APPLICATIONS: Cape Town (South Africa) Wednesday 3 to Friday 5 September 2008.
Please find the Call for Papers to the 10th annual event at http://www.zaw3.co.za
Topics for the 2008 event can relate to trends and developments over the last ten years; for example the growing number of “foreign” language sites; the politics of the Web; censorship and legal issues; new methods of access and device and network convergence; search engines and search techniques; emerging Web technologies, developments and trends; Web 2.0; in fact e-anything (health, government, commerce, marketing, learning, society, entertainment).