Keywords
Citation
Andretta, S. (2003), "Proceedings of the 4th British‐Nordic Conference on Library and Information Studies, “Continuity, Culture, Competition”, Dublin, 21‐23 March 2001", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 37 No. 4, pp. 275-275. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330310500757
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
The British‐Nordic Conference of 2001 covered the broad topics of “Continuity, Culture, Competition” via five major themes viewed from the perspective of Scandinavian and British information communities:
- 1.
education and research for heritage information management;
- 2.
networks‐partnerships‐consortia‐mergers;
- 3.
learning and empowerment;
- 4.
taxonomies and typologies; and
- 5.
the economics of information.
What is missing in these proceedings is a clear link between the original themes and the issues represented in the conference's title. The themes identified by the conference's committee provide the environment in which the challenges generated by the principles of continuity, culture and competition operate. Enser's opening speech sets the agenda for this convergence by positioning Information Science within a social science perspective dealing primarily with “the principles and practice of knowledge transformation in society” (p. 15). Professional continuity is challenged here by the emergence of knowledge workers and the increased pressure on information professionals for value‐added contributions. These issues resonate with the original conference themes of “education and research” and of “learning and empowerment”. Under “culture” Enser explores the role of “memory organisations – the museums, galleries, archives and libraries” (p. 17) and highlights the need for a shared vision in support of policies of social inclusion and lifelong learning. These cultural challenges require continuous and increased collaboration at both national and international levels and the paper by Huotari and Valtonen contextualises such a co‐operation within the management of heritage information. Lastly, the principle of competition urges the adoption of a more proactive value‐added service associated with the “economics of information” theme.
Curiously there appears to be no Web presence for this conference and this omission limits the coverage afforded by these proceedings. In addition, the identity of the institutions organising such an event is also unclear and readers outside of the LIS domain would not know that the conference was a joint effort between British Association for Information and Library Education and Research (BAILER) and the University College of Borås in Sweden.