Library 2.011 Conference 3rd November

The session I attended at lunchtime was very pertinent to what we have been doing here over the last year. I felt more at ease with my recent work activities. I have captured the essentials of the session here for you, and also the link to the whole session if you wish to listen to it for yourself.

The Slow Death of the Reference Collection - Dave Tyckoson, Associate Dean
CO-PRESENTER(S):  Danica Sheridan
LANGUAGE:  English
RECORDING LINK (will be available after the session and the recording has processed): 

In summary
Factors affecting collection use :
 difficulty to access
 lack of awareness of it's usefulness
 competition from the web
 Wikipedia
But there are Ref Ebooks:
 again customers are not aware
 The authentification process is a barrier
 they are just duplicates of print equivelants - not interactive nor dynamically linked to other web content
To evaluate;
 use studies (we have done this twice)
 identify what is used
 weed the outdated and old looking
  this makes the new stuff more obvious and the whole more relevant looking.
 update the areas that remain useful - buy in the areas that people are using
Promote:
 create displays
 make finding materials easier - shelf labels law, social science, physics etc. -
  empowering users to browse
 highlight resources on the webpage - Spotlights
 Interfile with circulation and/or Circulate them including multivolumes - short loan 3 days?!
  speaker only lost 3 items in 3 years
Future of Reference Collections;
 much smaller
 circulating
 electronic and print
 responsive to community needs

I'm currently listening to
Being a library and information professional in the age of Twitter, iPhones and Facebook.
PRESENTER: Professor Helen Partridge

This is very interesting and will be worth listening to later. I can't summarise this one quickly, way too much info coming in.
RECORDING LINK (will be available after the session and the recording has processed):
She's saying some very interesting stuff about needing to get away from being perfect, and just getting in there and doing it where the customers are.
 Cheers Jacinta