International Association of Technological University Libraries (IATUL) 2005 Meeting
| Published date | 01 September 2005 |
| Date | 01 September 2005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050510633925 |
| Pages | 24-28 |
| Author | Jay Bhatt,Maitrayee Ghosh |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
International Association of Technological
University Libraries (IATUL)
2005 Meeting
Jay Bhatt and Maitrayee Ghosh
24 LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 8 2005, pp. 24-28, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050510633925
The 26th IATUL Annual Conference
with the theme, ``Information and
Innovation'' took place at the
Universite de Laval in Quebec City,
Canada May 29-June 2, 2005. The
conference web site is: www.
bibl.ulaval.ca/iatul2005/ This year's
conference was organized around three
sub-themes:
(1) Infrastructure.
(2) People.
(3) Global innovation initiatives.
Under each theme were included
several informative presentations on a
variety of topics. Highlights of some of
these sessions are included below.
Theme: Infrastruture
Hacking innovations and the
impending digital Pearl Harbor
Hal Berghel, dir ector, School of
Computer Science, University of
Nevada, Las Vegas, USA. This
presentation analyzed some of the
strategies andtactics that are currently in
use to breach information technology
infrastructure and in the process steal or
destroy most important information
assets. Hal Berghelconsiders the present
time period as the golden age of hacking
but he also provided some information
on a variety of tools available such as
Nessus, Whisker, Nmap, Dsniff, etc. to
check and preventhacking.
Interactive demonstrations were
used to provide examples for both
offensive strategies (e.g. hacking into a
secure wireless network) and defensive
strategies (e.g. protecting the
provenance of information assets with
digital watermarks). According to
Berghel, future worms can be termed as
``breeders'' which can be intensely
malicious. A large number of wireless
network security protocols were hacked
in recent times. It is therefore very
important for libraries to pay attention
to these security concerns and start
planning to ensure safe networking.
Possible risk management strategies,
to help secure our most important
information assets, were also outlined
and illustrated. Berghel's home page is
at: www.berghel.net This site provides
links to several articles and editorials
including ``Wifi Attack Vectors'' to be
published in CACM's Digital Village
column in September 2005. Berghel's
current research focuses on internet
security and forensics.
The session, building scholarly
information infrastructure through
partnership
Alex Byrne, University Librarian,
University of Technology, Sydney,
Australia was also part of the
Infrastructuretheme. Dr Byrne began his
discussion outlining major library
resources such as journals, ejournals,
databases, and repositories and stressed
the importance of imparting information
literacy to the library users through
effective user education programs. He
stressed the availability of a good digital
information network in order to foster
the user education aspects of new
informationresources and tools.
Achievement of the innovation
agendas and eResearch initiatives
which are being promoted in many
countries, as well as the aspirations of
the Millennium Declaration and the
World Summit on the Information
Society, depends on high quality
scholarly information infrastructure.
Through eResearch initiatives
worldwide, and with the availability of
supercomputers, large amount of
sharing research data has been made
possible. Australian eResearch
Infrastructure Strategy is a robust, high
bandwidth advanced network that
encompasses distributed high
performance computing and data
storage and aims to enhance scholarly
information infrastructure.
Well assimilated existing disruptive
technologies such as internet, e-mail,
web combined with evolving
technologies consisting of smart
phones, personal digital assistants,
ipods and multimedia devices, blogs,
and internet based communities can be
a boost for libraries to provide 24 7
online research information to the
general public through open access
publishing. As a result, print only
publishing is slowing while more and
more ejournals and ebooks are being
adopted worldwide. Possibilities of
developing and maintaining
institutional repositories are immense
and in future, more and more libraries
will probably begin to think about
creating such repositories.
Implications for the libraries include:
delivering desired content anytime,
anywhere, 24 7 multi-format
availability of resources, develop
contextualized information literacy, and
communication built on shared
knowledge as possibility of specific
areas of expertise by individuals might
result into specific knowledge experts
whose knowledge can be sharedthrough
collaborationand partnerships.
Information inequality or Digital
Divide is now very well recognized by
various governments and WSIS from
the perspectives of infrastructure,
hardware, software, skills, cost of
content and publication system.
According to Byrne, this issue of
information inequality can be well
tackled by using a collaborative model
to develop partnership among the
library and publishing communities,
faculty, information and
communication technology experts and
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