Preparing Information Professionals for Leadership in the New Age: The 1st Asia Pacific Conference on Library and Information Education and Practice
| Date | 01 July 2006 |
| Published date | 01 July 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/07419050610692253 |
| Pages | 12-15 |
| Author | Maitrayee Ghosh |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science |
Preparing Information Professionals for
Leadership in the New Age: The 1st Asia Pacific
Conference on Library and Information
Education and Practice
Maitrayee Ghosh
12 LIBRARY HITECH NEWS Number 6 2006, pp. 12-15, #Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 0741-9058, DOI 10.1108/07419050610692253
Introduction
The Asia-Pacific Conference on
Library and Information Education and
Practice (ALIEP) was organized by the
Division of Information Studies, School
of Communication & Information,
Nanyang Technological University
(NTU), Singapore, in collaboration
with the Department of Information
Science, Faculty of Computer Science
and Information Technology, University
of Malaya, and the Nanyang
Technological University Library
during 3-6 April 2006. The conference
was held at the Nanyang Executive
Centre, at the garden campus of the
NTU, Singapore (Plate 1). This was
possibly the first LIS conference
focusing on the Asia-Pacific region,
covering the twin pillars of LIS
Education and Practice. The theme of
the conference was designed keeping in
mind the changing role of information
professionals in this transitional era. It
was a landmark event and stimulated
greater collaboration and cooperation
among LIS educators and researchers in
Asia Pacific region as well as globally.
This report attempts to provide a
general summary of the conference,
extracting salient details from each of
the papers and describing events in the
order that they were presented at the
conference. It was a stimulating and
enjoyable conference and the issues
discussed ranged from the everyday and
practical problems to theoretical. LIS
education and research in Asia-Pacific
exhibit a wide variety of characters,
flavors and areas of strength. In the
preface of the proceedings editors
Christopher Khoo, Diljit Singh and
Abdus Sattar Chaudhry state:
The LIS profession in Asia Pacific has
often looked to the west for ideas and
leadership. LIS educators and profes-
sionals in the region are often unaware
of valuable developments, innovations
and expertise in neighboring countries.
This conference seeks to bridge the
gap. The goal was to summarize the
main issues and challenges the
profession currently facing. The
presentations highlighted contemporary
issues in library and information
profession. The conference surveyed,
accumulated and synthesized the
experiences and insights of LIS
educators, researchers and practitioners
and provided opportunities for
scholarly exchanges and knowledge-
sharing between academics and
practitioners through paper presentations,
panel discussions and workshops.
Distinguished academics and
professionals came from the USA, the
UK, Australia, New Zealand, China,
Japan, Korea and India.
The conference objectives were to:
.Examine challenges facing
libraries, librarians and library
schools in the Asia-Pacific region.
.Discuss how do we measure the
value and impact of library and
information services in the new
age.
.Describe the innovations and best
practices in information services
and systems.
.Identify the entrepreneurship
opportunities in the information
industry.
.Recognize the trends and innova-
tions in LIS education in Asia-
Pacific.
This forum addressed a large number
of themes and issues and intended to
bridge the gap between different areas
of education and practice. The changing
role of information professionals and
related topics exerted a strong influence
on the conference. The experts are of
the opinion that ``The new age
librarians need to have proper skills and
entrepreneurial instincts.'' The speakers
also expressed their views on the issues
that needed to be addressed for
transforming the concept into practice.
Pre-conference workshops
On Monday, 3 April 2006 there were
seven pre-conference workshops ±
Plate 1
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