IEEE Library Advisory Council Meeting, October 24-26, 2007

Well, I'm back from New York City. It was a very stimulating and productive meeting, a great opportunity to meet colleagues from both the IEEE and other libraries and institutions. Rarely do we get an opportunity to discuss and share with librarians from corporate, government and institutional settings. Often, our interests are the same but often they are markedly different. Where issues like Open Access are obvious to us they can be complex in other environments; something that we can understand intellectually but need to be face to face to really understand.

We had two keynotes, one from Tony Breitzman of 1790 Analytics on the value that using scholarly literature can add to technology development and how that is visible in patent citations. The second keynote was by Richard Sweeney of the New Jersey Institute of Technology on Millennial Behaviors and Higher Education. In other words, how kids today really are different from previous generations. A bracing overview with lots to think about.

Other presentations (mostly by us librarians), included: Resource Access and Delivery Best Practices; Open Access in Europe and the HEP communities; IEEE Xplore developments and Rights Management in a Corporate Environment.

Mike Buschman of the IEEE and I presented on Nature as an Example of Web 2.0. More details on that in my next post.

All this to say, it was great and I'm really looking forward to next year. I want to thank the IEEE for extending me this opportunity and to the staff (especially Phyllis!) for being so warm and welcoming.

I did get a chance to go to the Strand for a few purchases as well as see a Broadway show (Jersey Boys). The Rockefeller Center observatory was breathtaking.