“The benefits of establishing a social media presence are becoming increasingly apparent as companies such as Dell share their success stories, but we’ve also heard tales of embarrassing Facebook mishaps, hothead Twitterers, and outspoken bloggers. In a time when the distinction between personal and professional realms is fading and seemingly everyone has a Facebook or Twitter profile, a social media policy is a useful way to set some ground rules for employees with regard to their online activities. It’s also a reminder that the content that they post isn’t private and may ultimately reflect on the organization.

A social media policy can help establish clear guidelines for staff members who are posting on behalf of the organization as well as employees with personal social media accounts. There are also standards being created for users, letting them know what’s acceptable to post to an organization’s blog and community pages”.

Read the full article by

Ellyssa Kroski  on School Library Journal

International Conference on Academic Libraries (ICAL-2009) started on 5th October 2009 at the University of Delhi. Dr. Ellen R. Tise, President, IFLA, delivered the inaugural address. Dr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission, India was the Chief Guest of the event. He released the conference volume (Globalizing Academic Libraries, Vision 2020 (two parts)) and souvenir.

Prof. Deepak Pental, Vice-Chancellor, University of Delhi, chaired the function. Welcome address was by Prof. S.K.Tandon, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Dr. S. Majumdar, University Librarian, Delhi University proposed the vote of thanks.

Indian Institute of Library and Information Science

Constitution of the National Library Commission,  National Census on Libraries and the establishment of Indian Institute of Library and Information Science were the main recommendations on libraries given by the National Knowledge Commission in 2006, said Dr. Sam Pitroda. After much deliberations, it is going to be materialise. The Government has accepted the recommendations. He elucidated the prime role of libraries in the making of India as a knowledge powerhouse of the future. He observed that as the IT initiatives which took place in 1980s revolutionized the country to made it a telecom major, the recommendations by the National Knowledge Commission will change the face of Indian education and information sectors by the next twenty years.

Pre-Conference Programme

Tutorial on Virtual Reference

Ms.Susan McGlamery, QuestionPoint (24/7 Reference services), Senior Product Manager, OCLC, Ohio, USA,

Short video recordings show on QuestionPoint

Hands on Practice on the software

Panel Discussion and Question Hour                                                                                                                              (Ms.Susan McGlamery and Dr. Ratnakar)

Plenary Address

Prof. David F. Kohl, Dean and University Librarian,Emiritus, US, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Acedemic Librarianship :Toward a new understanding of the Library Mission

Technical Sessions

Vision and Roles

Prof. J L Sardana, Former HOD, DLIS, Univ. of Delhi and Prof. David F. Kohl

User centric services

Mrs. Kalpana Dasgupta ,Former Director, Central Secretariat Library, New Delhi and Dr. Hazel Woodward

Dr. Hazel Woodward

Keynote

Mrs. Kalpana Dasgupta : Towards an Inclusive Knowledge society: Role of joint use libraries in Indian Academic and Public Library sectors

Prof. John Dolan and Dr. E. Rama Reddy, Former Librarian, Univ. of Hyderabad

Prof. John Dolan : Transformation through action: making the case for libraries in the knowledge economy

Question Time

Dr. Swati Bhattacharyya  and Prof. Chao-chen Chen, Prof. and Univ. Librarian,National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan, province of China

Keynote

Dr. Swati Bhattacharyya :Information Literacy Programs through Faculty-Librarian Collaboration: Meeting the Challenges of an Emerging Knowledge Society

Paper presentations

ICAL Gold Speaker Talk

Mr. Jay Jordon: Collaboration in the Cloud – Web Scale for Libraries

Mr. Jay Jordon and Prof. Dr. Ursula Georgy

Panel Discussion

Chair : Prof. Carol Tenopir

Panelists : Dr. Jagdish Arora; Mr. David Fisher; Mr. Stephen Barr; Mr. Lee Beng; and Dr. Sathyanarayana

Cultural Programme

Kathak solo recital

V. Anuradha Singh

Plenary Address

Prof. Carol Tenopir, Professor, School of Information Science, Univ. of Tennessee and Prof. A. Tikekar

Prof. Carol Tenopir: Measuring the Value and Return on Investment of Academic Libraries

Technical Sessions

Strategic Roles of Academic Libraries

Chair: Prof. Jagtar Singh

KeyNote: Dr. Hazel Woodward

Digital Collections and Services : The future role of academic libraries

Paper presentations

Prof. Laxman Rao

ICAL Gold Speaker Talk

Chair: Dr. Ellen Remona Tise, President, IFLA

Janice R. Lachance,SLA : Opportunities for Collaboration for Academic Libraries

ICAL Gold Speaker Talk

Chair:  Mr. M.C. Raghvan

Prof Ann Okerson, Associate University Librarian, Yele University, US :                                                                          Digital Libraries in the 21^st Century Global Environment

Mr. M.C. Raghvan

Formal Welcome to

Ellen Ramona Tise, President IFLA

Dr. Ellen Ramona Tise, President, IFLA

Vice Chancellors’ Panel Discussion

Chair : Prof. B. L. Mungekar

Panelists : Prof. Deepak Pental, Vice Chancellor, University of Delhi; Prof. Raj Shekhar Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU; Prof. Dilip K. Bandyopadhyay, Vice Chancellor, GGSIP University;  Dr. Ellen Ramona Tise, President, IFLA

Prof. Raj Shekhar Pillai, Vice Chancellor, IGNOU

Dr. Ellen Ramona Tise, President, IFLA

Poster Presentations

Cultural Programme

(by the students of Delhi University)

Plenary Address

Chair: Dr. Enuconde Rama Reddy

 Prof. Dr. Ursula Georgy: Library Education in Europe and Paradigm Shift in Curricula

Keynotes

Chair: Dr. A.R.D. Prasad

Prof. Gobinda G. Chowdhury : Towards the conceptual model of a Content Service Network

Prof. Michael Fraser : Towards the conceptual model of a new knowledge infrastructure

Dr. L.J. Haravu : Emerging initiatives in Library Management Systems

ICAL Gold Speaker Talk

Chair: Mrs Kalpana Dasgupta

Speaker : Prof. Chao-chen Chen: Transforming Libraries in Generation G

Satellite Group Discussions

Sponsor’s pavilions

Open House

Mrs. Kalpana Dasgupta on School Libraries

Concluding Session and Valedictory Function

The baton handed over to the Pro-Vice Chancellor, University of Hyderabad

ICAL became institutionalised.

Next International Conference on Academic Libraries (ICAL 2011) will be held at the University of Hyderabad.

Mission accomplished !

Vote of thanks

Dr. Suprabhat Majumdar,Organizing Secretary and University Librarian, University of Delhi

Annual Conference of the International Association of School Librarianship(IASL), 2009 concluded in September First week in Padua, Italy. IASL is the premier International Professional organization in School Librarianship. It has been conducting training programmes, workshops,seminars and conferences every year dealing with the different aspects of school librarianship. The Association has an elected governing body and members from around the world.

The 2009 conference theme was,School Libraries in the Picture: Preparing Pupils and Students for the Future. UNESCO also participated at the conference.

Read the news on the conference on UNESCO Portal

The proceedings and abstracts of the papers are available at the Conference website and the IASL website.

Scoopler can be called as a Search Engine 2.0. Search for any topic, you will get results from live feeds of the web 2.0 environments.

The about page says:

Scoopler is a real-time search engine. We aggregate and organize content being shared on the internet as it happens, like eye-witness reports of breaking news, photos and videos from big events, and links to the hottest memes of the day. We do this by constantly indexing live updates from services including Twitter, Flickr, Digg, Delicious and more. When you search for a topic on Scoopler, we give you the most relevant results, updated in real-time.

Try it.

Making the boys read is a big task in school libraries. Most of the regular visitors of a school library are girls. These two books study in detail and presents practical suggestions that help to convert the reluctant reader into a avid reader.

Published by School Library Association, UK www.sla.org.uk

See an interesting  slide show on Web 2.0 in Libraries, Library 2.0 by Helen Blowers