Keynote Speakers
International Keynote Speaker. Joan Frye Williams - Information is Not Enough: Shaping the User Experience
Proudly Sponsored by The National Library of Australia
Most traditional library services were designed when information was a relatively scarce commodity. Now that information is ubiquitous, smart librarians recognize that their primary product is the user’s experience. This lively session will explore the new service models and technologies that can help us meet our users’ changing expectations in ways that add real value and preserve our role as library professionals. Come learn how to keep customer satisfaction up and your own blood pressure down by providing a top quality user experience.
Her many clients include libraries of all types and sizes, library consortia, state library agencies, professional library associations, library boards, library vendors, and architects.
For more than 25 years, Joan Frye Williams has been a successful librarian, consultant, vendor, planner, trainer, evaluator, and user of library services. Since 1996, she has practiced as an independent consultant specializing in innovation, technology, and the service needs and preferences of non-library “civilians”.
Joan is best known as an acute--and sometimes irreverent--observer of emerging library trends, issues, and practices. She is an internationally recognized library futurist and designer of innovative library services.
Christine Bruce - Information literacy changing lives, changing professionals, changing you
Proudly Sponsored by Southern Scene
Information literacy changes lives. In my address I will explore the transformational influence of information literacy on people's lives, and the transforming influence of information literacy on the information profession. This exploration will be supported by an overview of people's experience of information literacy in academic, workplace and community settings. I will also introduce highlights of some contemporary research into information literacy, and reinforce the potential for us all to be agents for change.
Christine Bruce is the Director, Teaching and Learning in the Faculty of Information Technology at QUT. She has been working in the information literacy arena since 1989, and has engaged widely in research and consultancy in the field. Her award winning relational model of information literacy has transformed thinking about the phenomena internationally.
Dr Alex Byrne - SSHHH! We have important things to say
“A gun totin' librarian walks free”. Why do we find that headline strange? We know that libraries and information services and the professionals who run them have a major role in the information society. But we tend to understate that role to ourselves and to the community. In the information society, those who control access to information hold the power to shape the destinies of nations, organisations and individuals. Through our commitment to open access to information, information professionals can challenge orthodoxies but only if we first challenge our own orthodoxies. What should we be saying to ourselves, to our communities and organisations and beyond?
Dr Alex Byrne is the President of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). He chaired IFLA's Committee on Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression 1997-2003. Alex has led the development of many IFLA declarations and statements and represented the library and information sector in international negotiations.
In his day job, Alex is the Pro Vice Chancellor (Teaching & Learning) and Vice President (Alumni & Development) at the University of Technology, Sydney. He joined UTS as University Librarian, leading it to be recognised to be one of the leaders in the development of digital libraries in Australia and is of course an ADT participant. Extending its reach, the Library launched a digital press, UTSePress, in January 2004.
Alex's publications are primarily in information management, community empowerment and human rights, with particular regard to freedom of expression and access to information.
