The University of Oklahoma Libraries
Present
The 24th Annual Conference
Bridging the Gap:
Connecting Users to Digital Content
MARCH 1 AND 2, 2007
Embassy Suites Hotel, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
The hotel is reserving a number of rooms at a special conference rate.
Complimentary transportation is available to and from the airport.
Please contact the hotel directly at (405) 682-6000 for reservations.
For additional information please contact:
Rhonda Cannon, Conference Coordinator, (405) 325-2611.
Registration deadline: February 16, 2007
CONFERENCE PROGRAM: Thursday, March 1, 2007
Conference Welcome
Sul H. Lee, Dean
University of Oklahoma Libraries
1:00–2:15 p.m.
Carla J. Stoffle
Dean of Libraries and the Center for Creative Photography
University of Arizona Library
Wherever You Are: The Library
In the current technological environment, libraries must
adopt a new framework for delivering services and resources
that will be available to the user anywhere they start their
search for information. The concept of the library ""wherever
you are"" requires a push-out philosophy: libraries must push
outward to deliver services and resources digitally to users
who are mobile and wired. This change requires a four-fold
response from university libraries who seek to stay abreast of
evolving user needs. First, libraries must make more visible and
accessible online all the materials they already own. Second,
they must make more easily available the materials that others
provide, including interlibrary loan items and non-commercial
information. These must be delivered digitally to the desktop.
Third, they must create and manage unique new information
resources from their collections, their campuses, and their
local communities. Finally, libraries must make changes in the
ways they work, including selection, reference service, and
cataloging, to accommodate these new projects and services.
2:15-3:00 p.m.
Eileen G. Fenton
Executive Director
Portico
Responding to the Preservation Challenge: Portico, an Electronic Archiving Service
The work of the academy – research and teaching – is not
possible without reliable access to the accumulated scholarship
of the past. One component of this scholarly record, academic
journals, is increasingly electronic, and fragile, and its future
accessibility is a growing concern. The recent statement
""Urgent Action Needed to Preserve Scholarly Electronic
Journals"" endorsed by leading libraries and organizations
such as ARL, ALCTS and others underscores the urgency of
this community need. But the scale and complexity of the
technology infrastructure, specialized expertise and quality
control processes necessary to preserve electronic resources
exceeds that which can be supported by any individual library
or institutional budget. This paper will provide a brief history
of Portico, the not-for-profit electronic archiving service
developed in response to the library community’s need for a
robust, reliable means to preserve electronic scholarly journals.

3:30-4:15 p.m.
Brinley R. Franklin
Vice Provost, University Libraries
University of Connecticut Libraries
Assessing the Value and Impact of Digital Content
During the last decade, library users have responded favorably
to the rapid growth in available digital content. In recent years,
a number of assessment initiatives related to digital content
have surfaced. Among these are projects to standardize the
measurement of digital content use, user satisfaction with
digital content, cost/benefit analyses, and determinations of the
demographics and purpose of use of digital content. This paper
surveys early attempts by libraries to assess the value and impact
of digital content on users. It also explores the potential that
digital content offers libraries to understand library usage that
previously was not possible in the traditional print environment.
4:15-5:00 p.m.
Barbara M. Allen
Director
Committee on Institutional Cooperation
All Hype or Real Change? Mass Digitization and the Impact on Scholarship in the Research University
Technologies and innovative and powerful players in the Internet marketplace make it possible to digitize large collections in a relatively short period of time. But even as these technologies make it possible to transform the already published record to new and more useful formats, it appears that scholars themselves continue to publish and share information in very traditional ways. Indeed, universities continue to invest heavily in the traditional publishing marketplace. Are these developments consistent and compatible? Are they sustainable? Barbara Allen will discuss how these issues are being debated and acted upon within the CIC member university by faculty, administrators, and librarians.
CONFERENCE PROGRAM: Friday, March 2, 2007
8:30-9:15 a.m.
Sarah C. Michalak
University Librarian and Associate Provost
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries
Lost or Found? Observations on the Accessibility of Digital Collections
Library users have online access to a bounty of rare books, one- of-a-kind documents, objects of extraordinary beauty and an increasing mass of published and unpublished writings in many formats and from many disciplines. Color, sound, motion, the appearance of texture and best of all, convenience and immediacy draw the user to digital libraries in ways no other broadly available medium can match. Digital library builders are providing library users access to a wealth of content that will someday nearly equal the print-based collections. But there is danger that while converting large amounts of material we are not attending to the accessibility of digital resources in the same thorough way librarians have made paper-based holdings findable. This paper will discuss accessibility of digital library holdings and will describe some of the strategies librarians are adopting to ensure that digital resources will be as retrievable as traditional collections.
9:15-10:00 a.m.
Barbara I. Dewey
Dean of Libraries
University of Tennessee Libraries
Social, Intellectual, and Cultural Spaces: Creating Compelling Library Environments
Research libraries are in the process of creating compelling physical and virtual environments to support the changing needs of 21st century students and faculty. This paper will explore a successful University of Tennessee collaboration to create a new space, the Commons, in an existing library facility. Development of new physical and virtual spaces to address the intellectual, cultural, and social needs of students and faculty will be examined, including the concepts of ""creation"" spaces and partnerships. Indicators of success and next steps for transformation will be analyzed.

10:30-11:15 a.m.
Heather Joseph
Executive Director
The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC)
A Question of Access - Evolving Policies and Practices
As scholarship becomes evermore digitally driven, the communication of peer-reviewed research results has undergone a dramatic transformation. The Internet has created an unprecedented environment where these results can be immediately and broadly shared. As researchers, funders and policy makers become aware of the opportunities afforded by faster and wider sharing of research results, access policies are evolving accordingly. From policies focusing primarily on protecting this material from unauthorized users, we are now seeing a proliferation of policies designed to leverage the value of research results by sharing them as widely as possible. This paper will examine the rapid evolution of access policies designed to create a more inclusive scholarly communications playing field.
11:15-12:00 p.m.
Frank Menchaca
Senior Vice President
Thomson Gale
Digital Resources in the Humanities Curriculum
""Education,"" wrote William Butler Yeats ""is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."" In this first decade of the 21st century, our educational institutions - particularly at the academic level - are increasingly inhabited by digital resources: the match heads and kindling with the capability to set ablaze the minds of our ""digital native"" students. Yet such resources are surprisingly infrequent in classroom teaching and student assignments. Why? This paper will explore the reasons behind the still-underdeveloped use of digital resources in the curriculum. It will examine the role such resources can play in opening up new pathways of inquiry and interaction between students and teachers. The role of the library and, in particular, the ""marketing"" of digital resources beyond its walls, will be considered. How do institutions credit faculty development and use of digital projects vs. more traditional scholarly output (print monographs and journals) toward tenure and promotion? What effects will the collective nature of work with digital materials have on students and teachers? Issues and questions such as these will be considered in the context of real-world experiences from institutions nationwide.