The workshops of the UKSG Annual Conferences 1990-2004: the emergence of the digital library

Joachim Schöpfel

doi:10.1629/17243

Abstract

Serials: The Journal for the Serials Community has been digitised and can be accessed in full on this website. All content is freely available on an open-access basis. Serials was published between 1988 and 2011. In 2012, the journal was retitled and is now published as Insights: the UKSG journal.

Highlights

The nature and environment of the library are changing, and so are the activities and skills of librarians
Special attention was paid to Project COUNTER which started in March 2002 and was built upon the same ‘philosophy’ as the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) conferences, namely, co-operation among librarians, publishers and vendors
Libraries and the trades are considered as two different worlds, the UKSG tries to facilitate mutual understanding and skills to organize these relationships into reasonable partnerships to enable needs assessments and supplier evaluations, and to develop negotiation and communication capabilities

Summary

Introduction

The nature and environment of the library are changing, and so are the activities and skills of librarians. This article analyses the content of the workshops of the 15 United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) Annual Conferences held from 1990 to 2004. Each year, these sessions provide a pertinent indicator of the main interests and hot topics for librarians, editors and vendors. The study analyses the workshops and sessions offered over the 15-year period, rather than assessing the impact of the conferences on skills or knowledge, quality of content or return on investment for attending institutions. The analysed sample includes the 183 workshops announced in the programmes of the 13th Annual Conference 1990 in Southampton through to the 27th Annual Conference 2004 in Manchester At all of these conferences, workshops complemented keynote and other papers, product reviews, exhibitions and other events. For the 1999–2004 conferences, access to the booking statistics (6,230 registrations) and the reports published in Serials proved useful

Main functions of libraries

Number of workshops

Conclusion