CLA Annual Conference 2008 theme: "Libraries and Publishing 3.0: connecting authors to readers in the digital age"

CLA has announced the theme for the 2008 annual conference in Vancouver: "Libraries and Publishing 3.0: connecting authors to readers in the digital age."

• Call for Proposals
• Pre-Conference Call for Proposals

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What can librarians learn about the print and digital challenges of connecting authors to readers in a volatile multimedia world? How do we fit into this picture?

The 2008 conference will explore almost everything you need to know about the shifting roles in connecting creators to readers, clients, customers and consumers in the digital world in light of the current challenges posed by technology, economics, culture, and literacy.

Delegates to the conference will gain an understanding of the broader cultural, national and corporate context of which they are a part, and come away with new professional perspectives on the ecology of reading and the state of flux of the cultural record.

Together with authors, publishers, editors, designers, illustrators, printers, distributors, and retailers, librarians and literacy providers face common challenges in many arenas...

• old and new technologies
• rapid expansion of new media
• digital publishing, digitization, and long-term preservation of digital resources
• open access, e-books, and institutional repositories
• knowledge management and intranets
• shifts in cultural and economic values
• changes in reader markets and demands for more and more varied services and products
• cultural policy and government support of domestic industries
• public and private media ownership
• public policy and legal concerns around issues of access, copyright, intellectual property rights, public lending right
• globalization and foreign ownership
• corporate media concentration, conglomeration, and convergence
• the role of alternative, independent, and minority publishers
• citizen journalism, media democratization, and diversity
• local retailing, online bookstores, distribution channels, and retail chain monopolies
• library selection and acquisition policies and procedures
• the changing nature of gatekeeper functions
• social software technologies and library responsiveness
• multimedia literacies, new research into the meaning of reading, and understanding reader preferences, borrowing patterns, and purchasing decisions
• literacy issues for blind and visually impaired readers
• low-literacy challenges for adults and children, and
• defining the librarian’s shifting roles and responsibilities across widely divergent print and e-service contexts.

This conference will be of interest to librarians and information professionals in all sectors and roles, authors, publishers, printers, IT specialists, book retailers, editors, designers and illustrators, literacy educators, academic researchers.