Search

The focus of this research project is the impact of conference attendance, in the context of Australian academic librarians and libraries. The impact of conference attendance is shown to consist of three key themes: informational; social; and affective impact. In addition, the study found nine factors that can influence the impact conference attendance can have on the delegate and on their institution, and it presents connections between key themes of impact and influencing factors.

A large amount of time and resources is spent every year in the library and information science (LIS) sector in Australia to organise, fund and attend conferences. However, the possible benefits of conference attendance for librarians have not been a focus of research in the field. This article, reporting on the findings of a pilot study conducted in the context of a PhD research project, addresses this gap and analyses conference attendance benefits as reported by librarians who attended a specific international conference. The findings of this study link directly to issues and themes that are relevant to all library sectors in Australia.

Since Curtin University Library began to collect ebooks in the early 2000s, we have used a variety of collection development and access models for different purposes. To a large extent different acquisition models have been aligned to different collection development goals. For example, acquisition of publishers' collection sets has been directed to providing long-term infrastructure for researchers; purchase of individual ebooks has been intended primarily to address short-term demand for materials required to support teaching and learning. This paper will examine the patterns of usage of different categories of ebooks to establish the extent to which method or philosophy of acquisition has an impact on ebook usage.