2019 Library Conference Schedule

It’s a new year and we are looking forward to the 2019 annual library conferences. The list below covers large library technology conferences as well as the major conferences where technology will be discussed.

January #hashtag
25-29 ALA Midwinter Meeting, Seattle, WA #alamw19
February
19-22 Code4Lib 2019, San José, CA #c4l19
March
3-6 14th Annual ER&L Conference, Austin, TX #erl19
4-6 Designing for Digital, Austin, TX + Online #d4d19
20-21 Library Technology Conference 2019, St. Paul, MN #LTC2019
26-28 Computers in Libraries 2019, Arlington, VA #CILDC
May
17 UNT Open Access Symposium 2019, Dallas, TX #UNTOA19
June
2-6 ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2019, Urbana-Champaign, IL #JCDL2019
14-18 SLA Annual Conference 2019, Cleveland, OH #SLA2019
20-25 ALA Annual Conference 2019, Washington, DC #ALAAC19
August
24-30 IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Athens, Greece #wlic2019
October
19-23 ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2019, Melbourne, Australia #ASIST19
November
TBA Charleston Conference, Charleston, SC #CHSConf2019
February 2020
25-29 PLA Conference 2020, Nashville, TN #PLA2020

For more comprehensive lists, see Douglas Hasty’s Library Conference Planner website.

2018 Library Conference Schedule

It’s a new year and we are looking forward to the 2018 annual library conferences.  The list below covers large library technology conferences as well as the major conferences where technology will be discussed.

February #hashtag
9-13 ALA Midwinter Meeting, Denver, CO #alamw18
13-16 Code4Lib 2018, Los Angeles, CA  #c4l18
March
4-7 13th Annual ER&L Conference, Austin, TX #erl18
5-7 Designing for Digital, Austin, TX  #d4d18
14-15 Library Technology Conference 2018, St. Paul, MN #libtechconf
20-24 PLA Conference 2018, Philadelphia, PA #PLA2018
April
17-19 Computers in Libraries 2018, Arlington, VA #CILDC
June
3-6 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2018, Fort Worth, TX #JCDL2018
3-6 UNT Open Access Symposium 2018, Fort Worth, TX #UNTOA18
9-13 SLA Annual Conference 2018, Baltimore, MD #SLA2018
21-26 ALA Annual Conference 2018, New Orleans, LA #ALAAC18
August
24-30 IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia #wlic2018
November
5-9 Charleston Conference, Charleston, SC @chsconf
9-14 ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2018, Vancouver, Canada @asist_org

For more comprehensive lists, see Douglas Hasty’s Library Conference Planner website.

2017 Library Conference Schedule

With 2017 just started, we are looking forward to this year’s batch of annual library conferences.  The list below covers large library technology conferences as well as the major conferences where technology will be discussed.

January #hashtag
20-24 ALA Midwinter Meeting, Atlanta, GA #alamw17
March
6-9 Code4Lib 2017, Los Angeles, CA #c4l17
15-16 Library Technology Conference 2017, St. Paul, MN #LTC2017
28-30 Computers in Libraries 2017, Arlington, VA #CILDC
April
2-5 12th Annual ER&L Conference, Austin, TX #erl17
3-5 Designing for Digital, Austin, TX #d4d17
14-15 DPLAfest 2017, Chicago, IL #DPLAfest
June
16-20 SLA Annual Conference 2017, Phoenix, AZ #SLA2017
19-23 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries 2017, Toronto, Canada #JCDL2017
22-27 ALA Annual Conference 2017, Chicago, IL #ALAAC17
August
19-25 IFLA World Library and Information Congress, Wrocław, Poland #wlic2017
October
27-11/1 ASIS&T Annual Meeting 2017, Washington, DC @asist_org
November
6-10 Charleston Conference, Charleston, SC @chsconf
March
2018
20-24 PLA Conference 2018, Philadelphia, PA #PLA2018

For more comprehensive lists, see Douglas Hasty’s Library Conference Planner website or D-Lib Magazine.

Open Access Week 2016

Open Access Week

International Open Access Week starts today and runs from October 24–30, 2016.  For all of the details, visit www.openaccessweek.org.

This year’s theme is “open in action” with an emphasis on how you can take practical steps to implement open access in your library or support its growth.

Open Access Week 2016

Ways to Participate

Many organizations which embrace and promote open access are sponsoring events to encourage participation in open access resources. Here are just a few of them.

Open Access Week Commitment

The Open Access Week organization is asking librarians to sign up and take “concrete steps to open up research and scholarship and encourag[e] others to do the same”.  Sign up at www.action.openaccessweek.org.

TwitterFollow on Social Media

Follow and use the Twitter hashtag #OAWeek.

 

Get an ORCID iD

Do you have an ORCID iD?ORCID Open Access Week iD Register  ORCID stands for Open Researcher and Contributor ID and is a unique 16-digit number which distinguishes you from other researchers in online resources.  Register for an ORCID iD at orcid.org/register.

Join COAPI

Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) The Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions (COAPI) exists to allow member libraries to help develop and share open access policies.  Sponsored by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), COAPI offers best practices and advocacy for open access.  To become a member library, see sparcopen.org/become-a-member.

Support Open Access Resources

Open Access LogoWhile open access repositories and journals are free for end users, they do cost money to set up and maintain.  Forward-thinking libraries are beginning to allocate funds to support open access resources (and to support faculty who want to contribute articles to them).  Here’s how you can support open access resources.

Join the FOLIO Project

FOLIOFOLIO stands for the Future of Libraries is Open, an open source library services platform. Learn more about it by reading our recent FOLIO: An Open Library Services Platform article.  Work has progressed swiftly since its introduction in June 2016.  Join the FOLIO Project Discussion site to get involved.

Bake Some Cookies

Think open access only applies to online resources?  You can bake your very own cookies in the shape of the open access logo with a cookie cutter printed from your 3D printer using some open access cookie cutter printer files.  The scalable files are in .stl and .dae format and were created by Chip Wolfe from Hunt Library at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.  Download the open access cookie cutter files.

Open Access Cookie Cutter

FOLIO: An Open Library Services Platform

Back in April you might remember the news that EBSCO was giving $1 million (or more) to help fund the development of a new open library services platform (LSP).  American Libraries wrote about this on their blog post EBSCO Supports New Open Source Project.  EBSCO has a Vice President of Open Source Platforms & Communities, Christopher Spalding, who is taking an active role in the project.  At the time of EBSCO’s announcement the name of the project had not been announced.

At the Code4Lib 2016 Conference in March, Sebastian Hammer gave a talk on the state of the project at that time, still with no name.  Watch his presentation: Constructive Disintegration — Re-imagining the Library Platform as Microservices.  Some goals of the projet (from his slide) are:

  • Easy + fun to extend and customize
  • Apache 2 license: Everyone can play
  • Cloud-ready, multi-tenant, built around an open knowledge base, linked data, electronic and print resource management
  • Can be hosted by commercial vendors, library networks, or locally
  • Community-based
  • Modular — snap-in modules (apps) can be contributed by libraries or vendors.

During the ALA 2016 Annual Conference the FOLIO project was announced.

FOLIOFOLIO stands for the Future of Libraries is Open. It is currently a software platform to be used as a starting point to build library services. Consider FOLIO as a “cloud-based operating system” for applications.

The project is being led by the Denmark-based company Index Data headed by Sebastian Hammer (a panelist at the ALA 2016 Annual Conference) and the Open Library Environment (OLE) directed by Michael Winkler.  The main source of funding comes from EBSCO.  The Open Library Foundation, a nonprofit oversight organization, was set up to direct the project.

Index Data will be responsible for building the core platform which will be released as open source software under an Apache version 2.0 license.  The FOLIO platform software can be downloaded and installed locally or hosted on cloud-based servers from library vendors such as EBSCO, SirsiDynix, and ByWater Solutions.  Index Data intends to make the platform “as little as possible” and not create obstacles to development.

FOLIO Platform
Graphic from FOLIO.

Read the FOLIO press release: Introducing FOLIO – A new collaboration bringing libraries, service providers and developers together to speed innovation and redefine the future of library automation (June 24, 2016).

On top of the FOLIO platform, developers from library vendors, organizations, and member institutions will build modules, applications, and services.  Apps will include traditional ILS service modules such as Acquisitions, Cataloging, and Circulation.  We should eventually see LMS functionality including electronic resource management, OPAC, data conversion, and resource sharing.  Native Linked Data output is not in the works but it is expected that this model will be supported.

Developers of existing library services can choose to port their applications to FOLIO or simply build integration points to their current systems.  The FOLIO platform should make software with open APIs even more attractive to users.

In August, Index Data will release prototype code on GitHub.  Developers can then turn their attention to building microservices.  Note that although the FOLIO platform itself is open source and free, some of the premium apps built to run on it might be created and sold by library vendors.

FOLIO can also be thought of as a community of institutions and vendors working together.  There are many ways to interact and get involved with the FOLIO community:

FOLIO Website – News updates at www.folio.org/news.

OLE Website – Blog posts at www.openlibraryenvironment.org.

Email Lists – Subscribe and archives at lists.openlibraryfoundation.org.

FOLIO on Twitter@FOLIO_LSP

OLE on Twitter@ole_community

FOLIO Forum on Twitter#FOLIOForum

We will certainly be following this project and bringing you more information as the platform launches and develops.