Introduction

Citation

O'Connor, S. (2007), "Introduction", Library Management, Vol. 28 No. 8/9. https://doi.org/10.1108/lm.2007.01528haa.001

Introduction

The papers in this issue and the next are drawn from the excellent conference held in Hong Kong titled “Academic Librarian; dinosaur or Phoenix?” The conference was organized by and held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in April 2007. The title of the conference was drawn from a paper written some years earlier by Colin Steele who was, at that time, the University Librarian at the Australian National University in Canberra.

As the conference literature indicated: “ … the basic premise: ‘a library service and its future are only as assured as the people offering that service’. The conference will examine the challenges and opportunities faced by academic library personnel in an ever faster moving and constantly changing academic and technological working environment. The consolidation, growth, and even survival of libraries within and without our university communities and beyond will depend on decisions being made now about what a future physical/virtual library may look like.”

The conference was led by Dr Colin Storey, University Librarian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and very ably organized by one of his senior staff Louisa Lam. The papers are uniformly of a high quality although only selected papers have been published in the pages of this journal.

Conferences such as this organized by Dr Storey and his staff reflect the vitality of the profession and the high quality interest in the future of libraries. Perhaps there is a trend emerging for special conferences of this nature to explore topics in more depth than is usually allowed in larger conferences. The focused papers, the many senior and experienced staff and the generous environment in which the conference was presented allowed for a strong consideration and achievement of the objectives of the conference organizers. I congratulate them. Certainly the issue of staff development, the future skills of professionals and the various innovative programs operated quietly in many libraries are of vital interest to the readers of this journal.

Steve O'Connor