NFAIS Announces 2009 Annual Conference Theme and Location: Registration Discounts Available until January 9, 2009
Philadelphia, PA, September 5, 2008 - The National Federation of Advanced Information Services, the premier membership association for organizations that create, organize and facilitate access to information, announced today the theme and location for its 2009 Annual Conference. The conference, Barbarians at the Gate? The Impact of Digital Natives and Emerging Technology on the Future of Information Services, is scheduled for February 22 - 24, 2009 at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Opening with a keynote presentation by John Palfrey, author of Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives, the meeting will take a look at how this new generation, with a lifetime of information seeking skills shaped by search engines and the Web, will impact the scholarly, scientific and business information services that they are beginning to use in their professional lives.
"Each generation creates change by bringing the mindset, behavior and expectations developed in their formative years into the professional workplace. And the impact of the first generation of Digital Natives is beginning to materialize," said NFAIS President, David Brown. "Exposed for years to intuitive user interfaces, mobile devices and total connectivity, and well-versed in social networking and collaborative information sharing, they are now assuming the roles of faculty, scholars, researchers and business managers around the globe. And they expect that their institutions will provide professional information tools that allow them to continue as they have gone before - accessing, evaluating, commenting, sharing, collaborating and searching - all with intuitive technologies that provide the ultimate user experience."
Brown noted that the conference will begin with a discussion of the born digital generation, based upon original research and interviews with digital natives around the globe, followed by survey results that provide insights to the information behavior of future researchers and case studies that offer practical examples of how this generation is influencing communication and work behaviors. It will also look at how innovative content providers and libraries are changing their products, services and business policies to meet the needs and expectations of the Digital Natives, as well as at current and emerging technologies that can be used to enhance content and improve the overall user search experience. Critical issues such as using the power of collective minds via social networking to build large bodies of scholarly and scientific information, content ownership and usage, privacy, the impact of open source in libraries, new business models and practices, and the impact of globalization will be explored. Highlights will include the Miles Conrad Lecture and a visionary closing keynote on the information landscape of the future.
"It is difficult to clearly evaluate and predict - free of the bias of one's own generational experiences - the degree to which a new generation will impact and change the professional scholarly, scientific and business information services as we have known them," said Brown, "particularly a born digital generation that has had completely different life experiences with regard to communication and information technologies. But we do know that their continually evolving expectations are driving product change as well as change in business practices, policies and pricing. It is essential that traditional content providers, librarians and educators understand and meet the information needs and expectations of the Digital Natives if they are to engage them as long-term professional users."
For more information or to be added to the mailing list for updates on the 2009 NFAIS Annual Conference, contact Jill O'Neill, Director of Communication and Planning (jilloneill@nfais.org, or (215)-893-1561 phone) or visit the NFAIS web site at www.nfais.org. Registration and hotel information may be found here. Early bird discounts are available until January 9, 2009.
This program is being developed by the 2009 Annual Conference Planning Committee
