The VALA Conference is the Australian forum where the use of technology in libraries is discussed. Held twice a year, this year’s conference is the 14th Biennial Conference, and it continues to draw participations from librarians worldwide.

The 2008 conference was just over, held from Feb 5-7, 2008, at Melbourne Convention Centre.

It featured keynote speakers, Prof. Schubert Foo (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), Prof. Michael Geist (University of Ottawa, Canada), Prof. Peter Lor (University of Pretoria, South Africa), Andy Powell (Eduserv Foundation, UK), Stuart Weibel (OCLC Programs and Research, USA) and Luke Wroblewski (Yahoo! Inc & LukeW Interface Designs, USA)

Hazman Aziz, an ardent trainee librarian in Nanyang Technological University (NTU), who has initiated NTU library catalogue integration with BookJetty, was in the conference; he hinted that BookJetty was mentioned by Prof. Schubert Foo.

From his review of the conference, Prof. Schubert shared that library can play the role of an info-concierge, where individual info object is a self sustaining, self containing node unit, can be content or service, in any format. The connectivity can be attained in many ways and not necessarily in a single way such as a mesh (web) of information. This example can be illustrated on BookJetty.com, where libraries such as NTU, National University of Singapore (NUS) and National Library Board (NLB) have integrated the connectivity for user discovered contents.

References:

• VALA 2008 14th Biennial Conference and Exhibition, by Hazman Aziz
• VALA 2008 Conference - Day 2 - Schubert Foo - Plenary, by Connecting Librarian
• Prof. Schubert Foo’s Keynote
• VALA 2008 Conference Papers
• More about BookJetty integration with libraries