„Impact of New Technology on Libraries" (Report form China)

[Hans-Christoph Hobohm]

Perhaps some of you might be interested to read what was discussed 
in one of the sessions at the IFLA conference in Beijing 
(sorry for cross-posting)


        „Impact of New Technology on Libraries" 

This was the title of a session organised by the Social Science 
Libraries section of IFLA at the 62nd General Conference of 
IFLA in Beijing 25-31/08/96.

It dealt with a range of questions which were found as 
topics in many contributions at the Beijing conference. Four 
colleagues from developed countries (Ching-Chih Chen, USA; 
Barbara Graham, USA; Edna Reid, Singapore; Diann Rusch-Feja, 
Germany) and two lecturers from China (Lu Benfu and Zhou Junlan) 
stressed the consequences of the global digital library on 
working procedures in libraries and the new role of the 
librarians. They drew the conclusion that the librarian at 
the turn of the century will become the digitalisation specialist 
and that he will later on play more and more the role of 
the structurer and specialised selector in the information jungle.

To be able to play these roles it is important that the 
librarian takes much more vigorously and „pro-actively" part in 
the current development. His expertise should have a 
considerable impact on the re-structuring of the world of 
information. Because of its hot topic, this „Open Session" was 
attended extraordinarily well. Thanks to simultaneous 
interpreting into six languages vivid discussions took place 
with the audience, for example, on the increasing gulf between 
countries with high-quality information technology and those 
without, or on the danger of becoming dependent of this 
technology.


The Workshop of the Section

The workshop organised by the section „Social Science Libraries" 
discussed the topic „Information seeking for development 
studies„ in a most fundamental manner. The discussion culminated 
in the question raised by the Danish colleague Hans Hinrup: 
„Do we still need librarians?" As seen many times on IFLA conferences, 
the workshop took place off-site, i. e. in the People’s University 
so that numerous Chinese colleagues and members of the local 
university could take part and were very surprised and 
enthusiastic about the Western style of discussion.


Future Topics of the Section: call for papers

The section „Social Science Libraries" will hold a 
pre-conference seminar at next year’s IFLA conference in 
Copenhagen on the topic of „Providing Public Access to Official 
Statistics" and an associated workshop on „Working with 
Statistical and Factual Data in the Social Sciences". In 1997 
the open lectures session of the section will deal with 
„Business and Economics Libraries in Transition" and try to look 
into the influence of the current change in management culture 
and the social change in East European countries on special 
economic science libraries and companies libraries. The list of 
lecturers for all three sessions is not yet closed. Those who 
are interested are kindly requested to refer to Hans-Christoph 
Hobohm (e-mail: hobohm at fh-potsdam.de; Fax: ++49 331 580 1599)   
 

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  -----------------------------------------------------------
  Prof. Dr. Hans-Christoph Hobohm      (Hobohm at FH-Potsdam.de)
  Fachhochschule Potsdam, Fb: Archiv-Bibliothek-Dokumentation
  Postfach 60 06 08          D-14406 Potsdam          Germany
  +49 (0) 331 580 1514 (fon),    -1501 (sekr)     -1599 (fax)
  privat: +49 (0) 30 3150 3543, Schillerstr. 85, 10627 Berlin    
  pers. Home-page:          http://www.fh-potsdam.de/~hobohm/  
  Editor: INSPEL - International Journal of Special Libraries
  +    Chairman of IFLA section Social Science Libraries    +