On 4 November 2011, iGroup hosted an event for its users by inviting 3 speakers to speak on contemporary issues relating to Library.  Here’s a quick summary of what was shared by the speakers.

Dr. Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor from Syracuse University shared wtih us his exdperiences and study of Gaming Programs for Academic Libraries.  Gaming is not new to libraries although it never really took off as a staple service.  For more details you might want to read up on Scott’s book titled “Everyone plays at the library” – see Amazon’s listing here: http://www.amazon.com/Everyone-Plays-Library-Creating-Experiences/dp/1573873985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320798354&sr=8-1

Mr. John Shipp, recently retired Univeristy Librarian from University of Sydney talked about Extreme-E.  In his view, going e is inevitable what is holding libraries and librarians back are budgetary and resource constraints.  Some libraries might be able to cut over faster whilst others may need more time to build towards that state.

Mr. Michael B. Morgan, President and CEO of Morgan & Claypool Publishers shared on the topic Beyond Ebooks.  He showed different samples of what the future of ebooks looks like.  Currently ebooks are merely digitized versions of physical books but various opportunities exists for ebooks to grow beyond the constraints of the print media.  Using movies as an illustrations of the future development concept for ebooks – initial movies were simple recording of staged plays/traditional theatres but as the industry matured movies came into their own with their own techniques and special effects.  Ebooks have the advantage of excellent support of mutli-media components of audio and visual which can be readily incorporated.  Under a new concept called “Inkling” – students would be able to connect to each other while reading same titled eBooks and leave notes and messages to each other via a social platform i.e. they can ask for help if they feel they are stuck on a section of say a textbook and a lecturer or classmate might be able to provide additional explanation to help them in their study.

Reported by Yit