Libraries the world over are facing financial challenges in collection build-up; one obvious way to address this is to establish some form of resource sharing between libraries.
While resource sharing sounds good as an idea, the actual pathways leading to successful implementation are subject to various inter-dependencies and obstacles such as rights and distribution.

The National Library Board of Singapore (NLB) is pleased to bring you the 10th IFLA Interlending and Document Supply (ILDS) International Conference that gathers over 200 information and knowledge professionals and business leaders from all over the world to engage in insightful exchanges on the theme ‘Resource Sharing for the Future, Building Blocks for Success’ to be held 29 – 31 October 2007.

There will be 4 keynote speakers for each main block of our conference.

• Mr Mike McGrath, the editor of Interlending and Document Supply Journal will set the backdrop of the industry and paint the state of affairs and challenges facing the business of ILDS. 
• Dr Harald Müller, the Director of the Library at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law will share with us the issues faced by our industry and some of the experiences encountered all over the world. 
• Mr Mat Pfleger, the Head of Sales and Marketing at the British Library will be describing to us their experience working with 2 major search engines on the web Google and Microsoft and how the partnerships were struck, their journey and performances thus far. 
• Ms Ngian Lek Choh, Director of the National Library Singapore will explore some of the new ideas and consolidation of services experimented by the librarians in Singapore to provide new angles of business for ILDS.

Overall, we will be covering the background, legal, tools and future aspects of the ILDS business. Log on to http://www.nlbconference.com/ilds/programme.htm for more details on the conference programme.

Special Discounts for LAS members

LAS members pay only S$486 (a discount of more than S$150 off the conference fees) if they register by 31 July 2007 with jenny@singex.com.sg.

We have a variety of sponsorship packages available that are tailored to your needs. For further discussions, you may wish to contact Ms Fauziah Soeratman at Tel: (65) 6342 4270 or Fauziah_Soeratman@nlb.gov.sg.

Blog Your Thoughts
The ILDS Conference Blog is up and running! So feel free to give us your comments, suggestions or just drop us short notes of how you think could help us make the event a success. We will also be periodically updating information via the blog page so do check in regularly for more conference knick-knacks.

Contributed by Ang Ling Ling, National Library Board