2011 conference - Theme

"It's the context, stupid!"

The theme of the 35th annual conference is taken from the title of a 1994 article by Paul Saffo in Wired magazine. In the article, Saffo wrote 

"It is not content but context that will matter most a decade or so from now. The scarce resource will not be stuff, but point of view." 

More than fifteen years later, context has never been so important in providing information to library customers.

• Google has created the world's most successful search engine by ranking information based on the context of the web itself. How can we use the context of traditional book and journal publishing to ensure relevance in our discovery interfaces?
• How do we take into account the contexts of different kinds of libraries-- public, academic, special-- when we construct user interfaces or when we draw information from massive data sources or centralized indexes?
• Users have individual information needs: they want in-depth research or quick answers; they are physically in the library or a hundred kilometers away; they have PCs, e-book readers or mobile devices, or they may prefer to have everything on paper. How do we provide services in all those different user contexts?
• How do we ensure interoperability of components in modern library systems developed in the context of a service-oriented architecture?
• With the new paradigm of cloud computing offering a highly distributed computing environment, can we provide information more quickly or more efficiently to more places or will we see our information slowly disappear in the fog?
• Linked data initiatives encourage the interlinking of data and information beyond the virtual or physical walls of the library. How can we ensure that our data will be used and useful outside a traditional library context?