World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and Assembly

"Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage"

23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy

Call for Papers

Library Theory and Research Section

Theme: "Research into open access "

Open Access (OA) has become the subject of much discussion amongst researchers, academics, librarians, university administrators, funding agencies, government officials, and publishers. Although OA has become a topic of considerable interest, with a growing body of work exploring the impact of OA on scholarly research and communication for various disciplines, surprisingly very little rigorous research has been conducted into or about OA itself.

At its session in Milan, the IFLA Library Theory and Research Section (LTR) will focus on research that explores the reality of providing OA. The intention of the session is to provide a forum for library professionals to critically discuss key issues related to developing, managing and sustaining OA across the world. Papers may address issues such as challenges and barriers, the realities of financial and institutional support, policy and planning or principles involved in matters of OA development, management and sustainability. Papers discussing these issues from the perspective of different disciplines or contexts are welcome.

The LTR section is eager to encourage the “student voice”. In addition to the submission from current professionals, library students from around the world are invited to make a submission to the session. The authors of the selected papers will be invited to present their submissions in Milan. A Library Theory and Research Best Paper Award will be given to the student paper that provides the most promising and thought-provoking discussion on the topic. 500 EURO will be provided to the winner to support attendance expenses. To collect the 500 EURO award, the winner must attend and deliver the winning paper at the LTR session.

All student papers accepted for presentation at the LTR section in Milan in 2009 will also be eligible for submission for consideration to the IFLA LIS Student Paper Award. This award is sponsored by the Education and Training Section.

Submissions

The working language during the session will be English, but papers can be submitted in any of the official IFLA languages and Italian.

The abstract should include a maximum of 500 words and should be sent by email as an MS Word document or RTF file, no later than 31 December 2008 to:

Helen Partridge
E-mail: h.partridge@qut.edu.au

Decision on acceptance of proposals will be made by 1 March 2009. Papers accepted will be due no later than 15 May 2009.

Please note that all expenses, including registration for the conference, travel, accommodation, etcetera, are the responsibility of the authors of the accepted papers.