NFAIS 2013: In Search of Answers: Unlocking New Value from Content: conference report

摘要

From February 24-26, I attended the 55 h Annual Conference of the National Federation of Advanced Information Systems. The title of the conference was a bit misleading as it tells only half the story. As the title suggests value is an important commodity but not only can it mean dollars, which many of the speakers spoke to, it can also mean some of the hidden value that needs to get exposed through non-traditional means, i.e. open access, open science, open data, and all the conversations that take place on the web via social media. As a librarian, it made me rethink the numerous ways we package information through our web sites and research guides. Does this lead our user communities to all these hidden kinds of information that can be openly accessible or just to the traditional resources we have decided for them are the best ones to use for scholarly research. As I thought and rethought all of this, I started to give more importance to these "conversations" that take place on the web and how we might empower our users to organize the messy web in a way that brings meaning to them: both the expensive resources we provide but also that opens to door to the myriad of new options that exist. Should we be packaging information?