The University of Washington Libraries and Microsoft Corporation are jointly convening a special invitation-only gathering on Global Research Library 2020. This small, intimate event will be held at The Willows Lodge in Woodinville, Washington, USA on September 30 through October 2, 2007.
Invitees to this exclusive workshop were selected because they uniquely understand how research, scholarship, science, and discovery have been transformed by the Internet and communication technologies across all sectors on a global basis. The rapid dissemination of findings, the creation of new tools and platforms for information manipulation, and open access to research data have rendered the more traditional institution-based approaches to providing access to information inadequate. In order for research libraries to play a central role in this increasingly multi-institutional and cross-sector environment, we must find new approaches for how they operate and add value to research and discovery on a global basis.
This event will bring together global leaders and creative thinkers with the goal of shaping a roadmap for the future. We’ve all attended meetings to discuss the future of libraries – and then left these same meetings without a clear path forward or any action plan. However, considering the participants solicited to attend this workshop (and its "outside of the box" orientation), this gathering will be different. Instead of a long slate of presentations, there will be focused discussions on key topics followed by prioritization exercises to help surface the core actions that this group will recommend to our world-wide colleagues and partners.
An immediate deliverable from this meeting will be a broadly disseminated white paper summarizing our findings and conclusions. However, the most important outcome will be the agenda for actions that will be addressed in greater detail in a subsequent meeting that we plan to host in 2008. Attendees may be asked to take on responsibilities – research projects, paper/presentations, prototyping, or advocacy – to execute on the activities that have been identified as essential in order for research libraries to effectively accelerate the dissemination and preservation of research and knowledge.
We believe the invited attendees have a unique and important contribution to make to Global Research Library 2020 – and that the ideas can help shape the recommendations and action items that will result from this gathering of international thought leaders.
We hope everyone is as excited as we are about the potential outcomes of Global Research Library 2020!
Betsy Wilson |
Tony Hey |