Western New York/Ontario Chapter of the ACRL

The WNY/O ACRL Fall Conference on Friday, October 13th must have been the smallest conference gathering I have ever seen, due to the inclement weather in Western New York that affected many in the area. Sadly, some of the Buffalo-area speakers were not able to make the trip to the conference site in Grimsby, Ontario, so the conference was abbreviated, yet well worth attending. Titled Adaptations! Leadership for Staffing, Services, and Collections, several forward-looking topics were discussed during the presentation and panel discussion. As I never got the opportunity to take a Collection Development class at UB’s DLIS, I was delighted to hear the presentation by Rand Bellavia of D’Youville College, “Selection in a Shifting Environment”, which not only outlined the process of collection development, but also the role the Internet has come to play in this process. The increase in the quality and quantity of tools and formats available, as well as the public’s increased awareness of the resources their library holds, can also be attributed to the “Internet/digital revolution”. This led into the issue of Adaptation versus Philosophy, which is simply putting theory into practice, and leads to the issue of “Quality versus Demand.” The opposing viewpoints surrounding this issue in the development of the library’s collection was discussed in groups, then debated by representative members of each group. The panel discussion (Amanda Etches-Johnson of McMaster University, and Diane Marie Ward and Jennifer Graham, both of the University at Buffalo) consisted of the main theme of emerging technologies. These included the increased importance and awareness of Web 2.0 and RFID technologies and their importance to academic libraries. This discussion on Web 2.0 included the usefulness of blogs in an academic library environment, ie., as a reference tool, as well as the role of wikis, social networking sites (ie. MySpace), and folksonomies and how these communication tools contribute to, and enhance, the services provided by academic libraries.