A walkout on Friday may cause delays at airports and seaports functions on Friday. More information at http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2009/09/union_plans_walkout_on_friday_983836.html.

In September we are moving from Summer to Autumn, and the weather can be quite unpredictable. Check out the latest forecasts e.g. at http://www.foreca.com/Finland/Helsinki. While in Helsinki you can check what’s happening almost real time with the nice weather radar and other stuff at http://testbed.fmi.fi/. If we happen to get any fireworks, Finnish Lightning Center has two radars at http://www.flcenter.net/ukkostutka.html and http://www.flcenter.net/static/ukkostutka2.html (the center point is in Espoo, a few kilometers west from Helsinki).

We’re very pleased to announce that Kurt de Belder, director of Leiden University Library, will be giving the keynote speech at this year’s conference. He will be focusing on the challenge of change and its management in libraries, with particular reference to the current state of library technology developments. He will be touching on the changing expectations and research needs of students; the technological challenges that are coming from outside academia; and the way that the different disciplines of researchers – and the specialised tools that they use – could mean the end of monolithic library systems. The question will be asked: what will all this mean for our institutions, and are we still going to be in the searching business in the future?

After the keynote speech there will be a discussion panel, with representatives from libraries that are undergoing major changes, and which are building innovative technologies.  Michael Fake of the London School of Economics will chair, as Richard Ovenden of Oxford University, Ere Maijala of the Finnish Systems Architecture Project, and Madeleine Völlmin of ETH Zurich discuss their thoughts on the issues raised by Kurt, bringing their own perspectives on the challenge of change in libraries, and responding to questions and comments from the audience.

The first day of the Madrid IGeLu started on Sunady with IGeLU steering committee meeting. In the afternoon SC met the representatives of national user groups and the management of Ex Libris. Some hour were spent by discussing about KB’s (or how to get new local databases added there by EL) and upgrading policy to which the representatives and and SC were a bit unsatisfied. The EL management assured to fix the points that raised discontent.

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