Every year, LIBER gives a number of staff in our participating libraries a grant to enable them to attend our Annual Conference.
In 2017, Eleftheria Koseoglou of Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece was one recipient of the Conference Fund.
Why did you apply for the LIBER Conference Fund?
I have always wanted to attend a LIBER conference to exchange ideas with colleagues from Europe. Our library participates in LIBER; yet no colleague had been able to attend due to budget-cuts. This was the first time that the conference was organised in Greece and therefore I considered it as a great opportunity.
Was the Annual Conference a professionally valuable experience for you?
The LIBER conference in Patras has been an unprecedented experience for me. It was different form any other conferences I have ever attended, mostly because there were so many professionals that I could talk to and collaborate with in the various parallel sessions and workshops.
What was the most interesting session you attended?
All about open access, scholarly communication and copyright. One of the best presentation was the “Scholarly Communications for the 21st Century: Towards a Sustainable and Inclusive Future” and the excellent presentation of Julia Reda about the copyright and the future of copyright, not only in library, but in all digital issue.
I could not fail to mention the pioneering speech of Elliott Shore and the impressive talk about the history and evolution of the National Library, which is an example to be imitated by all colleagues in Greece.
What were the key learning points you took away from the conference?
What I really learned or better understood is that things in the library area are evolving with impetuous speed and that there are many different professionals involved. There will be enormous changes in scholarly publishing, text and data management. Apart of the traditional role of libraries which is always a guide, new roles for the library are constantly showing up.
Would you recommend the conference to other library professionals?
Of course! I recommend all librarians attend a conference like this because the LIBER conference seems like a unique type of event. It gives so many ways of interaction between LIS professionals: invited talks, sessions, workshops, working group meetings, poster sessions, lunches, etc. The amazing thing is that everything seems to happen in an easy-going way, even though the program was well-structured.