Reminder: SPARC-ACRL forum at ALA

[Jennifer McLennan <jennifer@arl.org>]

SPARC-ACRL Forum to focus on student engagement

CHICAGO & WASHINGTON, DC - The 16th SPARC-ACRL Forum, "Working 
with the Facebook Generation: Engaging Student Views on Access to 
Scholarship," will be held at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in 
Philadelphia on January 12. Co-sponsored by SPARC (Scholarly 
Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and ACRL 
(Association of College and Research Libraries), the semiannual 
forum focuses on emerging issues in scholarly communication.

Appreciating, if not understanding, student perspectives on 
information sharing and access to research will advance library 
outreach programs. Librarians and students have the power to 
build valuable bridges of collaboration and guide the larger 
academic community to reshape scholarly communication.

Tech-savvy students, who live and breathe information sharing, 
are critical to changing the way scholarly communication is 
conducted. Not bound by traditional modes of research exchange, 
students are using all the technologies at their disposal to 
engage in scholarly discourse - including blogs, wikis and 
tagging tools. What will they do next? How do they view the 
future of scholarly exchange?

At the next SPARC-ACRL Forum, graduate students from an array of 
disciplines, institutions and engaged perspectives will share 
their approaches to scholarly communication issues. Joined by 
librarians whose scholarly communication programs have explicit 
student-focused components, they will explore the importance of 
outreach and the potential impact of students as current and 
future key stakeholders. The forum will also showcase the winners 
of the first Sparky Award for the best short videos on the value 
of information sharing.

The SPARC-ACRL Forum will be held:

Saturday, Jan. 12, 2008
4:00 - 6:00PM
Pennsylvania Convention Center, room 204 A/B
The event will be also available via SPARC Podcast at a later date.

Speakers include:

* Andre Brown, PhD student in Physics and Astronomy at the 
University of Pennsylvania and co-blogger for Biocurious

* Kimberly Douglas, University Librarian, California Institute of 
Technology

* Nelson Pavlosky, Law student at George Mason University and 
co-founder of Students for Freeculture

* Stephanie Wang, graduate student in Economics at Princeton 
University and former National Coordinating Committee member, 
Universities Allied for Essential Medicines

The forum is followed by the ACRL Scholarly Communication 
Discussion Group, where there will be an open discussion of key 
issues that surface at the forum. The Discussion Group will be 
held Sunday, Jan. 13, from 4:00 - 6:00PM at the Marriott 
Philadelphia, room Franklin 11.

For more information, visit the SPARC Web site at
http://www.arl.org/sparc/forum.

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