nov08b.indd


conference circuit 
Scott Vine 

Libraries in the Digital Age 
A report from the 2008 conference 

From June 2 to 6, 2008, 142 librarians, academics, and students from Europe, 
North America, and Asia came together in the 
City of Dubrovnik and on the island of Mjlet, 
Croatia, for the ninth Libraries in the Digital 
Age (LIDA) conference. This annual confer­
ence examines the environment for library 
and information systems and services in the 
digital world, looking specifically at current 
advances, problems, and 
solutions. 

This year’s tracks were 
“Reference in Digital Envi­
ronments” and “Education 
and Training in/for Digi­
tal Libraries,” the former 
chaired by Marie Radford 
(Rutgers University), and 
the latter by Jeffrey Pomer­
antz (University of North 
Carolina) and Anna Maria 
Tommaro (University of 
Parma­Italy). 

For the first three days, 
participants met at the 
Inter­University Center 
just outside Dubrovnik’s 
old city, and the last two 
days at the Hotel Odisej on 
Mjlet. These locations provided memorable 
settings for the multiple daily sessions, dem­
onstrations, discussions, and social gatherings 
that made up this close­knit conference. 

The LIDA codirectors, Tefko Saracevic 
(Rutgers University) and Tatjana Aparac­
Jelusic (University of Zadar), opened the 
conference by reviewing LIDA’s short his­
tory, and the longer history of its topics. 
They explained how LIDA aims to examine 

A look at Dubrovnik, site of this year’s 
LIDA conference. 

not only what goes on in libraries, but what 
goes on far above and outside them, and 
posited that when going digital, libraries 
aren’t abandoning traditional principles, but 
developing new ones. Paolo Galluzi (director 
of the National Institute and Museum of the 
History of Science in Florence) argued for 
disposing the distinction between digital and 
nondigital libraries, preferring to speak of a 

hybrid library, and using 
his organization’s work on 
making the documents and 
artifacts of Galileo avail­
able online as an example. 
Radford introduced the 
reference track, remind­
ing us that while offering 
these services we must try 
to overcome generational 
differences by looking to 
our users’ service prefer­
ences and by working to 
exude a sense of readiness 
and ability. 

The reference track 
was full of such sugges­
tions; Kathleen Kern, Helle 
Lauridsen, and Caleb Tuck­
er­Raymond all stressed, 

from academic, vendor, and public library 
perspectives, the role of the user in deter­
mining digital library services. Radford and 
Lynn Connaway (OCLC) shared results from 
their extensive research on virtual reference 
users, and demonstrations of collaborative 

Scott Vine is reference services librarian at Franklin and 
Marshall College, e-mail: scott.vine@fandm.edu 
© 2008 Scott Vine 

C&RL News November 2008  618 

mailto:scott.vine@fandm.edu


reference, digital content, and technologies 
from academic and public libraries in Sin­
gapore and Croatia were offered. This track 
continued over the second and third days of 
the conference with speakers from the United 
States, Slovenia, Greece, France, the United 
Kingdom, Austria, and Ireland. There was no 
shortage of approaches to digital reference, 
from practical tips for implementation and 
case studies of successful use, to theoretical 
talks on guiding users’ information­seeking 
behavior. 

The preservation and dissemination of cul­
tural heritage was demonstrated by Manfred 
Mayer (University of Graz) via the Traveler’s 
Conservation Copy Stand, 
a fully portable scanner 
that allows a librarian 
to travel with fragile or 
highly valuable mate­
rials and digitize them 
without further damage. 
This kind of work was 
put into context during 
tours of Dubrovnik’s 
Franciscan Monastery 
and Research Library, 
and the Dubrovnik City 
Archives, both of which 
contain many invaluable 
and highly fragile texts 
currently accessible only 
to the cultural and literary 
researchers able to come 
to them. One explicit 
need for digital preserva­
tion was revealed when the archives guide 
explained that since the breakup of Yugosla­
via in the early 1990s, the majority of the city’s 
collections remain in storage in a fort outside 
the city, without climate control. 

A highlight of the early part of the second 
track was a talk given by Gregory Crane, a 
classicist from Tufts University. Crane is also 
the director of a major grant from the Digital 
Libraries Initiative intended to examine the 
problems surrounding digital libraries and the 
humanities. He offered an entertaining and 
informative walk through the issues surround­

LIDA conference attendees chat before 
a session. 

ing language and digital libraries, from the 
concept of memes (“the cultural equivalent of 
a gene”), to Plato’s challenge in the Phaedrus 
concerning writing, to the possible uses for 
rexa.info—a new search engine covering 
research in computer science, among other 
fields. He pointed out (and this was echoed 
by other speakers) that many of the people 
working to create new digital collections 
aren’t themselves librarians, but specialists 
like himself in various academic fi elds, who 
may or may not work with libraries on their 
digitization projects; he called for digital 
library educators to do more to train their 
students for this work. 

Thanks to the excel­
lent organization of the 
conference, LIDA partici­
pants were able to catch 
an early ferry from Port 
Gruz, near Dubrovnik, 
to the island of Mjlet, 
where the latter part of 
the conference was held. 
The education track con­
tinued with discussion 
based on presentations 
regarding the teaching 
of digital libraries by 
educators and practi­
tioners from Sweden, 
Lithuania, Spain and Ger­
many, among others. The 
conference’s Guest of 
Honor, Peter Ingwersen 
from the Royal School of 

Library and Information Science in Denmark, 
provided a detailed framework for research 
(and teaching) in information retrieval. 

In an invited talk, Tefko Saracevic exam­
ined the general groundwork for a graduate 
course on digital libraries, making the point 
that any teacher should be able to answer 
easily a few basic questions about his or her 
class. Why teach it? What is being taught? 
How is it being taught? He also shared a story 
of primitive preservation technology, telling 
how in Mesopotamia (present day Iraq) two 
copies of each clay tablet would be created, 

November 2008  619 C&RL News 



one baked, and one unbaked. This was done 
to guard against the two major natural threats 
of the time—fire and flood. In a fire, the un­
baked copy would survive, and after a fl ood, 
the baked would remain. This, he speculated, 
perhaps compares favorably to our day, when 
we have created history’s fastest growing, yet 
least persistent technology—the Web. 

The last day featured a PhD forum spon­
sored by the American Society for Information 
Science and Technology, with graduate stu­
dent presentations from Estonia, the United 
States. and Canada, along with smaller poster 
sessions from presenters from all over the 
world. Invited speaker Anna Maria Tammaro 
introduced quality models and some core 
values for digital librarianship and its teaching 
designed to reach across cultures, forming an 
international basis for the fi eld. 

And in a session designed to introduce 
one of the central topics for LIDA 2009, 
Natasa Milic­Frayling from Microsoft Re­
search, UK, attempted to describe how the 
continued existence of libraries and librar­
ians involves a willingness to redefi ne our 
roles and practices. She examined our urge 
to preserve, showing how humanity has al­
ways produced knowledge, ideas and data, 
and then attempted to preserve it. We now 
produce more information and media than 
ever, and she asked that, given the expense 
of digital preservation, we think about why 

we want to preserve such a large percentage 
of it. Choosing cultural priorities and decid­
ing on questions of relevance are volatile 
issues, and according to Milic­Frayling, may 
be aspects of the future of librarianship. She 
offered the example of a particular Leonardo 
da Vinci codex, one copy of which resides 
in the British Library, with the other owned 
by Microsoft. When Italy wants to reacquire 
this piece of its cultural heritage, who decides 
how that happens or which organization 
should relinquish their copy? 

Questions of this sort related to aspects of 
both conference tracks filled the talks given 
at this effective and thought­provoking fi ve­
day gathering, and attempts at answers were 
generated in formal and informal discussion 
alike. One of the strengths of LIDA 2008 (and 
every other year, I would imagine) was the 
close proximity of all its participants, allowing 
these conversations to move from the meeting 
rooms to coffee to the lovely stone streets of 
Dubrovnik and the restaurants of Mjlet. 

The 2009 version of LIDA, its tenth anni­
versary, will be held in Dubrovnik and Zadar, 
Croatia, and will feature two different themes: 
“Heritage and Digital Libraries: Digitization, 
Preservation and Access” and “Refl ections: 
Changes Brought By and in Digital Libraries in 
the Last Decade.” After this tenth conference, 
planned for May 25–30, 2009, it is intended for 
LIDA to become a biannual gathering. 

(“Your cultural fantasy” cont. from page 605) 

drop­in class in the style of their choice at the 
wide variety of dance studios in town. How 
about dropping by Velocity Dance Studio on 
Seattle’s Capital Hill for a hip­hop class? The 
teachers are smart, savvy, and rockin’, and 
the drop­in format makes the environment 
welcoming and, should one’s expertise re­
quire, forgiving. 

Understanding the wealth of cultural op­
portunities that Seattle has to offer necessitates 
that one recognize the pattern that has been 
established by the community of artists and 
their audiences. Seattle respects the next 
generation of artists by fostering environments 
where new artists can get their work shown, 

by supporting the training of future artists, 
and by maintaining an open mind toward 
authentic cultural diversity. And Seattle’s artis­
tic community actively seeks ways to engage 
their audiences beyond the performances by 
offering education, dialogue, and exposure 
to artists and their work. 

So, it isn’t just your imagination. No need to 
fantasize about the perfect season of cultural 
events. One needn’t enter a realm of purple 
haze, dreaming about how all the artistic disci­
plines can work together to inspire, enlighten, 
and engage. It can all happen in Seattle. Oh, 
yes. Speaking of purple haze, did we mention 
that Jimi Hendrix comes from Seattle? 

C&RL News November 2008  620