DIS E-Publishing Summer School 15-26 June 2009

(in association with Pratt School of Information and Library Studies, New York)

(Programme details)

DIS (the Department of Information Studies) and the Centre for Publishing are proud to announce the latest in a continuing series of summer school programmes on e-publishing in collaboration with Pratt SILS, originally devised primarily for students at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science in Manhattan.

The school will run from 15-26 June and will include as its final two days attendance at the 3nd Bloomsbury Conference on E-Publishing and E-Publications (BEYOND BOOKS AND JOURNALS).

Although the school was originally developed specifically to cater for the needs of Pratt students, who make up the majority of the students on the school, and to students from the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee, it is open to all, and applications for attendance from others regardless of affiliation are welcomed. For further programme information, fee information or to register your interest please email Kerstin Michaels at o.manager@ucl.ac.uk


The course and the conference are organised by Andy Dawson and Anthony Watkinson of DIS and CfP working collaboratively with Tula Giannini, Dean of Pratt-SILS, Carol Tenopir, Director of the Center for Information and Communication Studies at UT, and with teaching input from senior staff of DIS and also the Library of UCL.

The school is essentially a repeat of the highly successful courses of 2007 and 2008 which received top evaluations from the students.

University College London has been ranked (Shanghai analysis) as the fourth most important institution of higher education in Europe and is known as "London’s global university". DIS is the top-ranked library school in the UK and the new Centre for Publishing is research intensive with its emphasis on bringing an evidence base to publishing studies being reflected in this course.

The Pratt-SILS and other students will be given both an understanding of how publishing is responding to the potential of and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by the Internet and also provided with an international perspective in comprehending these developments. The School will be primarily concerned with the commercial content-related products and services that impinge on the academic librarian, which in practice means e-journals, e-books, and database offerings. The emphasis will be on e-journals because of the impact that the development of e-journals and the way they are sold has in academic libraries. There will however be also be a recognition that the whole concept of publication may be changing and that in any case new players and new ways of formal scholarly communication are now emerging including, for example, libraries as de facto publishers. The Centre for Publishing has taken advantage of its range of connections with major publishers and related organisations and we are grateful for the co-operation of a range of major players. There will also be a visit to BioMedCentral and a presentation on UK PMC and some presentations on both digitisation and e-repositories. Because the communication practices in science and medicine have been so well served by e-offerings there is a conscious attempt to lay as much weight as is possible on the different practices and the different e-experience in the humanities and social sciences. There will be presentations of major products/services such as Oxford Scholarship Online and the World of Science but the emphasis will be on the generic, on common aspects of e-offerings. It is intended that the purpose and aims of the vendor will be understood but at the same time the needs and expectations of the librarian and the users of the digital library will be fully represented.

All presentations, whether at UCL or on visits, will leave time for questions and interaction and students will be asked to make presentations on appropriate topics. The ambience will be informal but at the same time conducive to a serious learning experience.

The course will conclude with a two-day conference. This is the Third Bloomsbury Conference on E-Publishing and E-Publications and is entitled BEYOND BOOKS AND JOURNALS. Further information about the conference can be found at its website which will be updated as speakers confirm. The conference promises to be once again a central event for librarians, publishers and all those concerned with the future of scholarship in the digital environment.


We look forward to welcoming you to DIS and UCL for the Summer School in June!