The 152nd ARL Membership Meeting will be held May 20–23, 2008, at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. ARL President Marianne Gaunt, University Librarian, Rutgers University Libraries, developed the program for this Membership Meeting to explore some of the ways that research institutions are encouraging and supporting innovative e-scholarship within and across disciplines. ARL hopes that this meeting will promote the development of leadership capacities that support change in library roles within the broader research and higher education communities.
The program invites experts to share in-depth content and experience on a few key trends that will affect library roles and priorities. To encourage learning and focus discussion on areas of greatest interest to the ARL community, the schedule includes regular opportunities for the audience to interact with speakers and colleagues.
NASULGC President Peter McPherson will open the program on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 21, with remarks on the challenges research institutions face as they seek to support new methods of research and e-scholarship. He will also discuss opportunities for creative responses.
The program continues Thursday morning, May 22, with experts providing a more detailed examination of three dimensions of this complex and exciting new environment:
distinct disciplinary practices in the life cycle stages of scholarship and implications for the information infrastructure requirements;
assessing quality in new forms of scholarship and scholarly inquiry; and
institutional policies and practices affecting the use and re-use of scientific data in a semantic Web environment.
Thursday afternoon features presentations and discussions with researchers and librarians involved in collaborative efforts to support e-research.
The program concludes Friday morning, May 23, with a plenary session focused on open source strategies in academic institutions, followed by concurrent discussions.
A Library of Congress (LC) working group recently released a report examining the future of bibliographic control in the 21st century. At a breakfast briefing on Friday, Deanna Marcum, Associate Librarian for Library Services, Library of Congress, and two of the ARL representatives to the working group—Judith Nadler, Library Director, University of Chicago, and Brian E. C. Schottlaender, Audrey Geisel University Librarian, University of California, San Diego—will provide an overview of the key findings of the report. They will address LC’s response as well as how research libraries are affected by and might address the report’s recommendations locally.
The ARL Business Meeting on Thursday morning is for member representatives only. The ARL President, selected committee chairs, and the ARL Executive Director will present reports. There will also be time for member representatives to raise topics for discussion with colleagues.
By policy, ARL committee, task force, and working group meetings are open to any ARL member representatives, or their alternates, who wish to attend as observers. Guests are also invited to attend these meetings, with the understanding that these are working—rather than programmatic—sessions.
All member representatives and guests are invited to participate in small-group concurrent discussions that are planned for each afternoon. Early Wednesday afternoon, each of ARL’s three Strategic Direction Steering Committees has identified an issue that warrants a briefing and discussion. On Thursday and Friday afternoons, concurrent discussions will be held on topics related to the overall program theme and on other issues of current interest.
Lunch will be available on Wednesday and Thursday. On Wednesday, box lunches will be available beginning at 11:30 a.m.; a room without a speaker will be available for those who want to have a lunch conversation with colleagues. On Thursday, lunch will be served and followed by John Wilbanks, Executive Director, Science Commons, speaking on “Institutional Libraries: Hubs of the Research Web.”
Three receptions are planned. The ARL Board of Directors is hosting a reception at the hotel on Tuesday evening, May 20. On Wednesday, Dean of University of Miami Libraries Bill Walker and University President Donna Shalala are hosting a Cuban evening (reception and dinner) at the President’s residence in Coral Gables. On Thursday evening, the libraries of Florida State University and the University of Florida, along with ARL, are co-hosting a reception in honor of retiring ARL Executive Director Duane Webster.
On Friday afternoon, the University of Miami Libraries will host interested meeting participants for a box lunch and tour of the libraries and campus. Transportation to and from the hotel will be available. Advance sign-up for this tour is required.
Please note that the ARL meeting adjournment date is the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend. Over the Memorial Day weekend, Miami is host to the Urban Beach Weekend, self-described as the "largest Urban Festival in the world that caters toward the Hip Hop Generation. Around 300,000-350,000 participants make the annual trek to South Beach." We recommend that you avoid making beach plans for that weekend due to the massive congestion caused by this event.
The ARL Membership Meeting will be held at the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Avenue, in Coral Gables, Florida. The Biltmore is a 150-acre Mediterranean-style resort. It was opened in 1926 and the hotel is designated a National Historic Landmark. The nearby airport is the Miami International Airport. The cut-off date for securing hotel reservations at the ARL rate of $219 is Friday, April 18, 2008. Reservations made after that date will be on a space-available basis.
Please make your hotel reservations by calling the Biltmore Hotel toll free 800-727-1926 or 305-445-1926 and asking for the Association of Research Libraries room block. You may also book your reservations online at http://www.biltmorehotel.com/. The guest must enter the group code 9874 and the authorization code 01474 to enter the ARL sleeping room block.
Please respond to ARL via the Web registration Attendance Questionnaire by April 18 to help us verify attendance and plan the meeting. If you have any questions about arrangements for the meeting, please contact Mary Jane Brooks, ARL Executive Officer, maryjane@arl.org.