Amsterdam, 28 April, 2010 – Elsevier, the world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and LIBER, the Association of European Research Libraries, announced today the winners of the first-annual LIBER Award for Library Innovation. Awards will be presented at the 2010 LIBER Annual Conference in Aarhus, Denmark on 29 June, 2010 (http://www.liber2010.eu).
Sponsored by Elsevier and with winners selected by the Programme Committee of the LIBER Annual Conference 2010, the award is designed to recognize innovative work with the potential to impact the wider library community. The winners will present their papers during the conference, and their registration, travelling and accommodation expenses will be covered by a grant provided by Elsevier.
This year's inaugural award is related to the overall theme of the LIBER Annual conference: "Re-inventing the Library: Challenges in the New Information Environment," and the winners include:
- Ana van Meegen Silva & Imke Limpens: "How serious do we need to be? Improving information literacy skills through gaming and interactive elements"
- Graham Stone: "Searching life, the universe and everything? The implementation of Summon at the University of Huddersfield"
- Jani Sassali: "TOR - Toolbox of Research Information Literacy guidance"
"We look forward to personally congratulating the winners for their innovative work," said Rafael Sidi, Vice President of Product Development at Elsevier, who will present the award at the conference. "At the center of scientific information exchange, librarians are best positioned to lead the charge in ushering in the next era in knowledge management. We are honoured to have the opportunity to support LIBER in recognizing these significant contributions to the library community."
"We are excited to be able to acknowledge the groundbreaking work of this year's winners as it offers important insight to librarians across the globe," said Paul Ayris, Vice-President of LIBER and Chair of the Programme Committee. "As a supporter of LIBER, Elsevier shares our goals of fostering strong library leadership and we thank them for playing an important role in making this new award possible."
About LIBER
The Stichting LIBER Foundation (Stichting LIBER) is the principal association of the major research libraries of Europe. It was founded as an association in 1971 under the auspices of the Council of Europe and became a foundation under Dutch law in 2009. Its current membership includes over 400 research libraries from more than forty countries, mainly in Europe. Its overall aim is to assist research libraries in Europe to support a functional network across national boundaries in order to ensure the preservation of the European cultural heritage, to improve the access to collections in European research libraries, and to provide more efficient information services in Europe. LIBER actively promotes co-operation with all library-related organizations; it has strong links with the Council of Europe, the Commission of the European Communities (CEC), SPARC Europe and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), as well as with national library associations. LIBER has been involved in several projects such as Europeana, Europeana Travel and DART Europe. LIBER has excellent relations with the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) in the United States and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL).
About Elsevier
Elsevier is a world-leading publisher of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including the Lancet (www.thelancet.com) and Cell (www.cell.com), and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier's online solutions include ScienceDirect (www.sciencedirect.com), Scopus (www.scopus.com), Reaxys (www.reaxys.com), MD Consult (www.mdconsult.com) and Nursing Consult (www.nursingconsult.com), which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite (www.scival.com) and MEDai's Pinpoint Review (www.medai.com), which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.
A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier (www.elsevier.com) employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC (www.reedelsevier.com), a world-leading publisher and information provider. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).