[Asis-l] CFP: Library Trends -- Digital Knowledge

[Paul Marty]

CALL FOR PAPERS -- LIBRARY TRENDS

The editors of Library Trends are pleased to announce plans for a  
special issue titled "Involving Users in the Co-Construction of  
Digital Knowledge in Libraries, Archives, and Museums."

This special issue will be guest edited by Drs. Paul F. Marty and  
Michelle M. Kazmer, College of Communication and Information, Florida  
State University, with Dr. Corinne Jorgensen (Florida State  
University), Katherine Burton Jones (Harvard Divinity School), and  
Richard J. Urban (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).


DESCRIPTION

Many libraries, archives, and museums provide their users with social  
computing environments that include the ability to tag collections,  
annotate objects, and otherwise contribute their thoughts to the  
knowledge base of the institution. Information professionals and users  
have responded to the transition to a web 2.0 world of user-created  
content by developing open source tools to coordinate these activities  
and researching the best ways to involve users in the co-creation of  
digital knowledge.

This rapid influx of new technologies and new methods of interacting  
with users has come at a time when libraries, archives, and museums  
still struggle to share data across their own institutions, let alone  
between different types of institutions. Information professionals in  
libraries, archives, and museums had barely begun to make progress  
developing crosswalks and data interoperability standards when, as  
social computing became the norm on the web, providing the ability for  
users to manipulate data changed from a cool toy to a basic  
expectation. Moving forward -- and keeping pace with user expectations  
-- requires the coordination of many different users (in all their  
variety) as they contribute, participate, shape, and create all types  
of data in all types of contexts.

We need to consider what social computing really means for the future  
of libraries, archives, and museums, and think carefully about the  
future trends and long-term implications of involving users in the co- 
construction of knowledge online. It is important to have broad-based  
discussions about what happens when users are involved in shaping and  
directing and guiding the development of online libraries, archives,  
and museums and their information resources.

For this issue of Library Trends, therefore, we seek authors who can  
step back and think broadly about those issues that are raised when we  
bring users into the mix in various ways and at various points in the  
data/information/knowledge life-cycle. We are interested in receiving  
high-level theory pieces, supported by research data of course, but  
with a focus on the long-term trends involved and their implications  
for libraries, archives, and museums. In particular, we are looking  
for papers that explore the future trends and long-term implications  
of the many different ways in which information professionals in  
libraries, archives, and museums have, can, and should involve their  
users in the co-construction of digital knowledge based on their  
online collections.

Sample questions include, but are certainly not limited to:

* How are libraries, archives, and museums implementing user- 
contributed data / descriptions of artifacts, objects, or collections  
on their websites? What are the long-term implications of involving  
users in the co-description, co-cataloguing of digital knowledge?

* How are libraries, archives, and museums encouraging users to create  
online collections of personal favorites or similar items on their  
websites? What are the long-term implications of involving users in  
the co-creation, co-curation of digital knowledge?

* How are libraries, archives, and museums encouraging users to  
create / structure their own online environments, designing  
personalized websites or portals specifically suited to individual  
needs? What are the implications of involving users in the design and  
structuring of online interfaces for the development and presentation  
of digital knowledge?

* How is the education of library, archives, and museum practitioners  
(and in particular the increase in online and hybrid learning  
technologies) influencing the ways practitioners subsequently  
incorporate technology into their user service environments in  
libraries, archives, and museums?


IMPORTANT DATES

  * Optional Abstract: December 1, 2009 (see below)

  * Submission Deadline: March 1, 2010

  * Review Decisions: May 15, 2010 (all submissions will be peer- 
reviewed)

  * Final Versions Due: July 15, 2010

  * Publication: Early 2011


SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

All submissions should be emailed directly to Paul Marty at marty at fsu.edu 
  or Michelle Kazmer at mkazmer at fsu.edu.

For formatting instructions, please see the Library Trends Author  
Guidelines available here:
http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/guidelines.html

If you wish, you may submit an optional abstract (by email to Paul  
Marty at marty at fsu.edu or Michelle Kazmer at mkazmer at fsu.edu) for  
feedback by December 1, 2009.

If you have any questions about the special issue, please contact Paul  
Marty at marty at fsu.edu or Michelle Kazmer at mkazmer at fsu.edu.

For more information about Library Trends, please see: http://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/library_trends/

A PDF version of this CFP is available at: http://marty.ci.fsu.edu/misc/cfp_librarytrends.pdf


--------------
Paul F. Marty, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, School of Library and Information Studies
College of Communication and Information, Florida State University
240 Louis Shores Building, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2100
http://marty.ci.fsu.edu | marty at fsu.edu