Call for articles: Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century.
What has been the response of Caribbean libraries to the changes, challenges and choices in the 21st century information environment? Changes as evidenced by the unprecedented growth of information and communication technologies and the myriad of formats now available for storing and retrieving information. Challenges in the form of budget cuts; shrinking resources; re-training of staff and the need to deliver traditional and innovative services to a technology savvy consumer.
Have Caribbean libraries made the right and sometime obvious choices in this complex information environment? Have they opted to harness and integrate new technologies into library services thus ensuring their viability and continued existence? Have they become complacent, creating a vacuum to be filled by new and aggressive competitors in the information arena such as online search engines? Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century: Changes,
Challenges and Choices is a unique collection of essays, which will provide answers to these questions and much more.
Cheryl Peltier-Davis (Librarian, Western Washington University, USA) and I are collaborating (as editors) on publishing a book on Caribbean Libraries entitled "Caribbean Libraries in the 21st Century: Changes, Challenges and Choices - a Collection of Selected Articles". The book will be published by Information Today. Publication date is tentatively set as Aug 2007. It will
be peer-reviewed by a panel of regional and international reviewers.
A call for articles is posted at URL:
http://ttemail.com/~srenwick/default.htm .
Please have a look at the web page and note deadlines, especially the one for submission of a 1-2 page proposal by October 15, 2005. Selection of articles for inclusion in the book will be based on these proposals.
Shamin Renwick (Mrs)
Librarian III
Multimedia and Information Technology Unit
Medical Sciences Library
The University of the West Indies
Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex
Champs Fleurs
Trinidad and Tobago
Tel: 868-645-4673 ext 5253
Fax: 868-662-1392
srenwick@library.uwi.tt
To be published by Information Today by Aug 2007
