Dear LIS Professionals, Karnataka State Library Association (KALA) is happy to invite you to the Monthly Lecture Series. The first talk of the series has been scheduled on Tuesday 1st Feb 2011 @ 6.00pm at the following Address: Sarada Ranganathan Endowment for Library Science (SRELS) # 702, 'Upstairs', 42nd Cross, III Block Rajajinagar, Bangalore - 560 010 Title: Digital Environment: Users Empowered and Librarians Deserted Abstract: Digital world is characterized by user empowerment, content boom, democratization of information, nomadic nature of users, image-based (content) society etc. Huge number of users of libraries has migrated to digital world and the existing knowledge of librarians does not reflect truly the needs and behaviour of digital information users. Digital world has provided a great opportunity to those who wish to understand digital information users in terms of log data of what users have done (as against what users say in legacy studies). Digital environment also has certain inherent threats like dehumanization while excessively emphasizing speed and access, disintermediation/ user-enabling logic, too many complex strategies, multitude of choice and so on. The talk tries to explore the environment to determine what kind of understanding of digital information users is required and through what methodology. Citing the results and findings of selected recent studies discusses values, needs and behaviour of digital information users vis-à-vis exploring whether user-empowerment has isolated and deserted librarians and what kind of strategies like 'embedded librarianship', 'invisible librarian', 'repositioning' or 're-orientation' can save and be more effective in facing the challenges of digital world. The talk also cover the below mentioned items. 1. Features of digital content 2. Characteristics of digital era 3. Need for digital information user studies 4. What to understand? 5. Digital environment: implications, Opportunities and Threats 6. Some findings and results 7. Repositioning alternatives 8. Conclusion: some implications on librarians About Speaker: Dr. M S Sridhar is a post-graduate in mathematics and management and a doctorate in library and information science with over 36 years of experience in different capacities in three premiere institutions in Bangalore, namely, ISRO Satellite Centre, Indian Institute of Management (IIMB) and National Aeronautical Laboratory (NAL). He was heading the Library and Documentation Division of ISRO Satellite Centre for over 30 years till retirement in February 2009. He has published 4 books, contributed 5 chapters to books, over 100 research papers (including 45 in Kannada), 47 conference & seminar presentations and 25 course materials to MPhil, MLISc and BLISc courses. A short profile and publications can be accessed from: 1. http://www.scribd.com/people/view/75039-m-s-sridhar 2. http://www.scribd.com/doc/16996353/List-of-Publications-of-Dr-M-S-Sridhar. Please confirm your participation. Thanks and Regards, Rajendra Babu H General Secretary Karnataka State Library Association (KALA) The information in this email is confidential and is intended solely for the addressee(s). Access to this email by anyone else is unauthorized. If you are not an intended recipient, please notify the sender of this email immediately. You should not copy, use or disseminate the information contained in the email. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Capco. http://www.capco.com/ -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.