IMCW2013: The “4th International Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World” will take place at the Strand Hotel (http://www.strandhotellimerick.ie/) in Limerick, Ireland, from September 4-6, 2013.
Cloud computing has transformed the ways in which both individuals and enterprises make use of IT services and network infrastructure within the last decade. Everything including infrastructure, platforms, applications, software, data, and communication is now seen “as a service”. Information, the life-blood of scientific progress, economic growth and social development, is mostly produced, disseminated, used, shared and re-used in digital formats nowadays. Science, industry and business enterprises tend to become “information” enterprises in that even “money” as matter gets converted to “bits” so as to be stored digitally in computers and transmitted as “information” over the network. Enterprises have tended to spend well over 70% of their time and money to support the information technologies (IT) and network infrastructure. Now they embrace cloud-based services to manage information more efficiently and effectively. As information managers we must now look Beyond the Cloud, collaborate in order to innovate and inspire while trying to predict what the future holds.
Using cloud-based services increases efficiency, provides cost savings, and enables “collective intelligence” to flourish. Not-for-profit memory instutions such as libraries, archives, and museums are also making use of cloud-based services. To name a few, OCLC’s WorldCat, HathiTrust, OAISTER, and Europeana are providing web scale discovery services and aggregated data repositories accessible through the Net. Yet, information organizations and memory institutions should go beyond the cloud-based services to reap the full benefits of the digital age.
MAIN THEME
“Beyond the Cloud: Information…Innovation…Collaboration…” being the main theme of the Symposium, IMCW2013 aims to bring together information professionals, computer and information scientists, business people and engineers to discuss the implications of cloud computing on information management and to contemplate on how to design and develop innovative and collaborative information services beyond the cloud. As organizers, we thought this is an opportune time for IMCW2013 to review the challenges for information organizations, libraries, archives and museums providing information services in the digital age. Such challenges range from developing useful services and workflows embedded in users’ work and study environments to benefitting from economies of scale by pooling resources, eliminating redundancies and innovating through collaboration.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Contributions can be theoretical as well as technical and practical. Informative case studies are also welcome. The audience will be information professionals, librarians, archivists, computer and information scientists, and business people, among others.
We accept extended abstracts (no less than 750 words) for full papers; short communications, Research in Progress reports and posters on all aspects of innovative and collaborative information management. Extended abstracts for student papers and posters are also welcome. Extended abstracts of PhD students to present the interim findings of their ongoing research will also be considered. Please use the template available on the Symposium web site to prepare your contributions and send them to us using the Conference Management Software (openconf) by March 4, 2013.
We also accept proposals to organize workshops, panel sessions and short visual presentations (“pecha kucha”). Proposals should include a title, a short abstract, proposal type (eg, workshop), the name and contact information of the convener (for sessions and pecha kucha) and be addressed to imcw@bilgiyonetimi.net by March 14, 2013.
Accepted extended abstracts and proposals will appear in the “Book of Abstracts” to be published prior to the Symposium.
Accepted extended abstracts may be developed as full papers by May 27, 2013. A short list of papers will be selected so that the revised and extended versions of these papers and posters will appear in the proceedings book to be published by Springer under its Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) series and the Symposium web site (decision pending). Papers that appear in Springer’s CCIS series are indexed in Thomson Reuter’s Conference Proceedings Citation Index.