The Annual Conference and Exhibition of Special Libraries Association to be held in Abu Dhabi next March

The 21^st Annual Conference and Exhibition of Special Libraries Association/ Arabian Gulf Chapter, will be held and organized in Abu Dhabi under the title: The Internet and the Positive Change to Librarians and Information Professionals: Creating Real Future Impact, from 17^th-19^th of March, 2015. The Conference will focus on issues related to the knowledge society, such as digital citizenship and the role of professionals, as they are considered the initiators, professional identity holders, and knowledge guards.

The main objective of this Conference is to focus on practical knowledge and ideas-sharing, rather than merely presenting papers, and therefore, the gathering aims to provide an opportunity for participants to contribute to the understanding of the fact that change is not the end in itself, but is a continuous process, so that librarians and specialized information professionals believe that making the technical change and Internet applications in their organizations is an indisputable outcome of the environmental development around them, and they often express their sympathy and their intellectual attitude to it according to the current market information; if things change, they are obliged to change for survival and in response to the needs of the users of their services, who are turning to digital citizens (preferring to communicate over the internet through the tiny mobile power that responds to information- smart phones).

The dialogue sessions includes several topics including talking about information specialists and the culture of entrepreneurship, where speakers will discuss the best international experiences and practices in the field of informatics entrepreneurship, and how to qualify a generation of specialists who have mastered the competitive skills which will enable them to face the competitors in the informatics market. The sessions also reviews the return on investment in libraries, as it is used today as a criterion for the cost of investment in the profession and the output obtained by the beneficiaries or the parent institution or shareholders. The sessions also address the key performance indicators for libraries to measure the extent of success achieved by those libraries in the digital age by focusing on quality goals of achieving their strategic performance, and the relationship between the information specialist and publishers will be discussed, because improving the channels of communication between them and their integration will better help to stay in the lead with the constant winds of change. As for the prominent role of technology in libraries, the main objective of this session is firstly to explain how researchers, librarians and information specialists can establish collaborative partnerships that aim to promote research and education in a complex digital environment, and secondly, how libraries and information institutions can update their methods of providing services through the adoption of innovative methods in providing services and supporting research and education, and the adoption of technological change in the digital environment.

The deadline of submitting the abstracts is 1/9/2014, and the response of acceptance is on 15/9/2014, while the deadline of receiving full papers is 1/12/2014, and the response of acceptance is on 15/12/2014.