Middle East Libraries Symposium held at AUS

The opening of the Middle East Libraries Symposium was held today at American University of Sharjah (AUS). The two-day event, held in partnership by AUS and ProQuest, will bring together senior leaders from the academic library market with key representatives from leading Middle East universities discussing knowledge and information strategies as well as resources for academics and their institutions.

Speakers from around the world will discuss a variety of key topics linked to emerging research trends and library management.

"It gives us great pleasure to co-host the Middle East Academic Libraries Symposium," said Dr. Thomas Hochstettler, Acting Chancellor of AUS, speaking on the occasion. "As an institution of higher education, research is at the top of our list of priorities. We are very proud that our state-of-the-art library is among the finest in the region and reflects our commitment to quality research and development."

Michael Gersch, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience at ProQuest said, "As a proud partner to academic libraries across the Middle East, ProQuest is delighted to be co-hosting with American University of Sharjah the Middle East Academic Libraries Symposium. This event has been created to bring together key inspirational speakers from across the globe to discuss with delegates from the Middle East trends and topics which will lead to the exploration of options to assist in building robust strategies for their institutions."

Delegates from across the Middle East-including Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Algeria, Kuwait and the UAE- are attending the event.

Robin Bew, Managing Director of the Economist Intelligence Unit, opened the conference. Bew discussed what role education and research play in the economic development process within these countries and what opportunities the knowledge and digital economy provides.

Other key topics for the event include: issues and challenges surrounding library management, delivered by John McDonald from Claremont University Consortia and Jane Burke from ProQuest; ebook strategy for building collections and framework models, delivered by Lorraine Estelle, JISC, and Kari Paulson, ProQuest; and digital collection management and digital preservation, delivered by Jeff Garrett, Northwestern University and Stephen Brooks from ProQuest.