The Invisible Web Weblog

I was in Kerman recently to attend a conference on medical librarianship and also to run a workshop about "Information Literacy Skills for Medical Students". A number of librarians from different medical libraries attended the workshop. I focused on the importance of IL in medicine and how we can teach medical students to enhance their IL skills. Moreover, we reviewed a number of medical databases and specialized search tools in life sciences.

The current week is the book week in Iran and some conferences, exhibitions and ceremonies are being held in different parts of the country. I have been involved in some of these activities. For example, I delivered a speech at the National Library for new LIS students form different universities in Tehran about my experience of ten years exploration in LIS. I talked about top ten reasons that I like this field; top ten areas of work for LIS students in future, top ten features of a successful librarian, top ten reasons of LIS progress in Iran and finally ten pieces of advice for them. I also made another speech today about the educational role of librarians in developing the research skills of students.

I attended a conference called "Thesauri and their Applications in Electronic Environments" in Qom on last Thursday. I was one of the referees and a member of the conference's scientific committee. I'll write a report about the conference later on. Among all useful things that I learned on that day, Professor Horri's idea about ontology is notable here. He mentioned what we call "ontology" is in fact "ontography" because we develop different ontologies based on our perception of the them which is not necessarily compatible with what they really are.

I think one of the most fascinating features of LIS (Library and Information Science) is its interdisciplinary nature. After a decade studying, working and researching in LIS I would say this subject is truly interdisciplinary and this makes it so exciting for me. While we use the theoretical frameworks in social sciences we utilize the technological facilities in computer science. The wide breadth of this interdisciplinary subject provides us with plenty of opportunities for further research and innovation. If you just have a quick look at the research papers in some of the core journals of LIS, you will confirm this reality.

LILAC 2008 (The Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) will take place at Liverpool John Moores University, 17th - 19th March 2008.

It seems the 3D virtual world of Second Life is becoming more popular recently. Regarding my personal interest to distance learning in general and to e-learning in particular, I think SL can provide both teachers and learners with great opportunities to enhance their learning activities. Also, I heard that librarians are among the active groups in SL. I read somewhere that even a virtual reference desk in SL is staffed by a group of real life volunteer librarians for several hours per week. They also hold some workshops out there to assist other librarians and educators to learn more about SL.

In one of the postgraduate modules that I teach in this semester I am trying to explore the concept of e-learning from different perspectives. I would like to consider various ways in which we can use e-learning to enhance the process of learning. E-learning, virtual learning, computer-based learning and similar terms refer to all teaching and learning activities which use computer facilities in general and online media in particular to smooth the progress of learning. In the future posts I will write more about my experience of e-learning and what I consider in my teaching about this issue. Now I just wanted to add a new category in my weblog about e-learning. That is for now.