I was in the Norwegian capital Oslo yesterday, at the invitation of BIBSYS.

Faced with the same global trends and disruptions as the rest of us, BIBSYS have been holding a seminar on The Future of academic libraries - the road ahead. They’re interested in understanding the ways in which libraries and library systems must adapt, and invited a range of speakers to share our views.

My own concerns go wider than the library, as we at Talis have been engaged in thinking about implications for the wider educational institutions of which libraries are only one part. The organisational divisions that we create, and the dated assumptions that are so often brought to thinking about how ‘learning’ should be ‘delivered’ to students appear ever more questionable as we look closer and closer. Considered in amongst the wider economic, social and technological trends acting upon those institutions and the cultures to which they belong, the need for change is soon apparent. Lessons learned in economics and through the evolution of the Web also offer pointers in viable and intriguing directions that build upon notions of connectivity and openness.

In speaking yesterday, I built upon some of the ideas that my colleague, Richard Wallis, shared in his Talis Insight presentation last November.

My own slides from Oslo are available here, and this is a theme that we shall be exploring further during the year.

Technorati Tags: higher education, Semantic Web, Talis

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