Stockholm Shines (Editorial)

• Main Author: Denise Koufogiannakis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta 2009-09-01
• Series: Evidence Based Library and Information Practice
• Online Access: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/6547/5539

I didn’t sleep much in Stockholm. The eight hour time difference and the jet lag completely messed me up, not to mention the 19 hours of daylight! But during the day when I was so tired, the content being presented at the conference and the people I met kept me buzzing and wide awake! It is always nice to find a group of people who are interested in the same things as you are, and to do so in a beautiful setting with great food and a friendly environment is all the better. In my opinion, the 5th EBLIP conference was the best yet! I returned to Canada inspired and intellectually stimulated.The EBLIP conference is one of the few times that those of us who work on the EBLIP journal have a chance to get together and talk in person. Our journal editors are situated in the U.K., Canada, and the United States, so our work is done primarily via e‐mail and the occasional conference call. Three of us made it to Stockholm (Alison, Lorie and myself), so it was great to touch base in person and have a drink or two together! We also got to see several members of the Editorial Advisory board, as well as those who write evidence summaries for us, or are involved in some other way. Meeting some of these people in person for the first time after a lengthy e‐mail relationship is quite a treat! The Editors took the opportunity at the conference to hold a user group meeting, inviting anyone who was interested to attend and provide us with feedback about the journal. To start we provided an update, which included the fact that the journal has over 2000 registered readers. Did you know that in just one month (May 25 – June 24, 2009) we had 4649 site visits; 3,678 of them unique? Most visits to the journal are from the United States, followed by Canada, Australia, and the U.K. But we have people accessing the journal from all over world, and now that we are tracking site traffic via Google Analytics, it is easy to see on a map where our readers reside. There was a good turnout for our user group, and a lively discussion. People told us what they valued about the journal, with much discussion focused on the evidence summaries. The evidence summaries are valued as a unique way to learn more about original research, and a few people noted that they will show evidence summaries to senior managers when the summary focuses on an aspect of practice that is being considered at their institution. One thing that came up time and time again was how to get more international content into the journal. As a result, we are going to try to incorporate reviews of non‐English language research. We also actively encourage people from anywhere in the world to submit articles or volunteer to serve on our Editorial Advisory Board or in some other capacity. The user group session was over before we knew it, but as always, I encourage all readers to provide us with feedback about how we can make EBLIP better.In this issue, there are a couple of things from the conference that I want to highlight. Andrew Booth proposes an International Association of EBLIP in a commentary; this was the result of an early morning open meeting held during the conference. As well, several conference attendees have provided reflections on their experiences, which you will find in the News section. For those who could not attend in person, this will give you a good sense of what happened at the conference from different perspectives. And finally, the first of what we hope are many papers resulting from presentations given at EBLIP5, an article by Michael Raynor is available in this issue. In a future issue we will have a Feature focused on all the keynote presentations that were given in Stockholm. As the days grow short here in my part of the world, I look back fondly on the long days in Stockholm this past summer, and am inspired to keep contributing to this international EBLIP community that continues to question our own models of practice in an effort to serve our local communities in the best way we possibly can. [Photo: Three Editors at the EBLIP5 Conference: Denise Koufogiannakis, Lorie Kloda, Alison Brettle. Photo courtesy EBLIP5 Local Organizing Committee]