ANKOSLink2015 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

The format change that we did in 2013 with the slogan of “Local to Regional” returned for its third successive year. International ANKOSLink Conference took place in 9-11 April 2015 at Kervansaray Congress Center in Antalya. With this occasion we also celebrated the 15th anniversary of ANKOS.

ANKOS annual meetings used to be hosted at university campuses from 2001 to 2012. ANKOSLink took place for the first time in 2013. ANKOS’ regional meetings, workshops, training activities are moving in accordance with earlier years. ANKOSLink is the largest event among all these.

ANKOSLink 2015 received attendees from 19 countries including Azerbaijan, Kirgizstan, Bosnia Herzegovina, Germany and England. The distribution of 515 attendees is as follows: 186 people from 74 companies, 305 people from 139 ANKOS Member Institutions and 24 general participants from 22 different institutions. ANKOSLink2015 hit the highest growth rate ever with %15. This encourages us for upcoming conferences which will continue to extend in all categories.

When we look at the point where the information storage devices have come in the recent years, we can say that information tends to be deposited in smaller storages, and in parallel to this development, information access has been made more and more through mobile devices. Regarding library users, we deal with a new generation that uses emerging and mobile technologies more extensively. In response to these changing factors, it is indispensable to adopt new perspectives and reorganize existing approaches to library services and resources as well as workflows to meet changing demands of library users. In this respect, the main theme of ANKOSLink 2015 Conference has been set as “Mobilize the libraries, Mobilize the resources”. We prepared a rich content with a number of relevant topics that range from management of electronic resources to data mining, from cloud computing technologies to mobile library services and academic libraries of the future. ANKOS Working Group presentations, hot topics for academic libraries such as linked web, digitization, preservation and e-future, innovation, R&D, open access, research library interventions on campus and many more have been discussed. 

In addition, many presentations addressing e-books, e-journals, automation systems, citation analyzers, RFID, copyright management systems, plagiarism checkers and many other topics have been performed. ANKOSLink has been a great opportunity for librarians to learn more about products and services provided by publishers and agencies which are our stakeholders. 

One other distinctive point for ANKOSLink2015 to highlight is the attendance by the chairs of the Department of Information Management and Presidents of TKD and UNAK. As part of the tradition started in 2013, 5 students from 5 universities’ Departments of Information Management have been with us with the support of Mikrobilgi - Cengage during ANKOSLink2015. It has been proved once again that ANKOSLink is not only for university librarians. Librarians, archivists, information managers from 13 different institutions such as the Library of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and special research libraries attended ANKOSLink2015. ANKOSLink always welcome the participation of attendees and stakeholders from all related sectors.    

ANKOSLink2015’s academic program organized by ANKOS included 4 keynote speeches, 4 panels and 1 seminar. Companies had 46 different presentations. The opening speech has been given by Richard Wallis from OCLC. The afternoon panel moderated by Assoc. Professor Hüseyin Odabaş was titled as “From Past to the Future: Digitization, Preservation and e-Future”. The panelists were Assoc. Prof.  Uğur ÜNAL from T.R. Prime Ministry Directorate General of State Archives, Mehmet Mirat Satoğlu from Turkish Academic Network and İnformation Center  (ULAKBİM) and Keng Lam Kuan from IEEE.

The second day of the Conference started with the speech of Asst. Prof. Ahmet Ercan Topçu from T.R. Ministry of Science, Industry and Technology which focused on innovation and R & D. The next keynote address was given by Dr. Kornelia Tancheva from Cornell University Libraries. This address was titled as “Research Library Interventions on Campus, or How to Make a Difference to Your Patrons, Your Funders, Your Administration”. Following this speech, David Ball, the former library director of Bournemouth University made a presentation titled “Maximizing the Effectiveness of OA Policies and Mandates: Results of the PASTEUR4OA Survey”. The day ended by the panel “Mobile Libraries by Examples” moderated by Göknur Arslan, Head of Departments of Library and Documentation at İstanbul Technical University. The panelists were Kamil Mehmet Özkan from SkyLibrary, Jale Akbaş from T.R. Ministry of National Education and Mehmet Üneş from Kastamonu University.

Last day of the Conference made a start by the seminar given by Orçun Madran from Hacettepe University. The seminar was titled as “Developing Mobile Applications for Information Services”. This seminar was followed by a panel moderated by Sönmez Çelik, Doğuş Univerity Library Director. The panelists of this “Open Access Initiative in Turkey” panel were Prof.Dr Yaşar Tonta from Hacettepe University, Dr. Burcu Bulut and Gültekin Gürdal from Open Access and Institutional Repositories Group of ANKOS. Lastly, “ANKOS Working Groups Presentations” were made by Ata Türkfıdanı from Licence Agreements Group, Muhtesem Onder from Public Relations Group, Derya Soğuksu from User Statistics Group and Sema Çelikbaş from Cooperation Working Group of ANKOS under Ertuğrul Çimen’s moderation.

I thank each of the speakers who accepted our invitation and travelled from different corners of Turkey and the World for their contribution to ANKOSLink2015.

I would like to express my gratitude to our sponsors and in particular to our main sponsor ResearchSoftware, to the participants, to everyone involved with the organization.

I also would like to thank all ANKOS volunteers and students who worked hard before and during the Conference, as well as to their library directors who supported this volunteer work and last but not the least to ANKOS Board Members.

I look forward to meeting you all in the upcoming ANKOSLink International Conferences.

Sincerely,

Sami Çukadar

ANKOS President