Keynotes

Professor and Dean's Scholar for New Librarianship, Syracuse University School of Information Studies & Director of the Information Institute of Syracuse USA and author of The Atlas of New Librarianship which won the 2012 ABC-CLIO/Greenwood Aware for the Best book in Library Literature

Roly Keating

The BBC's first ever Director of Archive Content, and a former Controller of BBC Two. He developed and implemented the BBC's digital strategy for its programme library. He will take up his new post as Chief Executive of the British Library in September 2012.

In Internet Librarian International's 2012 Keynote, Stop Lending and Start Sharing, Professor R. David Lankes argues that the future of libraries is not in our collections or a building, but in our relationship with those we serve. Libraries are knowledge hubs that bring together the wisdom of the community, and share it with the world. This is more than just a rhetorical shift; it has real implications for how libraries organise themselves and how they use technology.

The second keynote speaker will be Roly Keating, who will take up his new post as Chief Executive of the British Library in September 2012. This keynote address will be one of the first opportunities for information professionals to hear from Mr Keating, who brings a wealth of experience in digital innovation from his career at the BBC. He was the BBC's first ever Director of Archive Content, and a former Controller of BBC Two. He developed and implemented the BBC's digital strategy for its programme library.

In his keynote, 'The journey to digital at the British Library' Mr Keating will discuss how the digital revolution is opening up enormous opportunities for the British Library. It is enabling large parts of the national collection to be widely shared both within the UK and globally, for the digital unification of ancient manuscripts separated across continents, and for increased collaboration between researchers. Expectations of what can be achieved are understandably high, and the challenges in meeting these considerable. Protecting copyright, ensuring material that is 'born-digital' is preserved, and dealing with the huge scale of the digitisation task are just some of the issues the British Library is tackling on its journey to digital.