The first student panel of the conference covered quite a range of topics under the umbrella title of "The Changing Identity of Information and the Information Profession." Vanessa Uribe of Drexel University presented on the rise of self-representing litigants seeking legal information and their increasing need for reliable and authoritative information about legal issues, particularly in the matters of family law and small claims. Uribe states that this need is most effectively met by the librarians who staff public law libraries, professionals trained in both the legal and library science fields.
The topic of IT and librarianship was addressed in the paper given by Maureen Callahan and Dianne Dietrich of the University of Michigan. The current trend among library schools to teach the tools, rather than the methods of IT is resulting is a missed opportunity to produce librarians who embrace technological advances with the same fearlessness they bring to their reference interactions with patrons. Callahan and Dietrich propose that library science programs address this issue by introducing instruction that focuses on command line computing environments to engender more flexibility and confidence interacting with IT: "the computer is not a 'black box'". Likewise, training of IT professionals who work in libraries could be enhanced by introducing aspects of library education that emphasize values such as the reference interview.
The final presentation was by Jodi Schneider of the University of Illinois, who spoke about the history of the transition from manuscripts to print. The concepts of authority and authorship that developed with the rise of print has direct implications for the current transition from print to digital. In a presentation enhanced with several high quality images of manuscripts, Schneider highlighted some lessons learned from the earlier transition, particularly the importance of copies for preservation and how attributions of authorship have often been suspect with variations of compilations and annotations of work over time.

The panel papers and presentations will be posted to this website as they become available.