#vBIB - An open virtual event format from the community for the community Slideshow uri icon

abstract

  • Abstract Initial situation 2020
    The COVID-19 pandemic not only had a dramatic impact on private and social life worldwide, it also crossed plans, processes and habits on a working level in many ways. Due to the pandemic, the Bibliothekartag (Librarians’ Day) – a major event held annually since 1900 with several thousand library members from Germany and abroad – had to be cancelled. At that time, the library community expressed the wish to find a virtual opportunity to meet and exchange ideas nevertheless. The professional association Berufsverband Information Bibliothek (BIB) and TIB – Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology and University Library (TIB) joined forces and initiated an experimental and deliberately purely virtual event with a pragmatic trial and error approach over three days in just six weeks in spring 2020 under the name #vBIB. Since then, the profile of the event has been sharpened and the #vBIB has been successfully continued, so that in the meantime one can speak of a series of events. Since then, the #vBIB has been held annually and will take place for the fourth time in 2023. What exactly is the #vBIB?
    Until the outbreak of the Corona pandemic in 2020, there was a lack of virtual event formats in the German library context. The #vBIB reacted to this and since then has offered a platform for the library and information community, where current topics, developments and trends around the digitality of the library and information sector can and should be taken up and discussed openly and controversially. Participation is free of charge and registration is not required. Access is deliberately kept low-threshold through the use of common video communication tools. The concept of the programme is agile, innovative, experimental and sustainable and can thus react to dynamic developments at short notice. It is oriented towards a maximum degree of participation, interactivity and diversity, and half of the programme is made up of various contributions from the community that are grouped together in thematic sessions (socalled corners) and generated by a call for participation. The other half consists of keynote speeches by representatives of mainly other professions, social life, business and politics. In this way, external impulses find their way into the library and information bubble and an inter-societal exchange is made possible. Through this knowledge transfer, the #vBIB – with its latest 500 participants – makes a contribution to a knowledge-based democratic society. Almost without exception, the contributions are recorded and made available long-term on the TIB AV-Portal – a non-commercial, freely accessible online platform of the TIB for scientific videos.

publication date

  • July 11, 2023