Thanks and appreciation to every person on the library staff for working so hard this year and for keeping up with the multitude of demands. All of your efforts are now beginning to show great results. First and foremost, our library users continue to be satisfied and are sending us regular comments about their good and productive experiences within the libraries. Second, we have recently submitted our collection statistics from 1999-2000 to the Association of Research Libraries and thanks to the integration of the government documents, we surpassed the required goal by 30%. Once again, thanks to all of you who worked so hard on the government documents.

From March 27-30, 2001 I attended EUNIS (European University Information Systems) in Berlin, Germany at Humboldt University. Humboldt University, founded in 1810, currently has an enrollment of 33,000 students. It has produced many Nobel Prize winners and major research. During the time of the divided Germany, 1948-1990, Humboldt University was located in East Berlin under the governance of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).

Humboldt University’s library now has many computer services and is assisting the University in changing academic publishing to accommodate the electronic environment. Like their counterparts in the United States, European universities are involved in teaching, learning, research and service and technology is greatly affecting all these areas. Restructuring is needed and many European universities are looking to the United States for help and guidance.

Approximately 460 persons attended EUNIS 2001representing more than 300 universities from 39 countries in Europe. Seven participants represented the United States and one represented Canada. The theme of the conference addressed how universities are changing in the age of technology. The conference included five pre-conference seminars addressing information system strategies; streaming media; wireless LAN structures and concepts; electronic publishing and document servers; and, digital images in teaching.

Eight keynote speakers from higher education, government and private companies addressed the following:

• the virtual university in terms of learning, student expectations, the global education market, meeting learners’ needs in times of mass provision and lifelong learning; multimedia in the digital age;
• strategic network development in higher education;
• cooperation and coordination of information and communication services at German universities described current efforts of Germany universities to cooperate more with one another using technology for research and education;
• the six webs or why one web won’t do presented by Sun Microsystems;
• top performance and partnership presented by another vendor, Fujitsu Siemens Co.;
• portals and e-business in higher education presented by EDUCAUSE from the U.S.

Speakers from various European countries, the United States and Canada also presented 124 different papers related to the conference themes:
Cooperation between European Universities
In the 21st century European universities will benefit from cooperating across boundaries and various examples of cooperation were presented.
Information Technology and Network Computing Security
Universities have to face many potential security problems in the use of information technology in teaching and research and the use of networks. Procedures need to be established to deal with security related incidents. Training and education in network computing security are needed, and new trends in information security will affect universities and knowledge management.
Changes in University Organization and Structures
Use of technology is leading to major changes in university administration in most European universities. Technology has a major impact on the structure of management, security, funding and staffing. Technology is enabling European universities to cooperate more and offer more learning advantages to their students.
New Technologies, New Capabilities and New Opportunities
Supercomputing, cluster computing, computational grids and metacomputing, virtual reality are examples of capabilities now becoming more and more important for scientific computing at universities.
Supporting Change in Teaching and Learning
New Media and international educational developments have helped develop new approaches to teaching in universities. Examples were provided for on-line learning, web-based instruction and distance learning. Discussions centered on effective cooperation across national boundaries using online learning and teaching. Also presented was information on collaborative learning in medicine using the Internet.
Libraries in the Digital Age
Libraries and multimedia as well as computer centers have overlapping activities. Some convergence, partnerships, new structures are being considered. A variety of collaborations can result in positive and negative effects. Discussions on the changing role of librarians prevailed throughout the track within the conference. Also covered were the use of the Internet for delivery and management of information, the UNESCO guide to electronic theses and dissertations and a variety of library consortia.

Many of the papers have been published as the Proceedings of the 7th International Conference of European University Information Systems by Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.

--Hannelore Rader, University Librarian