IIM PhD class organized a one-day research conference on ‘Emerging Issues in Libraries and Information Management (EILIM)’ on 24th March 2022 at Institute of Information Management, University of the Punjab, Lahore. This was first-ever student-led research conference, where all the arrangements were made by research students under the guidance of the Prof. Nosheen Fatima Warraich, Director, IIM. To organize this conference, various committees were constituted, and they worked very hard to make this event a success.

All M. Phil. and Ph. D. students were invited to participate in this conference either as a presenter or attendee. They were invited to present their research work in the form of oral or poster presentation. A call for submission was sent out through emails and WhatsApp group to the current and recently graduated students of IIM with a link to fill an online submission form. The deadline for submission of structured abstracts (500-750 words) was 11th March 2022 under the following themes:

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Transformation of Libraries and LIS education during and after Covid-19 pandemic

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Data librarianship trends and issues (e.g. metadata, digital archiving, research data management, big data, cloud computing, linked data and social media in information organizations)

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Emergence of Disruptive Technology and Role of Libraries

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Leadership, Social, interpersonal and communication skills at the workplace

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Mobile-Based Library Services and Issues

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Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

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Sustainable use of Social Media in Libraries

There was an overwhelming response on this call and a significant number of abstracts were received for both oral and poster presentations. After scrutiny by the abstract review committee, 13 oral and 15 poster abstracts were accepted to present in the conference.

There were three sessions in the conference apart from inaugural and concluding ones. The inaugural session included the wonderful speech of our invited speaker, Dr. Waseem Afzal from School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He presented “Weaving together the past, present and future: A look at the emerging Libraries and Information Management Research Landscape”. Apart from oral and poster presentations, a Panel Discussion was also part of this conference, where our moderator tried to excavate some insights from the IIM faculty with tips and tricks that could be helpful for our research students to finish their research journey in a relatively successful way.

In two consecutive sessions, 13 papers were presented, while 15 posters were displayed by current and recently graduated research students.

In concluding session, Dr. Waseem Afzal distributed cash awards among the top four oral and three poster presenters to encourage and buck up the new researchers of IIM. Here is the detail of the winning papers:

1.

Effectiveness of Continuing Professional Development and Knowledge Transfer Practices: A Study of Information Professionals / by Syed Fakhar Abbas

2.

Factors Affecting Personal Information Management: A Systematic Review / by Irfan Ali

3.

Assessment of University Archives Management Practices: A Case of Punjab University, Pakistan / by Muhammad Suleman Bajwa

4.

Factors affecting the citations: A bibliometric study of highly productive authors of Pakistan / by Nazia Wahid

1.

Exploring the Perception of Pakistani Citizens Regarding COVID-19 Vaccination: Application of Health Belief Model / by Ashraf Sharif & Mahmood Ahmad

2.

Librarian’s Perception on Data Librarianship Core Concepts: A Survey of Motivational Factors, Challenges, Skills and Appropriate Trainings Platforms / Murtaza Ashiq

3.

Libraries as Workplace for Females: A Study of Higher Education Sector of Punjab / by Qurat Ul Ain Saleem

At the end of the conference, the Patron in Chief (Prof. Dr. Khalid Mahmood, Dean, Faculty of Information and Media Studies), Conference Chair (Prof. Dr. Nosheen Fatima Warraich, Director, IIM) and Guest speaker (Dr. Waseem Afzal) distributed the certificates among the conference presenters and shields among the organizing committee.

The main objective of the conference was to provide a forum to current and recently graduated research students of IIM to disseminate their research projects. This was a great opportunity for students and researchers to learn, discuss, think, socialize, share their projects, and the most importantly to get thought provoking ideas from the researchers and guest speaker.

This was a first-ever student-led conference at IIM. A new trend has been set, and IIM will continue this tradition of organizing student-led conferences in future.

Organizing Committee: Ashraf Sharif, Murtaza Ashiq, Shahbaz Anjum, Mahmood Alvi, Hafiz M. Adil, Mussarat Sultan, Iqra Tariq, Abeera Sial, Farhat Shahbaz, Osama, Mahmood Khan.