Academic Librarians face unprecedented challenges to their role, to how they manage their collections and how they interact professionally with their academic colleagues. They require different professional and personal skills as well as different ways of interacting with their communities, both in the academic, publishing and other vendor communities. In the current context of a global recession, without doubt, it is going to be a future full of challenges and opportunities. What has changed and what needs to change? As suggested by the Conference subtitle "Singing in the Rain", a new generation of academic librarians cannot survive without an optimistic, positive and thoughtful attitude towards the future.

In this, the second "Academic Librarian" conference in Hong Kong, it is intended that speakers should focus on the skills and positioning of the Academic Librarian, the impact of the library, its organizational patterns and the value delivered to its owners and clients.

• our roles, values, positioning and relevancy in the future information environment
• professional competencies and skills for the future
• professional education and continuous career development.

• return-on-investment, contribution of the library to students, faculty and the university
• evidence based impact analysis and performance measurement
• benchmarking and best practices among ourselves.

• Web 2.0, Library 2.0 and innovative tools for knowledge discovery and information literacy
• new channels and attitude for service delivery, library advocacy and branding
• new organizational culture/structure to foster library transformation.

• local, regional and global collaborative efforts amidst the global financial crisis
• consortia-vendor dynamics
• love-hate relationship with other stakeholders, e.g. Google and other cyber information providers.