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Structure, Membership and Purpose
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EBHL Board
| Directory | Membership | Meetings |
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15th annual meeting, 2-5 April 2008, Oxford
Dear Colleagues
I'm delighted to announce that booking is now open for the 2008 meeting at Merton College, Oxford, 2-5 April, on http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/isbes/ebhl. This online booking system uses the University's e-shopping service - it's the first time I've tried this so do please contact me immediately should you have any problems with the system. In theory, it is very straightforward! It does only accept credit card payments: please use this method if you possibly can, as it makes admin at this end MUCH simpler; however if it causes you big problems don't worry, just e-mail me with your requirements and we will issue an invoice.
Some of you have encountered difficulties when attempting to enter a 'delivery address' different from the 'billing address'. It was not possible to proceed to the screen where you enter credit card details. This has now been fixed, so if you tried and it did not work, please try again and let me know if you encounter any further difficulties. If your booking is successful you will receive an e-mail immediately from 'OULS - University of Oxford' confirming the details, so if you have attempted to book and not received an e-mail please let me know.
Please book as soon as possible. It would be very helpful to know now if you plan to come; if you are not ready to make a firm booking, please e-mail me as soon as possible with your likely requirements so we can make a good estimate of numbers soon. Bookings must be received by 7 March to give the College adequate notice, given that Easter is so early this year.
As this is, for the first time, a residential conference we do have to pay Merton in advance and therefore we have to ask you to pay in full in advance. However you will have no hotel costs to pay when here, so it will, I hope, work out about the same as previous years. Some financial assistance is available from EBHL; our Treasurer, Ludmila Frankova, has already sent out details of how to apply, but if you missed that please contact her direct on frankova@nhn.leidenuniv.nl.
I hope most people will be able to stay on for our optional visit to Blenheim Palace on Saturday, when we have a guided tour of the gardens. After lunch you may visit the house and/or spend time in the gardens, returning to Oxford around 5; if you need to leave earlier to catch a flight it's easy to return by bus at any time: buses run half-hourly throughout the day direct to the Oxford rail and coach stations and the journey time is 45 mins.
If you wish to stay over Sat night in college, you can book bed and breakfast for that night also, but you will need to make your own arrangements for dinner.
The nearest airport to Oxford is Heathrow, but Gatwick and Stansted are also easy to get to; there are frequent direct coach services from all three to Oxford. Birmingham Airport is connected directly by hourly train service. It is very quick to travel by Eurostar train from Paris or Brussels to London; continue to Oxford by train from Paddington Station, half-hourly service. Transport details and maps are available on the website if you follow the link 'getting to Oxford'. Do ask me for any further help you need.
Oxford is not a car-friendly city and we do advise you to come by public transport rather than drive if at all possible. Parking facilities are extremely limited and at some distance from the main college site.
The theme of the conference is 'Evolving Services : Extending Access' and we will be looking at the changing demands on our collections and our response to them, and discussing how EBHL can help. The programme is still under construction, but will be posted on the web site as soon as possible. Visits will include the Oxford Botanic Garden, the Plant Sciences Library and Herbarium, the historic parts of the Bodleian Library, the newly-refurbished Radcliffe Science Library, and the wonderful gardens and library at Merton. All these are within a few minutes walk of each other, but there will be quite a lot of walking involved, so do bring suitable comfy shoes! and pray for good weather....
Facilities for the disabled are limited in some of the buildings we will use; please let me know if this is likely to cause you difficulties.
Please contact me direct if you have any questions and we hope to see a good many of you in Oxford on 2 April!
best wishes
Roger
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Roger A. Mills
Oxford University Library Services
Radcliffe Science Library (mornings)
Plant Sciences Library (afternoons)
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Webmaster | Modified 15 February 2008 |