Bruce Kingma, associate provost for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Syracuse University School of Information Studies (iSchool), traveled to Milan, Italy, recently to speak at the two-day conference “Towards a library economy: Funding, planning, and increasing value in times of crisis.” The conference was sponsored by Biblioteche Oggi, a monthly publication for directors of Italian libraries.
The conference was held March 11 and 12 at the Hotel Palazzo Della Stelline. Speakers included library professionals from across Italy as well as Spain, Germany, Norway, the United States, and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). The topics discussed included building a performance-based budget, redefining the global value of academic libraries, institutional investment in libraries, the cost of digital libraries, the invisible economy of open access, managing growth, fundraising, and other library-related financial issues. Kingma’s talk focused on the economics of information and evaluating benefit-cost ratio.
Kingma is a frequent conference speaker on topics in academic entrepreneurship and the economics of online learning and digital libraries. He has taught courses at the Syracuse iSchool about the economics of information and nonprofit management and entrepreneurship.
At Syracuse University, Kingma is responsible for founding the award-winning Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) Consortium; the Center for Entrepreneurship and Experiential Learning (ExCEL); the Systems Assurance Institute (now the Center for Information and Systems Assurance and Trust), an NSA-designated center of excellence in information assurance; the Center for Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning (ExCEL); and the Women in Technology (WIT) student group. In 2009, he received the Community Entrepreneurial Leadership Award for his work on entrepreneurship in Central New York.