We are happy to announce that AMICAL (the American International Consortium of Academic Libraries), will be participating with NITLE as a Special International Affiliate. AMICAL's member institutions--in all, eighteen American-style, liberal arts colleges and universities located in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and West Asia--will participate in NITLE professional development opportunities and communities of practice as appropriate to their institutional interests. NITLE will also work with AMICAL to offer a pre- or post- conference workshop at AMICAL’s 2007 conference.
In 2004, AMICAL's member institutions initially gathered together in Paris to explore the possibility of forming a consortium. Supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, this first conference resulted in the formation of AMICAL. The group was charged to explore a variety of issues, such as the sharing of electronic resources, collaborative training, shared course offerings, and interlibrary loan. AMICAL participants--including administrators, librarians, and instructional technologists--have subsequently met on an annual basis (Beirut, 2005; Cairo, 2006) to learn from one another and explore the possibilities of inter-institutional collaboration. Collaborative working groups are organized around such topics as databases, interlibrary loan and document delivery, information literacy, professional development, communications, and e-books. AMICAL's recent conference in Cairo featured a "Faculty Session on Integrated Learning," with presentations that addressed the integration of teaching and technology at AMICAL member institutions.
AMICAL's member institutions are:
A complete list of NITLE's participating colleges and their liaisons are available for review.