Honoured guests, ladies and gentlemen,

I wish you a warm welcome to Finland and the European Association for Health Information & Libraries Conference here in Finlandia Hall in Helsinki. This Conference has rather a long history: it is now being held for the 11th time. This is the first time for it to be hosted by Finland.

I am honoured to open this conference, which has brought together approximately 400 information service professionals from the fields of medicine and health. Amongst you are librarians, information specialists, researchers and teachers. I am pleased that you have chosen Finlandia Hall as the venue of your conference. It is also nice that you have the chance to visit Finland and Helsinki in mid-summer, when nature is at its most beautiful and the nights are light.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about what is going on here in the north: what we consider important and what we are investing in at the moment.

Finland's competitiveness is highly dependent on knowledge and skills and a high level of education. Several national and international studies have shown the impact of Finland's long-term investment in research, education and innovation on its international success. For several years, Finnish students have excelled in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study. Reading skills in Finland are the best out of all OECD countries. Young Finns are among the best also in natural sciences and mathematics.

We feel that education, research, knowledge and creativity are pivotal to the success and well-being of our nation. Hence, our Government Programme includes significant measures to enhance research and innovation. We con-sider the current development and comprehensive reform of our higher edu-cation system to be of vital importance.

The biggest change brought by this reform will be seen in the new legal position of universities and their increased autonomy. The aim here is to provide universities a legal framework and operational environment. This positions them better in terms of global competition and international cooperation. The Government is committed to strengthening the financial autonomy of universities. Government control will be reduced. Free education at all levels, how-ever, is a value which will be preserved.

The essential aim of the university reform is crystal clear: for each Finnish university to become an improved place to study, teach and carry out research.

All of our universities are to attract Finnish teachers, researchers and students. We also want our universities to have international appeal. We need knowledgeable people from other countries to enrich our universities.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Libraries are one of the cornerstones of Finnish society. Finns are frequent visitors to public libraries and active borrowers of books. Scientific libraries are open to everyone and are essential to the quality of teaching and re-search. Library and information services are also part of the infrastructure of research. In order to stay at the cutting edge of development, we need to have high quality research environments, good library services and appliances, and advanced information and communication technologies. Both printed and digital resources should be extensively available.

Finnish libraries have achieved good results by cooperating, networking and finding centralised solutions. For example, our libraries work in close cooperation with each other in procuring materials. Our National Electronic Library (FinElib), established about a decade ago, is particularly worth mentioning in this context. It procures scientific electronic materials for the needs of teach-ing and research. Over 100 organisations currently utilise FinElib.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Technical development is fast - sometimes so fast that neither the human mind nor legislation can keep up. Amongst other things, technology allows for quite remarkable visions of the free availability of all information. Human activity, however, is not merely technology or arbitrary production of information. Free availability of information - open access - is a way of publishing scientific information on the web so that it is freely available for anyone to read, print and distribute without fees or other constraints. Open access still faces some major challenges, which need to be tackled through cooperation be-tween different actors.

In Finland, a working group consisting of researchers, publishers and scien-tific associations coordinates measures to increase open access. The aim of the group is for libraries to support open access by providing their customers with open access publications in the same way as other materials.

Measures have already been taken to reach this aim. As the first university in Finland, the University of Helsinki - of which the National Library of Health Sciences, one of the organisers of this conference, is a part - has initiated an open access research repository. According to a decision made by the University in May, it will require its researchers to deposit their research articles for scientific publications in the University's open access research repository as from 2010. The university recommends that articles published before this deadline are also deposited.

The past decade has been one of fast-paced change. Digitalisation and electronic information networks have changed the ways in which both libraries and researchers work. But what about the future? What new challenges will we face? And what possibilities?

From time to time one come across the view that librarians and information specialists are a thing of the past now that information can be found in information networks. The fact of the matter is quite the opposite. Information can only be found in information networks if one knows how to find it. A library professional does, and often faster and more effectively than the average user. Hence, you will be much needed in the future. We may question the re-liability and accuracy of the information we have found. Library professionals will also be needed to this end: to organise, distribute, create access to and evaluate the quality of information.

Dear audience,

The theme of this conference is "Towards a new information space - innovations and renovations". The title itself refers to the fact that we are on a never-ending journey towards new challenges. Therefore, we need to be in-novative, creative, open-minded and ready to renew ourselves. But we might also need to preserve something old, something that along the way has proved to be good and that can be adjusted to suit a changed situation. But above all we need to cooperate; to ponder things together in order to find so-lutions.

This conference is a good opportunity to meet people face to face - to get to know people and hear about their problems, solutions, ways of working, and to become inspired by them. This kind of conference, through both its formal and informal programme, creates a firm base for networking and renewal.

I would like to take this opportunity to say a special thank you to the organisers of this conference: Bibliothecarii Medicinae Fenniae (BMF), the associa-tion for medical and health librarians in Finland, and the National Library of Health Sciences (Terkko).

I wish you all an enjoyable and rewarding conference and stay here in the 'White City' by the Baltic Sea.