It is great to see the published Talis Case Study on the excellent work that Lakshmi and Simon have carried out on optimising Bradford College’s library management system. Reading it reminded me of the importance of monitoring workflows in such systems to ensure they remain efficient. Another point worth noting is how the role of the single ‘systems librarian’ has become outmoded and in its place we have introduced a number of librarians with a good knowledge of the system – the latter being infinitely more preferable. A third aspect has been the willingness of librarians at Bradford to engage in systems reviews through the use of webinars to learn new skills and develop their knowledge.
Well done to all staff involved in this over the past 18 months it sets us up to reap benefits from future developments.
Full Case Study available here
Filed Under (Events, Research) by ronan on 13-07-2010
Newton grabs yet another tourist
Held at the British Library this conference was very good – three main reasons the opening keynote speaker Professor Andrew Dillon, University of Texas, was totally engrossed in his subject “An international perspective on the evidence, value and impact of UK LIS research” and came across brilliantly, his slightly off-beat approach was balanced by his indepth understanding of his subject and indeed the audience. The second reason was the one minute madness session this was well planned and extremely well executed by I’m guessing 25 or so speakers all of whom were interesting brief and focused which of course is the benefit of the Pecha Kucha format. The third reason Charles Oppenheim summed up well and delivered a well pitched presentation. The afternoon workshops on reflection left some room for improvement – they didn’t quite come off or at least their intention was not explicit. The food was bitesized’n’tasty. I met Biddy whom I had not seen for ages and Brian Kelly was interesting talking about JISC projects etc. I also bumped into Mark Hepworth from Loughborough whom I’ve not seen for ages and who offered to review my forthcoming book.
Full review of this conference can be found here
Filed Under (General) by ronan on 13-07-2010
Having booked onto the Library and Information Science Research Coalition’s inaugural conference at the British Library and then realising that I had already booked a weekend in Dublin I needed careful planning to get from Dublin to London on the morning of Monday June 28th in time for the 10:30 conference start. This involved exquisite timing all enhanced by realtime information on my iphone! The Aircoach trip across a waking Dublin to the newly built Airport; the chaos of a full security check – belt, shoes – “switch on your laptop please sir”. “Switch off your phone – please sir” All surrounded by sleepy holiday makers. Then to the debacle of the RyanAir non-queue then onto the aircraft and the relentless up-selling of products ranging from a full breakfast through to smokeless cigarettes. Our landing in Luton Airport amid some minor turbulence was greeted by spontaneous applause from some less weary passengers. Monitoring our speed using my iPhone’s GPS I noted we hit the tarmac at about 120mph! The shuttle bus from the airport to Luton Parkway rail station is a bendy bus – nothing against such vehicles except there are 4 mini-roundabouts which we negotiated at snails pace (sort that out please people of Luton) thus upon leaving the bus required me to dash to catch the Brighton bound train – packed and overheated – to St Pancras reaching an impressive yet shaky top speed of 111mph near St Albans. A purposeful walk through crowds clinging to their coffee-cups took me to the British Library where, on entering the auditorium the facilitator was asking the audience to switch-off their mobile phones. Now that’s timing. Phew.
(1) Greene, Graham (1969) Travels with my Aunt and Isherwood, Christopher (1935) Mr Norris Changes Trains
Filed Under (Events, Research) by ronan on 13-07-2010
On Thursday 27th May I travelled to York St. Johns for a conference organised by the CILIP Y&H University College and Research (UC&R) Group entitled “The Librarian as Researcher: getting your voice heard.” Essentially a library/practitioner guide to research it was well attended and well organised.
I met Hazel Hall of the LIS Research Coalition who invited me to the coalition’s inaugral conference. I also met Miggie Picton who is on the LIRG committee with me and who presented in the afternoon. I heard Professor Jean McNiff present for the first time and I was very impressed with her style which was very engaging using a flip-chart and her drawing skills to clearly outline the theory of action research. I caught up with Sheila Corrall from University of Sheffield who gave a presentation on the research activity being undertaken by students. Sheila also mentioned an award to encourage library and information practitioners in the university, college and research sector who are at the start of their professional careers or who have not previously published a substantial contribution to the professional literature to write an article for publication. see here
A ‘key takeaway’ for me from this event was the level of involvement the York St John’s library staff have in supporting research and in undetaking their own research – something I shall be pursuing at Bradford College.
Hazel Hall has posted a review of the day to the LIS Research Coalition web site. This can be seen at http://lisresearch.org/2010/06/01/the-librarian-as-researcher/
Filed Under (Events, General) by ronan on 12-07-2010
I travelled to the JISC YH Regional Support Centre’s Summer Conference at the Rose Bowl – Leeds Metropolitan University – a wonderful venue. The conference was well attended and the programme engaging and informative. The debate at the close was interesting. Expertly chaired by Ali-Marie Ladwa e-Learning Advisor (HE), (pictured centre in full-flow), the topic was based on the controversial use of mobile (phone) technology in the classroom and it generated a lot of good discussion. I also attended a session on i-Tunes U led by Luke Fieldhouse from Apple, which has given me some ideas about generating learning content that I plan to develop further in the coming months. I had been on a MoleNet training event some weeks back at Burnley College on how to use the i-Phone for teaching and learning and Luke had presented there too – its good that Apple are having a presence at such events. Further information on the JISC Summer Conference is available from here
On Friday 21st May 2010 I attended the above ‘unconference’ run by
Aberystwyth University – but held for convenience at the Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning (Ceebl) at Manchester University.
The conferecne was one of the outputs of a project that was archive society focused. Cloud computing was seen as a hot-topic but one that was not very well understood, certainly in the UK. Unconferencing is something that we were unfamiliar with – the idea being that because of the sense of the unknown associated with the topic there were no fixed presumptions about the structure of our input. But it was almost more difficult to manage an unconference so we ended up with a bit of a hybrid of conference and unconference. During the round table introductions it was apparent that a wide range of interests and different agencies were represented
The first speaker was Dai Davis Solicitor and Chartered Engineer Partner, Brooke North LLP Security and legal issues of the Cloud. This led as all discussions of legal matters invariably do, to lots of what if questions. One aspect that came out of this was the nature of the agreements that are being put in place by the likes of Google and Microsoft with regard to their cloud applications for the educational sectors. Another was the discussion about the G cloud – government cloud.
Dai left his audience with the key point that the Data Protection Act was a critical part of the legal jigsaw. Specifically the principles of: not keeping data for longer than is necessary; taking appropriate measures to ensure it is kept safe; and ‘thou shalt not export data’. The final one of course being of critical importance if you are using Google Apps or Microsoft Edu@Live to store student data in their cloud, which, of course, may be in Cowdenbeath or may be in California.
Steve Bailey Senior Adviser JISC InfoNet spoke about how cloud services in his view are seen as a ‘game changer’. Examples he gave included workflow management systems and document management systems in the cloud used to facilitate globalised markets and collaboration. Graduates want to use their own set of tools and as these users come to the workforce their preferences will need to be taken into consideration. Again he illustrated with the example of an unnamed company in London who on a Monday sent a global e-mail saying that Facebook would be banned and so big was the outcry that by Friday the decision was reversed.
Paul Miller
Paul Miller, (it was good to catch up with him after our metadata days and the MEG (metadata education group) back in the 2001), gave a presentation on the security issues associated with cloud computing. This was centred on; software as a service, platform as a service, infrastructure as a service and storage as a service. Not surprisingly many of the issues were common sense and there were a very many steps that one could take to ensure secure systems. Having said that 100% security was something most delegates, in discussion, accepted was elusive.
My general impression of the conference was positive and I took some highly practical action points away, the most important one being to check the contract we were about to sign with Microsoft Edu@Live for our student email!
Further details of the conference and the project, including a literature review of cloud computing are recorded here.
