Author Archives: BIR Journal

Department of Health consultation

The UK Government’s Department of Health has just launched a consultation on its proposals for an Information Revolution. The White Paper and information on how to become involved are available on the DH website.

The focus of the consultation is the transformation of the way information is accessed, collected, analysed and used so that people are at the heart of health and adult social care services. The intended outcome is to give people more information and control and greater choice about their care. Worth looking at and joining in – an opportunity for information professionals inside and outside the health service to influence the NHS future from a professional perspective.

Maurice Line

UK Serials News and others have announced the death of Maurice Line during the weekend of 18/19 September 2010.

For those who use the British Library’s Document Supply service and its services to business, science and technology, Maurice’s work at the BL was pivotal to the services we see today and to the development of the BL as a leading international research library. As Librarian at the University of Bath he had directed a study into the scope for automated data processing in the new British Library. He was Librarian of the National Central Library (NCL) from 1971-1973 and a member of the British Library Organizing Committee which undertook preparatory and planning work for the UK’s new national library which was to start operating in July 1973. He joined the British Library in 1973, when the NCL was incorporated into the BL, as Deputy Director-General of the Lending Division. He became Director General in 1974, a post he held until 1985. From 1985 until his retirement in 1988 he was Director General, Science Technology and Industry.

For the next 12 years Maurice worked as a consultant specialising in the management of change, and advising organisations in many parts of the world. He was editor of Interlending and Document Supply and Alexandria, the journal concerned with national libraries, their roles and functions and international issues. He also edited, and contributed to, many books in the field of librarianship.

An obituary has also appeared in Times Higher Education.

New opportunities for LIS skills

Expertise in social media is growing in the LIS profession (watch out for the article by Hazel Hall in the December issue). At the same time, demand for social media consultants is rising in the UK (See PeoplePerHour.com). Twitter is boosting the jobs market, claims Peopleperhour.com. The number of businesses looking for “Twitter consultants” to help them exploit the messaging service has grown by 300per cent this year, says the online recruitment company. Facebook advisors and YouTube experts are also needed to advise business on how to make better use of social media services particularly in sales and marketing. Perhaps this demand will provide new opportunities for information professionals?

Social activism via social media

In this week’s New Yorker, Malcolm Gladwell, author of, among other titles, Blink and The Tipping Point considers the nature of social activism and argues that social media tools are not reinventing activism.

He argues that to compare campaign engagement via social media such as Twitter with the courage of ‘true activists’, giving the civil rights movement as an example.

“Where activists were once defined by their causes, they are now defined by their tools” he argues.

Naturally, the debate is taken up in the New Yorker’s Room for Debate. Well worth a visit to read the full article and the resultant debate.

Defining our professional future

Defining our Professional Future – the report presenting the findings of an extensive consultation to inform the development of CILIP – is now accessible.

For BIR readers from Business and Industry, Health, Government and Academia, the report provides a useful insight into drivers for the future, trends in service provision, changes in the working environment and much more. A rapid scan is recommended for useful information for planning – a longer one if you’re a CILIP member or active in another professional organisation and want to peer into the likely future.

Managing knowledge to improve social care

SCIE, The Social Care Institute for Excellence, has just launched an e-learning resource, Managing knowledge to improve social care.

Developed by a team of KIM experts, the aim is to foster the recognition that using existing knowledge and experience can contribute to improved care outcomes. The e-learning modules set out to help front line social workers (and team leaders and managers) gain a basic understanding of the principles and practice of knowledge management, as well as organise and manage their knowledge and information as effectively as possible. BIR readers may find useful ideas for their own training programmes.

‘Real’ books vs. e-books

The historian Lisa Jardine, in her most recent podcast in the Point of View series on Radio 4, considers the fate of public libraries in economically straightened times, particularly as ‘almost two thirds’ of the UK population went nowhere near a public library in the last twelve months.

She then goes on consider the pleasures of reading ‘real books’, and more importantly, keeping and displaying a hard copy book. The success of Oprah Winfrey’s book club in the US in bringing enormous numbers of people to contemporary fiction as well as to literary classics has certainly changed the fortune of many authors, influenced changes in publishing models and may well have created a whole cohort of self educated readers. Winfrey’s readers are quite clear in their demands. Their preferred format is an attractive, hardback book that they can keep and display.

This in itself does not mean that e-versions of books will not find their market too. Jardine is grateful to be reading Blair’s enormous tome electronically, even though it means she does not get to see the previously unpublished photographs of the Blair family to which hard copy readers are treated.

Librarians and library users raise their Voices for Libraries – a campaign worth considering

Blog readers can hardly have failed to notice media coverage of the threat of drastic cuts to public library services across the UK. Voices for the Library intends to ensure that the voices of the people who are library users and library professionals and who understand the real value of public libraries are heard.

By setting up a campaigning website to share positive stories from public libraries and librarians, the campaign aims to illustrate the importance of services, why it is vital that they are run well, and how they serve their communities effectively. So if you use a public library and are convinced of their value as local gateways to knowledge, a basis for lifelong learning, as resource providers for independent decision-making and cultural development of individuals and social groups. Do contact them if you have a postitive story to tell – and encourage others to do so.

CILIP has a sector panel which is aiming to communicate the value of information services and libraries in the health, government, commercial and industrial sectors, contact Guy.Daines@cilip.org.uk