UKOLN has submitted a response (by Dr Liz Lyon and Ann Chapman) to the DCMS regarding the consultation report on the future of public libraries entitled Empower, Inform, Enrich.
Archive for January, 2010
UKOLN Response to Empower, Inform, Enrich Report
Tuesday, January 26th, 20106th International Digital Curation Conference: 6 – 8 December 2010
Thursday, January 21st, 2010The Digital Curation Centre (DCC)
has announced the dates for the 6th International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC10) as Monday 6 – Wednesday 8 December 2010. The theme of the Conference this year will be Participation & Practice: growing the Curation Community through the data decade. Our venue will be Chicago, USA, where the Conference is being presented jointly with the Graduate School of Library and Information Science of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in partnership with the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI). The Call for Papers will be released in March and registration will open in September 2010.
Museums in a Digital Age
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010Brian Kelly has contributed to a book entitled Museums in a Digital Age. This work, edited by Ross Parry and published by Routledge in December 2009, provides advice on best practice related to use of digital media in the cultural heritage sector. Together with Lawrie Phipps and Caro Howell, Brian contributed on the topic Implementing a holistic approach to e-learning accessibility which appears in Part 3: Access: ability, usability and connectivity.
Linked Data and the Semantic Web: What Are They and Should I Care?
Monday, January 18th, 2010Adrian Stevenson of UKOLN will give a presentation entitled Linked Data and the Semantic Web: What Are They and Should I Care? at the next MIMAS Developer Forum meeting on Wednesday 17 February at 2pm. The Developer Forum is an internal MIMAS group, but it may be possible for others to attend by arrangement. For more information please contact
jane.stevenson@manchester.ac.uk
Times Higher Highlights Web 2.0 Tools for Research
Monday, January 18th, 2010A recent item from the Times Higher Education covers the emergence of the Web 2.0 tools Mendeley and Zotero and their level of support and deployment in the management of research papers online. Cameron Neylon, University of Southampton, advocated their use: “You can use them to deal with the quantity of information scientists need to keep track of and identify collaborators with complementary interests.”
The author also turned to other organisations for their views, pointing to the study conducted by JISC and the Research Information Network (RIN) entitled Communicating knowledge: how and why researchers publish and disseminate their findings which stated that take-up by academics was lower than anticipated. Neil Jacobs of JISC indicated there were interesting examples of usage by researchers of such technologies but that, “what is appropriate in one field of research may not be appropriate in another”. Liz Lyon of UKOLN advised that a further obstacle to adoption lay in the area of trust: “Academics can be concerned that they will be ‘scooped’ and so there is a reluctance to share. You may find people will share information with known contacts, but are wary about opening themselves up on the Internet.” Branwen Hide, RIN, remarked that “academics like things to be quick and simple and if a product isn’t, they won’t use it”.
Cameron Neylon summarised the benefits of Mendeley and Zotero by adding, “.. Essentially, you’re doing the same things you would have done previously but much more quickly and with access to many more people and items.”
Paper on Exploiting the Potential of the Social Web
Thursday, January 14th, 2010Shortly before Christmas 2009 Brian Kelly presented a paper Empowering Users and their Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Potential of the Social Web at the CULTURAL HERITAGE on line Conference which was held in Florence. This paper is now available from the UKOLN Web site.
New Issue of Focus on UKOLN Available
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010Issue 21 of Focus on UKOLN, the electronic newsletter which provides news, opinion and information on the wide range of activities undertaken by UKOLN, was published recently.
IWMW 2010: Call for Speakers and Workshop Facilitators
Monday, January 11th, 2010The call for speakers and workshop facilitators for the Institutional Web Management Workshop 2010 is now open. The workshop will be held at the University of Sheffield from Monday 12 to Wednesday 14 July 2010. Further ideas and information are available from the IWMW 2010 Web site.
New JISC-funded Shared Infrastructure Services Landscape Study Completed by UKOLN
Friday, January 8th, 2010Rosemary Russell and Ann Chapman of UKOLN were the authors of a JISC-funded Shared Infrastructure Services (SIS) Landscape study on the use of Web 2.0 tools and services in UK Higher Education. This 33-page report, which is now available on the JISC Information Environment (IE) Repository Web site, is based on a survey across the UK HE community on the diverse ways in which Web 2.0 technologies are being used to support teaching and learning, research and administrative activities.
Appointment of UKOLN Deputy Director
Friday, January 8th, 2010Paul Walk has been appointed as Deputy Director of UKOLN.
This post will provide technical leadership, vision and strategic insight across a wide range of digital library contexts, for education and research and across the range of UKOLN activities ensuring that UKOLN addresses the requirements of its user communities.
UKOLN, as a JISC Innovation Support Centre, has responsibility for the support of innovation and development in JISC-funded programmes and projects, especially within the Information Environment, and in this context, Paul will be providing leadership, strategic co-ordination and oversight of all JISC-funded technical innovation activity at UKOLN.
Paul joined UKOLN in September 2007, as Technical Manager and Team Leader for the Software and Systems Team. Paul had previously worked for fifteen years in Higher Education in London, primarily in the development and provision of technical library and Web services.
Paul says of his appointment, “I’m delighted to have been offered this opportunity. At UKOLN I am fortunate in having colleagues who are individually talented and who, collectively, offer an extraordinary range of expertise. I look forward to helping to lead them in facing the very real challenges which lie ahead.”