February 14, 2011
Open Evening 17 March 2011 4pm to 7pm
It is an informal, drop-in session but if you think you might come please fill in our Online Form so we can get an idea of numbers.
We look forward to seeing you on the 17th March. The event will be in Room W622 in the Watts Building on our Moulsecoomb campus. Click HERE for more details.
Watch our short 3 minute video to find out more about the MA Information Studies
January 5, 2011
Spotted this on Phil Bradley’s blog. Useful but rather depressing map of library cuts and closures in the UK. Seeing the cuts on this scale puts it all into perspective. Still not sure how cutting and closing public libraries fits with notions of the “information” or “knowledge” society that politicians (of all persuasions) say is where our future lies. Call me naive, but I would have thought libraries had an important part to play in creating that future.
October 14, 2010
You can download a free PDF copy of my social media guide for SMEs by clicking HERE.
Don’t forget the training course I am running on social media and Web 2 for businesses at the University of Brighton in November and December. Click HERE for more information and to book a place.
September 28, 2010
I’m doing some research around the use of social media and Web 2.0 in organisations. Andrew McAfee of the MIT Sloan School of Management has written extensively about this and coined the phrase Enterprise 2.0 for companies that are active adopters of these new technologies. He describes the key elements of Enterprise 2.0 via the acronym, SLATES: Search, Links, Authorship, Tags, Extensions, Signals. Dion Hinchcliffe of The Dachis Group has also written extensively about this area and I have adapted one of his graphics above to show the close match between the core skills of library and information professionals and the core elements required to effectively deploy Web 2.0 and social media in the organisation. It seems to me there is a huge opportunity here for information professionals to extend their influence within their organisations. Or am I being too simplistic?
September 21, 2010
I don’t often visit libraries when I go on holiday – busman’s holiday and all that. But on a recent trip to Uzbekistan, recapturing the magic of the Silk Road, I was intrigued by the fact that our map of Bukhara quite clearly indicated that there was a library almost next to where we were standing. We had a further look around and there it was, the Bukhara Regional Information and Library Centre. Some eager young people took us in hand and said, yes, this is the library. It turned out they were students, exhibiting their artwork in the foyer. We were shown round the library by the Director, Zevar and by Mirshad, who also acted as interpreter. We were in good company – a group of young women studying librarianship at the local college, along with their tutor. What struck me most about the library was the enthusiasm and dedication of the library staff, who take an obvious pride in their work – which I think you can see from the photos. They are making great strides in modernising their service and are busy digitising their old card catalogue and some of their very precious special collection. Money is an issue, as it is in libraries all over the world, and I resolved to send them some additions to their collection of children’s books in English when I got back to the UK. Still to do… Later on in the day we were admiring some beautiful delicate drawings in the bazaar when the young man who was looking after the stall said to us ‘you were in the library this morning’. How cool was that! 
August 2, 2010
As well as our Graduation ceremony on Friday 30th July, it was also the prize-giving for CMIS and Business School students. CILIP award the Henrik Jones prize to a student who has demonstrated a high level of skill in information retrieval and this year it went to David Fricker, who has been studying MAIS part-time and is now about to embark on his dissertation. The photo shows David alongside CILIP’s Marion Huckle and myself, all of us enjoying a glass of bubbly in the garden at Grand Parade. Well done, David. 
August 2, 2010
As always, the graduation ceremony, held on Friday 30th July, proved to be a fitting and moving celebration of success. Three of the MAIS students attended their graduation and celebrated with friends and family. I managed to grab a photo of the 3 of them: Caroline Morris, Fran Fryer and Josef Cabey before they vanished off. Well done and keep in touch!
July 28, 2010
I’ve been working on developing a training programme for companies that want to know more about the relevance of Web 2.0 and social media to their businesses. Their’s a lot of confusion out there about whether these new services really offer anything that can help with marketing, communication and collaboration or if it is just hype. A recent article in Fast Company backs this up:
“I have a number of friends who own or operate small to medium-sized businesses. The number one question I get from them is how to make online marketing work for their businesses. There seems to be quite a bit of pent up need for online marketing help by SMBs….. The problem is there is also a lot of noise. Part of the problem is there is no barrier to entry in the online marketing consulting industry. All one has to do is put up a Web site. So what’s an SMB to do?”
Hopefully, my series of 5 half day sessions at the University of Brighton will go some way to cutting through this confusion. The programme for the course is:
Session 1 – Tuesday 16 November
Why Web 2.0 / Social Media is relevant to your business
What is Web 2.0 and social media?
How are other businesses using them and with what success?
What are some of the issues you should be thinking about in this space?
Session 2 – Tuesday 23 November
Marketing your business on the web
How can you improve your Google search rankings?
How can you use Facebook, Twitter, blogs and YouTube to market your company?
How do you advertise on Google?
Session 3 – Tuesday 30 November
Web tools for collaborative working
How are other companies moving beyond email to communicate and share information?
What is cloud computing and I should I be using it?
What is a wiki and do I need one?
Session 4 – Tuesday 7 December
Dealing with web designers and search engine consultants
What can I do myself and when do I need an expert?
How much will these experts cost?
What questions should I be asking them?
Session 5 – Tuesday 14 December
Monitoring the effectiveness of your web strategy
I’ve got a website but who is visiting it?
What are people saying about my company on the web?
How can I improve my web strategy?
If you want to know more or make a booking, click HERE or email me on mrd@brighton.ac.uk
July 6, 2010
For me – as for many other attendees, the ‘one minute madness‘ session at last Monday’s (28th June 2010) LIS Research Coalition conference at the British Library conference centre was the highlight of the day. Over 20 brave souls stood up and presented on a research topic (from completed, funded projects, to PhD work in progress, to projects just getting off the ground) in 60 seconds. Not only did they all keep to time, but I – rather to my surprise – learnt a huge amount and can actually remember a lot of it! As Charles Oppenheim noted in his highly entertaining closing remarks, this should be the way forward for PhD vivas… I’d add all conference presentations to that. Although, having said that, I was glad Andrew Dillon had longer than a minute, as his informative and thought provoking keynote address was a great start to the morning, following on from Michael Jubb’s overview of LIS research in the UK over the last few decades, and outlining the work of the LIS Research Coalition to date. He rightly singled out Hazel Hall’s amazing work over the last year in promoting the work of the Coalition and in implementing its plans.
During the afternoon, delegates were split into breakout groups to firstly identify questions that needed answers (on the topic of either evidence or value and impact), and secondly, to come up with answers to the questions posed by a different group. I think many important issues were aired during these sessions (and I – of course – took the opportunity to put in my own twopence worth), but I felt rather that the group was better at identifying issues and challenges than answers! That may just have been the control freak lecturer in me wanting my seminar students to knuckle down to the task and come up with solutions! There is also a certain going over old ground on these occasions (as I couldn’t help pointing out, the same issues have been coming up over and over again in a number of research projects (including a study I did in 2006) and the literature for well over twenty years), but as Andrew Dillon had remarked earlier, culture change is a slow process. Having said that, now that the Research Coalition is in place, I have much more confidence that things will move forward than I would have done a few years ago.
Much tweeting and blogging of the event was done during the day (including by me), so you can get a sense of the day in a number of ways – follow the tweet trail (#lisrc10); check out the day’s live blog; and read/watch the sessions, all available from the Coalition conference website; read other reviews of the conference. The organisation of the day, the co-ordination of the reporting of sessions etc. and the enthusiasm were all excellent, so I’m looking forward to where we all take it next…
