I write these pieces every 6 months, usually for the Centre for Social Informatics’ all-centre meetings. (I’m usually incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1]) I’m still really miffed that we can’t get together in person. Click this link to see all the pieces in this series.
Continue readingRecently, I created online maps of creative companies in Scottish Borders, the Lothians, Edinburgh and Fife (collectively ‘south-east Scotland’). This was commissioned by the Creative Informatics programme, which aims ‘to explore how data can be used to drive ground-breaking new products, businesses and experiences’, among other good things.
Without further ado, here are the maps:
Below I rant about the problems encountered in this project – they are almost all about the data.
Continue readingLast week I attended training on ‘How to communicate your research using social media, blogs, video and infographics’, run by CILIP’s UK eInformation Group. I am grateful to Napier’s School of Computing for funding my attendance and this training by Andy Tattersall of Sheffield University’s School of Health and Related Research.
Continue readingMy first formal experience of leading an academic project has started. I am principal investigator of Platform to platform: an investigation into audience engagement with digitised archives and its transformative impact across different online formats. (The link is to Hazel Hall’s description of the project.)
The project will
This online session, hosted by Queen Margaret University on 24 November, provided an overview of how to get research noticed by government and other policy institutions. The ‘research questions’ were
The following is my lightly edited notes of the presentation by the presentation by Nick Bibby, Director of Scottish Policy and Research Exchange, and the following Q&A session. Hence any mistakes or poor language are due to me, not Nick. Images are screenshots. If I receive the slides, I will update the images so they are clearer.
Continue readingA few weeks ago, I was at CILIP Scotland‘s Autumn Regathering, the first such in-person event for a couple of years. You can read about it on CILIPS’ website, and you can read about two of the presentations on the Centre for Social Informatics blog. In that piece, Rachel Salzano and I write about the session on ‘AI and the information professional’ and ‘Climate Action, Inequalities and Knowledge’.
Last week, I was virtually at CILIP Scotland East Branch‘s AGM. Following the brief formalities, there was an in-conversation discussion of synergies between the strategies below, and the need to prioritise actions for the post-Covid world.
As CILIPS wrote:
Three important new library strategies have recently been launched that will set the scene in Scotland for years to come: The National Library of Scotland’s Reaching People, SLIC’s Forward – Scotland’s Public Library Strategy, and Vibrant Libraries, Thriving Schools – A National Strategy for School Libraries in Scotland. These continue the work over recent years to place libraries at the heart of Scottish civic, cultural, and educational life.
(from EventBrite)
Panellists National Librarian Amina Shah, SLIC CEO Pamela Tulloch, and Chair of the Public Library Strategy Advisory Group Jeanette Castle discussed the synergies between the strategies, and the need to prioritise actions for the post-Covid world.
You can watch the panel session, and you can check out live-tweets with hashtag #PowerOfThree. Lots to learn and enthuse about!
Do you work with refugees and/or asylum seekers (forced migrants) as part of your role in a UK public library? Can you assist a PhD student with her study on forced migrants’ use of UK public libraries? Perhaps you have colleagues or other contacts who could help out?
Rachel Salzano of Edinburgh Napier University seeks public library staff (at any level) willing to take part in interviews about their experience of delivering public library services to forced migrants. The interviews last approximately 1 hour and are organised at the interviewee’s convenience. Please contact Rachel on the contact form at https://librariansanslibrary.weebly.com/contact or email r.salzano@napier.ac.uk.
(Text and image shamelessly copied from Hazel Hall’s post.)
I write these pieces every 6 months, usually for the Centre for Social Informatics’ all-centre meetings. (I’m usually incapable of speech by the time it’s my turn to report.[1]) I’m still really miffed that we still can’t get together in person. Click this link to see all the pieces in this series. There is a history of my academic work so far on my personal blog. Continue reading
I was delighted to speak about the RIVAL project Royal Society of Edinburgh funded Research Impact Value and Library and Information Science (RIVAL) project, at the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Scotland 2021 conference (#CILIPS21) on Tuesday 8 June. This, and Hazel’s presentation at SCURL, would be a fitting coda to all the work I, Hazel and others have put into this project, and the successes it has generated. NB it’s a coda, not a finis. Continue reading
I’m very, very happy to report that Workplace information literacy: measures and methodological challenges has now been published in the Journal of Information Literacy. This paper is available at https://doi.org/10.11645/15.2.2812. You can read more about the paper in at least 3 blog posts:
So here, I just want to thank Gunilla Widén, Farhan Ahmad, Shahrokh Nikou and Peter Cruickshank for the opportunity to write together on our work on workplace information literacy. And of course thank you to all at JIL for the opportunity to publish.
Reference
Widén, G., Ahmad, F., Nikou, S., Ryan, B., & Cruickshank, P. (2021). Workplace information literacy. Journal Of Information Literacy, 15(2), 26-44. doi:10.11645/15.2.2812
Bruce's IT-ish world 