Tag Archives: librarians

Register now for RIVAL event 1: Thursday 11th July, Edinburgh

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Text shamelessly copied from Hazel’s post
Registration is now open for the first RIVAL event on Thursday 11th July 2019 in the Horizon Suite at at Edinburgh Napier University’s Sighthill campus. Participation is free of charge for Scotland-based members of the library and information science practitioner and research communities interested in maximising the impact and value of library and information science research.

Thanks to project funding from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, we are able to subsidise costs of participation. We can contribute up to £25 towards the travel costs of those based in the Central Belt not local to Edinburgh. As well as travel, we can also contribute to accommodation costs for those from the rest of Scotland (up to £130 total for those on the mainland, and up to £280 total for those from the islands).

We are looking forward to welcoming a mix of information professionals from across Scotland to this event, including practising library and information scientists, and library and information science researchers (academic staff, research staff, and PhD students).

Speakers at this first RIVAL event include Hazel Hall (Edinburgh Napier University), Sarah Morton (Matter of Focus), and Louise Graham (Edinburgh Libraries). The programme also includes time for networking and unconference presentations, and for delegates to determine future elements of the RIVAL project.

To find out more about the other networking events in November 2019, March 2020, and July 2020, and the RIVAL event contributors, please see the RIVAL web site at https://lisrival.com or contact the RIVAL administrator: Dr Bruce Ryan by email at b.ryan@napier.ac.uk.

Research Impact and Value in LIS: introducing the RIVAL network

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Copied from Hazel Hall’s blog

This afternoon I’m speaking at the Edge conference in Edinburgh about a new project, as summarised in the slide below.

RIVAL launch posterWe started work on Research Impact and Value and LIS (RIVAL) on 1st February 2019. The Royal Society of Edinburgh has awarded us a grant to create a collaborative network of Scotland-based library and information science (LIS) researchers and library and information professionals interested in maximising the value of LIS research. This work builds on the pilot RIVAL event that we hosted at Edinburgh Napier University on 11th July last year.

We’re using the funding to organise four one-day network events between July 2019 and July 2020.  A proportion of this will be used to cover expenses of network members to participate at the events: travel for all members as required; travel and accommodation for those travelling long distances, e.g. from the Highlands and Islands. An extensive online presence for RIVAL will allow others to benefit from the project.

The main goal of the project is to develop and strengthen relationships between LIS researchers within Scottish universities, and between these LIS researchers and practitioners in Scotland. We hope that in doing so the practitioner participants will increase their confidence and self-efficacy as research users and partners.

The project team members Hazel Hall and Bruce Ryan are based within the Centre for Social Informatics at Edinburgh Napier University, and supported by a Project Board that includes Ines Byrne of the National Library of Scotland, Martina McChrystal of the University of Glasgow, Paul McCloskey of the City of Edinburgh Council, Emily Prince of Westerhailes Education Centre, and Andy Taylor of the University of Edinburgh.

The first RIVAL event takes place on Thursday 11th July 2019 in the Horizon Suite at Edinburgh Napier University’s Sighthill campus. Full details will be made available soon. In the meantime, if you wish to register your interest in the event, please email Bruce Ryan at b.ryan@napier.ac.uk.

To find out more about RIVAL, please check the project web site, follow the @LisRival Twitter feed, and/or join us on Facebook.

DREaM paper accepted

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In 2015, I enjoyed working with Professor Hazel Hall on an assessment of the lasting effects of the Developing Research Excellence and Methods (DREaM) project. Hazel’s posts about this project are here.

A paper written by Hazel, Peter Cruickshank and me, addressing the question of network sustainability within a community of library and information science (LIS) researchers and practitioner researchers has now been accepted for publication in the Journal of Documentation. Please read more about it in Hazel’s blog post, or, if you would like to learn more about the results of this study, please email Hazel at: h.hall@napier.ac.uk.