tfpl blog

Home-shoring!

Many thanks to Vivienne Winterman who reports from a conference entitled Mobile and flexible working in the public sector.

Flexible working is a key issue in helping central and local government meet 'transformational' targets.  With the reduction in office space being a key requisite to fulfil this initiative, staff need to work more flexibly away from the workplace - ideally from home.

The new term for this is 'home-shoring' as coined by Kevin Breach, a Senior Advisor from ACAS who spoke at the conference.  Changing the culture of both management and staff is key to the success of flexible working.   

TFPL has recently carried out reviews for several councils movng in this direction.  They have realised that access to both internally produced and externally published information at the desktop will be a key requirement to successful out of office working.  If staff can access well managed resources via the web/intranet it will be easy for them to adapt to working from home two or three days a week.

The requirements of EDRM and e-books and e-journals are forcing organisations to look closely at how they manage and share internal documents and how they procure and manage externally published information.  Organisations need to deliver these services centrally, reduce duplication of effort, time and costs and enable the workforce to work collaboratively whether they are in the office or elsewhere.

Back from Online!

We had three really enjoyable and busy days at the Online Show at Olympia. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to talk about plans and priorities for 2008, to enter our competition or simply to catch up. 

Special thanks go to Jacky Berry of the BMA and Alison Leahy of the LDA who gave joint presentations with Angela Abell (TFPL Associate) as part of the Seminar programme at the show. 

Blogging about blogging...

Last Thursday evening TFPL held another free training course for its registered temporary workers called ‘Exploiting the Blogosphere.’ A good crowd of blog sceptics turned up to listen to Karen Blakeman provide a foundation on the subject and persuade them of their value. At the end of the hour long session, including how to set up your own blog, many of the listeners found themselves converted and off to become first time bloggers. One temp said ‘Found it a really good introduction. Had not explored them very much ... put off by the amount of "rambling". Particularly appreciated her comments re how to identify really useful comment. Good also for contractors to have ways of keeping up with conference information and trends as generally not able to go to such things unless we fund it ourselves.  Thank you very much for organising it.’

For more information about temps training events or temporary recruitment at TFPL contact katy.crosse@tfpl.com

Web 2.0 technologies and the information professional

Information World Review (November 2007) refers to the latest Outsell Information Industry Outlook report and quotes the author of the report as saying that in 2008 'a critical mass of information professionals would take charge of wikis, blogs or other 2.0 technologies on behalf of their organisations'.  Get up to speed by attending a TFPL course!

• Basic business blogging
• Web 2.0 for information professionals
• WWW pages 2: the next steps

The dangers of being an information professional...

Questions colleagues have asked me, in passing, this week include:

• Is sweetcorn a vegetable or a starch?
• Is there any salt and pepper in the kitchen?
• What's darker, 'black' or 'midnight black'?
• Is this the right way up?
• How do we clean our phones?

Unfortunately, my answers are usually less interesting than the questions!

BIALL Conference

Along with Philippa Anderson, Tracey South attended the annual British and Irish Association of Law Librarians (BIALL) conference and exhibition in Sheffield on 14-16 June on behalf of TFPL.  BIALL was attended by 300 law librarians. 

"It's always nice to put a face to a name and an opportunity to find out what our clients are up to.  Although the conference was based in central Sheffield, there was a severe weather warning and it poured with rain the whole time, so there wasn't much of a chance to see the city.  We are looking forward to going to Dublin next year to catch up with everybody again!"

UKeiG conference

This week's UKeiG conference held at SOAS proved really popular.  The theme of the event - the challenges of a volatile electronic environment - really pulled in the crowds.  Jan-Martin Lowendahl, of Gartner, took two slots at the start of the day.  First he talked about emerging IT trends and 'hype cycles'.  Then he went on to discuss the nature of 'digital natives' and the impact they will have as they hit the workforce.  Much guilty laughter as I recognised myself as someone who would say 'This is my digital camera'.  This highlights my status as a digital immigrant apparently.  To a digital native it's just a camera!

The digital native has a different relationship with technology and content and this has an impact on those of us who are providing them with content and services. Jan-Martin's presentations stimulated lots of debate and discussions. 

TFPL sponsors student prize at Northumbria University

TFPL is delighted to announce its sponsorship of the TFPL Prize for High Achievement.  The prize, granted to a student in Northumbria University's School of Computing, Engineering and Information Sciences, will be awarded in July 2007.  The winning student will receive a place on a TFPL training course of their choice plus an additional £200 to cover travel and accommodation expenses.

Librarian tattoos

Are we really a nation of 'self obsessed yo-yo dieters' as The Daily Telegraph infers from the list of Britain's most borrowed library books?  Reading the TV listings in the same paper I spot yet another body image/Size Zero programme is on tonight - the fourth this week.

Let's put this debate behind us, and instead focus on other ways to change our self image.  Available now from the same suppliers who brought us the Nancy the shushing librarian are these temporary tattoos for librarians.  Born to read indeed!

Information Literacy in Manchester

A call for papers for LILAC 2007 - Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference has been announced. 

The key note speakers are interesting and previous conferences have been good.  However, the information literacy scene is dominated by the education sector.  Lots of good papers, studies and experience is being shared.  How about what is happening in the workplace?   One of the 2007 keynote speakers will be Muir Gray so it will be chance to hear about IL needs and activities in the NHS.   How about some others submitting papers about other work place activities.   You may not call it information literacy but there is plenty going on to help improve corporate skills in working with information. It would be good to hear from you.