Greetings from the Norad library. We are still happy librarians, our library services are in demand and we are getting feedback.
Thanks to all who contributed with you ideas and comments. It was an inspiring session! Glad to see that many people are thinking like us and very useful because we got some thoughts cleared out. We definitely know something about what we want to prioritize and how we can get use of our core competencies.
Our activities are all built on the users’ information needs. We want to be - and think we are need-driven and not collection-oriented so it is of great importance have good user surveys. Facts and statistics on the activities are in demand and for us a constant challenge.
In Bergen, we confirmed that one of the most important thing we can do, is to conduct user training - help our library users to help themselves. However, user training is no point without a good product to market. Therefore, we see that the preparation of information systems and user training are close connected. It may be that librarians should be taught in adult education. This is perhaps an idea for the next EADI IMWG meeting.
We do some tabloid marketing like: "You have a library. The library is for you. We provide everything”
We offer all departments a ten minutes briefing about the library with the slogan "what everyone should know about Norad's library”. Then we invite them to a twenty minutes individual course at the computer in the library. We put a lot of emphasis in building relationships, both at the organizational level and in relation to individuals. This is popular and Else’s calendar is full.
User training does not make us unemployed, but leads us to more advanced requests. That challenge us and stimulates to search for new knowledge so we always appear as professionals and highly skilled.
Norad's library is organized as an integrated part of a large information department. We are 17 all together (1.6 librarian). Our experience is that journalists, media people, web desk and librarians interact well. We often feel privileged to work in this environment, which is so active and dynamic. But from time to time we are and should be, challenged to think critical about our profession, are we on the right track, what are the results of our library work or could it be done in another way. Yes, it is exciting and never boring.
Else og Kirsten
Tuesday 26 October 2010
Friday 24 September 2010
Adapting to a new environment
The 2010 EADI Information Management Working Group meeting in Bergen focussed on the way IMWG members have adapted to the new environment in which they work. Both the new work environment in terms of organisation and the new technological environment online.
There were two threads to the meeting:
1) Looking at the new opportunities arising from mergers and partnerships.
2) Seeing how organisations in development research are adapting to the new internet environment.
1)Working through partnerships and effective mergers
The opening keynote discussed how working in partnership has brought capacity building to the University of Juba Library in Sudan through a partnership between the University of Bergen Library and Makere University in Uganda. The South South cooperation between Makere University and Juba that emerged from the initial partnership was a particular success - demonstrating that new digital technologies could be successfully used in similar situations and that the challenges of internet connectivity and power can be overcome. We also heard from the Universitty of Zimbabwe in a separate presentation on the practicalities of library suppport.
The panel discussion on mergers and acquisitions raised some interesting criteria on choosing partnerships, identifying advantages in sharing capacities and resources and taking advantage of the purchasing power with publishers, which comes with a larger organisation. Library mergers could keep the exisiting users content when the identity of their collection was preserved. It was interesting to here how the different groups had addressed the merger process, with the discussion of a three level merger - the Libray, Librarians and Users.
2)The new opportunities online
The meeting covered adaptation to the new internet environment through a series of presentations and participatory sessions resulting in the showcasing of new devices and applications - an exchange of experience with social media and presentation of monitoring and evaluation approaches.
Against a backdrop of recent discussions that the "web is dead" in both the economist and Wired magazine the group is faced with new possibilities and challenges as social media and mobile applications gain importance and information needs to be placed on the sites were the audience is rather than just on an organisations website.
Many of these applications change fundamentally how information flows work. The application FlipBoard provides the usr with a newspaper drawn from tweets and incorporating the content of references, just view the tweets using #imwg using the ipad application . http://www.flipboard.com/
The experience in the room session looked at the issues library and information managers are facing in their use of social media, ranging from organisational policies to monitoring and evaluation.
Two sessions presented how online analysis and monitoring and evaluation could be undertaken on website and library use respectively.
There were two threads to the meeting:
1) Looking at the new opportunities arising from mergers and partnerships.
2) Seeing how organisations in development research are adapting to the new internet environment.
1)Working through partnerships and effective mergers
The opening keynote discussed how working in partnership has brought capacity building to the University of Juba Library in Sudan through a partnership between the University of Bergen Library and Makere University in Uganda. The South South cooperation between Makere University and Juba that emerged from the initial partnership was a particular success - demonstrating that new digital technologies could be successfully used in similar situations and that the challenges of internet connectivity and power can be overcome. We also heard from the Universitty of Zimbabwe in a separate presentation on the practicalities of library suppport.
The panel discussion on mergers and acquisitions raised some interesting criteria on choosing partnerships, identifying advantages in sharing capacities and resources and taking advantage of the purchasing power with publishers, which comes with a larger organisation. Library mergers could keep the exisiting users content when the identity of their collection was preserved. It was interesting to here how the different groups had addressed the merger process, with the discussion of a three level merger - the Libray, Librarians and Users.
2)The new opportunities online
The meeting covered adaptation to the new internet environment through a series of presentations and participatory sessions resulting in the showcasing of new devices and applications - an exchange of experience with social media and presentation of monitoring and evaluation approaches.
Against a backdrop of recent discussions that the "web is dead" in both the economist and Wired magazine the group is faced with new possibilities and challenges as social media and mobile applications gain importance and information needs to be placed on the sites were the audience is rather than just on an organisations website.
Many of these applications change fundamentally how information flows work. The application FlipBoard provides the usr with a newspaper drawn from tweets and incorporating the content of references, just view the tweets using #imwg using the ipad application . http://www.flipboard.com/
The experience in the room session looked at the issues library and information managers are facing in their use of social media, ranging from organisational policies to monitoring and evaluation.
Two sessions presented how online analysis and monitoring and evaluation could be undertaken on website and library use respectively.
Thursday 23 September 2010
Wednesday 22 September 2010
Tuesday 21 September 2010
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