Ask Scotland Development Day

The morning of Friday the 13th of November saw the Ask Scotland Development day at the Mitchell library. The day was a chance to outline the overall strategy of implementing the service and was also an opportunity for the first group of librarians involved in Ask Scotland to ask questions about it and give [...]

SLIC Innovation and Development Showcase

An overview of the SLIC IDF Showacase, provided by SLIC Assistant Director Rhona Arthur.

CILIPS Council Meeting Tue 27 October

A report on proceedings compiled by CILIPS Assistant Director Rhona Arthur, featuring developments with the Information Scotland journal, CILIPS Annual Conference and updates on all other CILIPS initiatives.

Digital Futures: adapting to new e-environments conference

On Thursday 22nd October the 9th Annual E-Books Conference was held at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. This event felt timely due to the recent increase in dedicated mass-market e-book readers available on the market and the proliferation of large screen smart ‘phones, such as the iphone.
The first presentation, for which Colin Galloway kindly [...]

Virtual reference around the world

As part of the IFLA Conference in Milan, a focus group meeting was held on Monday 24 Aug to discuss virtual reference projects and initiatives taking place in libraries across the world. The meeting was hosted by OCLC, who developed the QuestionPoint virtual reference system that powers our AskScotland service.
The AskScotland pilot service was launched [...]

Emerging trends in technology: IFLA 2009, satellite meeting

In the lead up to the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) World Library and Information Conference (WLIC), which opens in Milan on Sun 23 Aug, a number of pre-conference satellite meetings have been held across Italy, with a few others taking place in other European destinations.
I attended the IFLA Information Technology Section’s event, titled [...]

What are you doing (in September)?

CILIPS, as an early adopter of microblogging, developed a Twitter presence as part of our research into how Web 2.0 tools might support member engagement and also be incorporated into workflows – activity which in turn is supporting our efforts to lead discussion on the usefulness to our membership of emergent technologies. What we [...]

Mashing libraries: work in progress

After attending Mash Oop North (#mashlib09) in Huddersfield last week, I’ve been playing around with some of the tools and services mentioned at the event. One service that appealed to my imagination was Dipity, which was shown by Brian Kelly in his Enthusiastic Amateurs session. I particularly liked the example of its use in creating [...]

Enterprise, engagement and new communications: Web 2.0 in the library

On the warmest day of the year in Edinburgh so far the hottest ticket in town gained admission to this sell out event at the National Library of Scotland where the key themes of the day were communication and engagement.
While some sectors have experienced enthusiastic uptake of social networking technology the public library service has [...]

ScotlandsPeople discount in libraries

Last Friday’s ministerial launch of the ScotlandsPeople discount voucher scheme in public libraries seems to have done a good job in raising the profile of the initiative (view press release).  Details of the launch appeared in several newspapers including the Daily Record, the Scotsman, the Sun and the Sunday Telegraph.  SLIC has also experienced increased [...]