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.

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 [...]

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 [...]

SLIC FE Conference

The third SLIC Further Education (FE) libraries Conference took place on Fri 28 November at the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh. The event was introduced in 2006 as part of the new SLIC membership package and attendance is free to Scottish FE librarians. We had hoped to deliver a live blog of the event on [...]

Economic recession and library use

The link between economic decline and increased public library use has been discussed by US commentators for many years. Some sources date the first reference to this linkage as a statement in the 1880 Annual Report of the Chicago Public Library (Lynch, M. J. (2001)). More recently, the American Library Association (ALA) has [...]

SIBMAS International Conference: Glasgow 2008

SIBMAS, the international association of libraries and museums of the performing arts, will this year hold their biennial conference in Glasgow. The conference will take place at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama from Mon 22- Fri 26 Sept.
The conference was first held in Zagreb in 1954 and has visited locations across [...]

Libraries and IT departments

In a recent blog post, educationalist John Connell raised the issue of what he described as the “IT head-lock” in Scottish local authorities. Referring to the education sector’s difficulties with IT departments, John notes “…the almost complete professional and attitudinal disconnect in most Scottish local authorities between those who manage the corporate IT networks and [...]