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Wednesday, 25 April 2012

Bite Size at LILAC 2012

 Posted by Andy

I made the long journey up north to Glasgow to present a poster about our ScHARR Bite Size programme. The poster as like the Bite Size presentation at Internet Librarian International 2011 was well recieved with various academic librarians keen to know more about this effective way of improving staff awareness and development. At the conference which was held at Glasgow Caledonian University was well attended with over 100 international delegates and featured keynotes from:
I was only able to catch Lord Puttnam's keynote which was very thought provoking with regards to where we go in terms of using technology to support teaching and learning. I thought of Sir Ken Robinson's delivery and approach very similar to the famous film director and thought we need more people like them - especially when Lord Puttnam said that the Government should clone librarians and information professionals as we had a very important job to do. How right he is.
Here's the abstract from the conference.

Learn something new in 20 minutes: bite-size sessions for research, teaching and collaboration

Andy Tattersall, University of Sheffield, a.tattersall@sheffield.ac.uk
Jenny Freeman, University of Sheffield, j.v.freeman@sheffield.ac.uk
Claire Beecroft, University of Sheffield, c.beecroft@sheffield.ac.uk
Ursula Potgieter, University of Sheffield, u.potgieter@sheffield.ac.uk
Nowadays the environment in universities and other large knowledge organisations is increasingly pressurised with busy staff finding it increasingly difficult to make time for training, even when it might enhance their role and enable them to work more efficiently. We have pioneered an innovative, minimal-cost solution that encourages staff to engage with new technologies that could enhance their potential as researchers and their abilities as lecturers, as well as increase the skills-base of support staff. It is based on one very simple idea, that whilst individuals may not be able to spend hours training, they can spare 20 minutes during the mid-afternoon for a quick coffee break. We give a weekly 20 minute presentation using a variety of technologies such as Prezi, videos and voting tools for interactive demonstrations, along with an optional 10 minutes for questions and discussion. As an added incentive we provide free cakes! The ‘Bite-sized’ sessions have been designed to cover various topics relating to teaching and research practice, with a strong emphasis on web 2.0 and emerging technologies and innovations. Bite-Size actively seeks out sustainable technologies that can address staff needs and solve organisational problems usually for no cost. Topics so far have included Google Docs, social networks, rss, the use of the Social Web to promote research, and the use of electronic voting systems in lectures. The sessions act as both a demonstration and a signpost to further resources- they are very much about planting seeds and ideas.
The poster will explain the key ingredients that make up Bite-Size, the structure and format of the sessions, the content that has been covered to date and the target audience. In addition we will present research that we have undertaken to evaluate the Bite-Size sessions and discuss its future direction including podcasting sessions and new topic areas.

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Friday, 20 April 2012

MMIT 2012: A rip-roaring success!


 Image © Claire Beecroft

Tuesday saw IR's Andy Tattersall finally bring to fruition is dream of bringing back the MMIT conference, and bringing it to Sheffield. The day was a great success, despite a poorly presenter, and a good time was had by all. Special thanks go to Leo Appleton, Andrew Cox, Catherine Dhanjal, Marshall Breeding, Ross Mahon, Jon Fletcher, Dave Pattern and Rene Meijer and our wonderful student helpers who were BEYOND brilliant.

There has been so much comment and feedback we can't fit  it all in here, but here's some of the best:

Article on the Conference by InformationToday Europe

Blog posts by several attendees:

Lady Pens Treasure Trove

Sensible Shoes

Michelle's Library Stuff

 You can view all the tweets here

And view some fab graphics of them here

Or use  The Archivist to generate some great graphics using the #mmit2012 hashtag

Posted by Claire and Andy

Latest Research Funding Update


Photo by   piewords 
Post by Anna

Previous editions of the update can be viewed here 

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Return to work

Just a quick hello from me, Louise Preston, the Information Specialist formerly known as Louise Guillaume.

I've recently returned back to the Information Resources Group part time (Tuesday-Thursday) following maternity leave. My son, Stanley, was born last May and joined big brother Will. 

Stanley
I'm getting back into the swing of life in Information Resources. Lots has changed in the 11 months that I was off work! I'm currently working on a couple of projects and teaching for our innovative module on Public Health Informatics which is part of the Sheffield MPH programme. 

Right, now back to it.....

Take Five - April 2012

Photo by  master phillip
Post by Anna

The latest edition of Take Five is packed full of new websites, research funding opportunities,training courses and current awareness.

You can view it here

An archive of the Take Five Newsletter and other research funding updates can be viewed here

Tuesday, 17 April 2012

Delegates mainlining caffeine and carbs at MMIT2012

Marshall Breeding Live!

Marshall reports that library automation isn't keeping pace with the shifting sands of the information landscape, clinging to the slippery rocks of the print world.

At last. Its the MMIT 2012 Conference, today!

Well it's going to be a fraught day for IR's very own Andy Tattersall as he finally gets his long-planned MMIT conference on the road! As you can see from the pic, we're still setting up, but the vibes are good. Good luck Andy, we're all behind you (hiding :0])

Posted by Claire

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

ScHARR Bite Size For Research #23 : Google Apps - Thursday 19th April - 2.30 Eric Wilkes Room


Posted by Andy

Please try and come along for what promises to be a very informative whistle stop tour around all things Google.

Thursday, 5 April 2012

Happy Easter!


Post by Anthea

ScHARR IR wish you all a good Easter break and we will be back with our literature searching, reference managment, web 2.0, information skills, and all things library related and beyond on Tuesday 10th April. See you then!

Monday, 2 April 2012

We love infographics!


We are big fans of the Infographic here at ScHARR Towers- we even have a copy of the wonderful David McCandless' book 'Information is Beautiful' in the ScHARR Library (see him doing his thing at TED, above). There's been a load of work on this in recent years especially kicked on by the likes of Gapminder and Information is Beautiful, but it seems to be gaining massive momentum - so here's a few sites our very own Andy Tattersall has come across over the last few years. As Andy said this very morning "I hope these will spur you on to make their own infographics- perhaps it's only a matter of time before we see these regularly at conferences. If you search through these sites you will find dozens of health-related infographics."
Thanks Andy!

The Top 7 sites for infographics:


Guardian Data Store - Show and Tell - http://www.guardian.co.uk/data/series/show-and-tell



Information is Beautiful - http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/

Daily Infographic - http://dailyinfographic.com/


Visual.ly - http://visual.ly/

Posted by Claire and Andy

Sunday, 1 April 2012

Chrome Multitask Mode



Posted by Andy

This looks like it could the biggest revelation in computing to date - at ScHARR Towers we've already taken order for a bunch of extra mouses (or is it mices?) - either way, we're going to be ahead of the game. One mouse is so 2001!
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