Posted on November 17th, 2011 by Paul Stainthorp
(Yes, I’ve used this ‘hilarious‘ blog post title before. So sue me.)
I was at Lincoln Central Library on Free School Lane this morning for a meeting of LISN, the Lincolnshire Information Services Network.
LISN (pronounced listen) has been in existence since August 1998 when a group of (mainly) college and university librarians decided to network on a formalised basis. The group has evolved considerably since then to welcome any Lincolnshire-based information provider/library wishing to exchange ideas and information to benefit the Lincolnshire community.
Every LISN meeting runs to a similar pattern: after the standard apologies-minutes-matters-arising bumf, we discuss at length a topic of interest to Lincolnshire libraries of all sectors (today’s topic was on the subject of online learning materials: “what we are doing in terms of providing online interactive learning materials to support the users of our collections and resources? Are we using learning materials provided by suppliers or creating our own?“). Then each member library provides an institutional update; AOB; end.
I’m meant to look after the LISN website (www.lisn.org.uk) – I’ve not always been terribly good at giving this job enough attention (colleagues from the UKCoRR committee will find that a depressingly familiar story), which is why I’m pleased that fellow LISN rep Rachael Adair from Lincoln College has offered to share that task with me.
The other interesting topic that came up at this morning’s meeting is the progress Bishop Grosseteste University College are making with their library extension – you can see the latest construction photos on their Facebook page, at: http://www.facebook.com/bishopglibrary
Tags: Bishop Grosseteste, construction, extension, Facebook, groups, libraries, Lincoln Central Library, Lincoln.Lincoln College, Lincolnshire, LISN, meetings, photos, public libraries, Rachael Adair, Sibthorp Library, UKCoRR, website, www.lisn.org.uk
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Posted on November 17th, 2011 by Paul Stainthorp
I’ve had a useful meeting with my new boss to agree my priorities for the next 12 months of development work in the Library. Here are my top 4, in order of importance.
- Discovery selection & implementation;
- JISC Orbital project (0.3FTE) – based mainly in CERD until March 2013;
- Possible JISC-funded Jerome follow-on work;
- Development of the Lincoln Repository – working closely with the Library Institutional Repository Officer (BJ), the Research & Enterprise Office + the subject librarians on the following areas:
- Metadata workflow and service development
- Advocacy/training
- Building a “Research Showcase”
- CRIS-like development, bibliometrics, and supporting the REF
- Developing staff profiles on the University’s website
- E-theses
- Helpdesk integration (…possibly)
The following are projects—part of the current Library I.T. strategy—that I’ll contribute to but probably won’t lead, and/or work that’s going on in the background that I need to stay abreast of:
- Reading list development (project);
- Authentication (project);
- Participation in various JISC working groups as well as UKCoRR and LISN;
- Working with the Acquisitions team on new team rôles/areas of work;
- Monitoring and guiding e-resource management (ERM), authentication, and responding to user problems (this area of work will be looked after day-to-day by the Library (E-resources) Assistant (EV), supported by other staff, as part of the cover for my JISC project work);
- Supporting the subject librarian for technology in a review of the Library’s presence on the University Portal;
- Supporting the subject librarians in promoting and supporting the use of RefWorks 2.0;
- Supporting the HELS in administering copyright/digitisation services and the use of Blackboard.
- Initiating a new CALM user group.
- Co-ordinating LIG (the Library Innovation Group).
- Participating in the work of LNCD.
G’won then: what have I forgotten about?
Tags: 2.0, acquisitions, advocacy, authentication, Bev Jones, bibliometrics, Blackboard, copyright, CRIS, digitisation, discovery, e-theses, Elif Varol, ERM, HELS, Jerome, JISC, Lincoln Repository, LISN, Orbital, Portal, priorities, projects, reading lists, REF, RefWorks, research, Research Showcase, strategy, training, UKCoRR
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Posted on May 13th, 2011 by Paul Stainthorp
I’ve just returned from the formal launch event for Lincs to the Past, the new flagship website from Lincolnshire County Council which provides online access to “the cultural heritage collections” of the county.
The launch party was held at the Collection museum in Lincoln.
Lincs to the Past builds on a previous project of the county council called ‘Cultural Collections‘, which provided a unified search interface for resources held in various cultural-service catalogues (library, museums, archives).
The new website adds a whole load of interesting functionality on top of that single search, including:
- Records collected together to form exhibitions
- Very-high-quality digitised image browse (example) including rich navigation using Zoomify
- User tagging and commenting
- Faceted search (by date period, subject term, and domain: i.e. library, museum, or archives)
- Online help
You can find Lincs to the Past at: www.lincstothepast.com
Tags: archives, Cultural Collections, events, history, humanities, images, launch, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincs to the Past, LISN, local history, museums, public libraries, search, The Collection, websites, Zoomify
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Posted on March 16th, 2011 by Paul Stainthorp
Yesterday the University of Lincoln hosted the latest meeting of LISN, the Lincolnshire Information Services Network of libraries and information providers from all library sectors (academic, school, public, specialist) operating in Lincs.
“LISN (pronounced listen) has been in existence since August 1998 when a group of (mainly) college and university librarians decided to network on a formalised basis. LISN is a group which meets to share staff expertise and resources between its members and therefore by extension all members’ users.”
My particular and long-running task in LISN is to make something of our website. I’ve recently re-created the site using WordPress, hosted here at the University; the group’s web domain (www.lisn.org.uk) is now pointing at the new site. Now I need to apply a decent WordPress theme and visual style; also to develop the site content: the group has agreed that it’s going to be kept small and perfectly formed(!), but there is some more information about the member organisations that needs to be incorporated.
A screenshot of the new website, pre-visual makeover:
(And yes, I’ve used the title of this blog post before. So sue me.)
Tags: Architecture Building, collaboration, groups, Lincolnshire Information Services Network, LISN, meetings, web design, websites, WordPress, www.lisn.org.uk
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