Steps West Newsletter Newsletter of the Career Development Group, West Country Division No. 3 – Summer 2009
In this issue
Editorial Welcome to the latest issue of Steps West in which you can read more about one of our committee members and find out what happened at our last event An Evening Talk on Digitisation. Turn to page 3 and 4 to see what great courses and events we have planned for you in the coming weeks!
Editorial ― Meet the committee ― Report on Digitisation Evening Talk ― Forthcoming events
I would like to use this chance to congratulate Jeremy Bowden, who won our sponsored place to Umbrella! We are looking forward to reading about his experience in the next issue.
Meet the committee Nicola Healey – Honorary Secretary I first got involved with the Career Development Group whilst undergoing my Chartership process. My mentor was on the West Country Committee and invited me along and I have been involved ever since. I have worked in a variety of library sectors and found that I really enjoy the teaching side of librarianship. In my current role at Yeovil District Hospital,
I am involved with teaching and supporting staff undergoing courses as part of their professional development and their everyday information needs.
Since joining the committee I have developed a variety of skills, such as organising events, writing up minutes of meetings, preparing flyers and writing quiz questions!
My work on the committee involves setting up meetings, keeping an eye open for interesting courses which we could run in the region and dealing with any queries about the group.
I really enjoy working alongside other colleagues on the committee who are always supportive, even if some of my ideas have been a bit odd - they are always met with a smile!
Thanks… Special Thanks … … go to Susan Shreeve and Lucy McCaskie, who are standing down from the committee this year, for all their hard work over the last years organising events and keeping the website up-todate! It has been great working with both of you and you will be missed very much!
A group of CILIP, The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Registered Charity No. 313014 Debating issues – developing awareness
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No. 3 – Summer 2009
An Evening Talk on Digitisation, 1st April 2009 by Tom Shaw, NHS Direct, Bristol At the beginning of April the Career Development Group West Country Division held an Evening Talk on Digitisation at Filton College in Bristol. It was an informal presentation given by John Hargreaves, Technical Research Officer at TASI (Technical Advisory Service for Images), University of Bristol. Like many librarians, I knew a little about digitisation. However, this was mostly from a unit on my MSc course some four years ago, so I was keen to learn more and expand my knowledge. It proved to be a fascinating evening, and a welcome opportunity to find out more about this intriguing topic. Some issues were undoubtedly familiar to many librarians. For example, metadata is a key component of digitisation and is analogous to cataloguing data in many respects. However, the finer points of technical issues such as image resolution and bit depth were probably new to many who attended! The focus was on the digitisation of still images, with the evening split into two halves. The first examined why you might want to build a digital collection and how this could be effectively managed. The second addressed the technical side, looking at image formats, metadata and technical standards. Initially the speaker highlighted some of the barriers to building a digital image
collection, such as cost and the steep learning curve involved. However, there are increasing drivers to digitisation. For example, it improves access to collections, resources can be publicised effectively and fragile resources can be preserved. Furthermore, both users and managers increasingly expect resources to be available digitally. A key message was the need for effective planning and management of a digitisation project. Digitisation has often been rather ad hoc, and to use a quote from the presentation, “Our model of ‘just do it’ is about to do us in” (RLG DigiNews, December 2005). Pre-planning was emphasised as essential. It is vital to consider issues such as what resources you have already and what your users need. Considering standards in areas such as image quality and metadata is essential too, and can feed into the interoperability of a collection. Furthermore - perhaps not too surprising for many librarians John highlighted copyright as a crucial topic. The workflow of building a collection was also highlighted as a key area. For example, John recommended having a plan or diagram of all the steps involved in adding an image to the collection. Technology can be exploited to make the workflow more
efficient. Users can also assist, for example, by adding their own descriptive metadata tags. However, this might prove controversial with some librarians! The second half of the evening changed direction and we looked at the technical specifications of images, such as bit depth (the number of bits which make up a pixel) and file formats. The importance of metadata was also addressed. This can be split into descriptive or discovery metadata (e.g. title and subject of the image) and admin metadata (e.g. image format and file size). John highlighted Dublin Core as one of the main standards available for constructing metadata. Additionally, the importance of using controlled vocabularies was emphasised, as a means of ensuring better retrieval and interoperability. The evening finished with an indication of how digital images and image collections might evolve in the future. John showcased an innovative resource which uses images - rather than text - to search for images. Users can employ a simple tool to sketch out the type of image they are looking for (e.g. draw a tree if you want pictures of a tree) and the resource retrieves the results. This was a fascinating look at future possibilities, and an upbeat end to an extremely interesting evening.
No. 3 – Summer 2009
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Forthcoming events events The West Country and Devon & Cornwall Divisions of the Career Development Group would like to invite you to a
Missed the last one? We are happy to announce that we will be re-running the event
Chartership Preparation Course
An Evening Talk on Digitisation
Monday, 22nd June Frome Library 10am – 4pm
Thursday, 16th July University of Bath Library 7.30 – 9.30pm
We will be looking at all aspects of the chartering process and ACLIP. There will be recently chartered members to talk to, and portfolios for you to look at. The Candidate Support Officers from the Devon & Cornwall and the West Country divisions will also be there. This is an ideal opportunity to find out more about ideas on how to find a mentor and how to put a portfolio together and a great chance to talk to us. The event is free - it is already included in your MCLIP/ACLIP fees, so don’t hesitate and come and join us! To book a place and for further information please contact: Bridget Knutson (Bknutson@educ.somerst.gov.uk)
OR Beatrice Coveney (beatrice.coveney@devon.gov.uk)
Speaker: John Hargreaves, University of Bristol
For further information, please see the report by Tom Shaw about the event on page 2 in this newsletter.
Charges for the evening are: Non-CILIP member – £15 CILIP members – £10 Student – £5 The money will be collected on the day and refreshments will be available.
To book a place and for further information please send an email including your name, email address, CILIP membership number and your library sector to: cdgwestcountry@googlemail.com
2009 Annual General Meeting The 2009 AGM of the West Country division of the Career Development Group will take place on Thursday, 16th July at the University of Bath Library from 7.15pm, just before the Digitisation talk. Any member can attend this meeting free of charge and we would be happy to welcome as many of you as possible! There are also a number of vacant positions on our committee. Please contact our Secretary Nicola Healey (Nicola.Healey@ydh.nhs.uk), if you would like to find out more.
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No. 3 – Summer 2009
The West Country Division is pleased to announce a Visit to Windsor Castle Library Friday, 10th July 2.30pm The visit will last approximately 1.5 hours, and we will be shown around by Royal Library staff. This visit is only open to members of the Career Development Group who live or work either in the West Country or Devon & Cornwall divisional areas. Members who wish to take part in this visit will need to make their own way to Windsor in time to meet us outside the castle at 2pm.
South West Career Development Group Survey
Your opinion counts! The West Country Committee would like to hear your views about how we should proceed over the next 12 months, what type of courses you would benefit from professionally, where we should hold events and what you actually want to get out from being a member of the Career Development Group. This is a chance for you to put forward any suggestions which you have about shaping your local group. We are here for you and want to achieve what is best for you!
There is no charge for this visit but we would welcome any donations in support of our International Fund. If you would like to visit the castle beforehand you will have to pay the standard entrance fee of £15.00.
So please take a few minutes out of your day and fill in our survey at:
In order for this visit to take place, we need to have a minimum number of 12 attendees and a maximum of 24. Please note that places will be allocated on a first come first served basis.
Everyone who fills in the survey will automatically be entered into a prize draw to win a £25 book token.
To reserve a place on this trip, please send an email including name, home/ work address and CILIP membership number by 1st July to:
If you are interested in our work, do come along to our next committee meeting:
cdgwestcountry@googlemail.com
http://go.bath.ac.uk/cdgsurvey
Saturday, 5th September University of Bath Library 10.30am – 1pm See you there!
details,, ideas, suggestions Contact details Please send any comments about the newsletter or your ideas and suggestions to the Editor Katrin Flemming (k.flemming@bath.ac.uk). If you want to find out more about the group, please contact our Secretary Nicola Healey (Nicola.Healey@ydh.nhs.uk) or check our website (http://www.cilip.org.uk/specialinterestgroups/bysubject/careerdevelopment/sub/wcountry/).
If you require a large-print copy, please contact the Editor Katrin Flemming (k.flemming@bath.ac.uk).