http://communicatoremail.com/g...

The October 2016 issue of the Journal is now also available for CLSIG members.

There has been a call for papers for the 6th Information: Interactions and Impact (i3) conference, 27-30 June 2017 at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK - a conference for which UKeiG has provided funding to help students attend in past years.

Submission are invited of high quality papers that report original research or critically discuss underlying methodological issues associated with the main themes of the conference. Papers may reflect ongoing or completed research studies and should not have been previously published or be currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. Particularly welcomed are papers which address two or more of the conference themes.

Important Deadlines

• All abstracts should be submitted by Wednesday 25 January 2017.
• Notification of acceptance will be emailed in mid March.
• The final copy of full papers for the peer-reviewed journal will be around September 2017. Details to be confirmed.

Conference themes

The conference focuses on the quality and effectiveness of the interaction between people and information and how this interaction can bring about change. i3 will look beyond the issues of use and accessibility of technology to questions about the way people interact with the information and knowledge content of today's systems and services, and how this might ultimately affect the impact of that information on individuals, organisations and communities. Research questions may include, but are not restricted to the following:

• How much do we know about the impact of information behaviours and capabilities on the quality and effectiveness of learning, knowledge building and sharing, decision-making and problem solving, creativity, democracy? 
• How do information behaviours and literacies contribute to the economic or social value of information assets or the intellectual capital of an organisation?
• How do/can organisations and communities harness their information assets to meet challenges, solve problems, survive and thrive?
• Is there a connection between information and inspiration?
• How well do our models and pedagogies for information literacy relate to real-world information contexts in workplace, community, education or home environments? 
• Are new information environments changing the way people seek and use information?
• What are the methodological challenges of addressing such issues?

For more information about the conference and conference themes http://www.rgu.ac.uk/research/conferences/i-2017/overview/

Submissions will be anonymously reviewed by two members of the International Programme Committee specialising in one or more of the conference research streams.

Submissions are invited for full papers, short papers and round table discussions. The conference language will be English.

Further details of submissions can be found at: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/research/conferences/i-2017/overview/

Please join the CILIP Thames Valley committee for our annual Christmas quiz! There will be questions on a range of subjects, and prizes for the winners.

Meet at 7:15pm in the Wadham Room at the Kings Arms, for the quiz to start at around 7:30pm. For teams of 2-6ish people, though no need to have organised a team before booking – they can be created on the night (amusing library-related team names win bonus points).

Please email janine.hall@berkshire.nhs.uk to book, though this is not essential.

Join CILIP NW at our annual Member's Day and AGM on 7th March 2017 in Manchester.

Check back for further details nearer the time.

Leading experts from Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Germany will present current projects and share their experiences and ideas with the audience.

The seminar will be chaired by Martyn Wade, Chair of the CILIP Board and Chair of FAIFE (Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Advisory Committee) Committee of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions).

A one-day seminar focusing on the role of libraries as institutions at the forefront of profound changes in society. It is organised by EUROLIS (the consortium of librarians from European cultural institutes in London) and the International Library and Information Group (ILIG) of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).

An external event

Leading experts from Spain, Italy, France, Portugal and Germany will present current projects and share their experiences and ideas with the audience.

The seminar will be chaired by Martyn Wade, Chair of the CILIP Board and Chair of FAIFE (Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression Advisory Committee) Committee of IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions).

Tour of  Britannia Royal Naval College Library. 

Britannia Royal Naval College has been the site of officer training for the Royal Navy for over a century. Built upon the design of a public school it now delivers modern military training in an environment that honours the traditions and ethos of the Royal Navy. The College is an extremely imposing Edwardian building overlooking the town of Dartmouth.

The aim of the Informed Peer Recognition Awards (IPRA) is to give due recognition. We have all seen colleagues go above and beyond what is “expected” of them to contribute to a substantive benefit for their service or community. Informed has launched IPRA to provide these hardworking individuals with the credit that they deserve.

About IPRA

The Informed Peer Recognition Award recognises the contributions of a library and information professional working in the UK who has gone beyond the requirements of their job to make a positive difference. Nominations can fall under one of the following three categories;

• For those who have demonstrated a commitment to, or substantial involvement in activities which will contribute to the development of services and/or resources that will provide a benefit to the public.
• For those who have worked to deliver improvements to a service (be it private, public, or voluntary) for the benefit of users and provide them with a better experience when interacting with the service.
• For those who have worked across the profession to improve an aspect of it for the benefit of others.

Further information on the background to the award can be found here (shortlink: http://bit.ly/2bEmZPR) and FAQs are here (shortlink: http://bit.ly/2bEmZPR).

How to Submit a Nomination

Nominations should consist of a 500 word summary, and be supported by two nominators. These can be submitted via the online form here (short link: http://bit.ly/2bEzZQK) no later than 5pm on Friday the 25th of November, 2016.

This session will offer support to people wishing to revalidate their CILIP Certification, Chartership or Fellowship.

Those attending will be helped to add their continued professional development records and personal statement to the VLE and shown how to arrange and submit their revalidation application.

If you are interested in attending please book a FREE place on Eventbrite

This will be a half day event for candidates working towards CILIP professional registration and is a great opportunity to get some help with your portfolio, network with library colleagues and meet local mentors and the Candidate Support Officer.

The workshop will explain the professional registration process, introduce candidates to the VLE and help them understand what to include in their portfolio. We shall also have some local mentors joining the first part of the workshop.

Mentors are invited to join the first half of the session after which there will be an opportunity to exchange experience and update on the mentoring process.

If you are interested in attending please book a FREE place on Eventbrite

It’s a conundrum. Digital scholarship can readily be defined by the use of technology to support the access, retrieval and application of knowledge – but that’s only a fraction of the story.

In our latest book of edited chapters we try to get under the skin of what digital scholarship really means for academic library services – and it’s far from being about the technology. In fact the technology is, in many instances, the least interesting aspect of what we discovered.

Nonsensical, revolutionary

If I was asked to describe what digital scholarship means, I might perhaps echo Clifford Lynch and agree that on one level it is nonsensical; but it is also a characteristic of the environment in which many of us work today; it may also be revolutionary. As Alison Hicks points out ‘digital scholarship must be understood as going beyond the adoption of new research methods to engage more deeply with personal habits as well as ideas of outreach, engagement and education’. Many of the scholars who actively embrace these principles will want to participate in networked environments but the tension that arises between networked openness, and research which is often based on conservative value and reward systems, place many scholars in an unenviable position – how far to share? What tools should they use?

Is the librarian able to provide a critical gaze over these scenarios, the use of new technologies and practices and provide an informed view, contribute to the conversation and re-assure?

Digital is the new norm

One of our case studies focuses on the Disruptive Media Learning Lab at Coventry University UK, now home to a team of librarians; it examines how they are adapting to this new environment, retaining their identity and forming new partnerships. This, and other examples demonstrate how you, as professional librarians, are successfully adapting, innovating and generally navigating your way through these disruptive changes. That is one reason to be cheerful and optimistic and it is also a recognition that, cliché aside, digital is the new norm.

The challenge, and one which is explored throughout the book is how are the many facets of the scholarly environment impacting on academic libraries? If we accept that all scholarship is by default digital how are academic librarians responding?  We suggest that the answers come in many shapes and forms – the link between digital scholarship and workflow redesign is explored from an Australian perspective; the development of digital scholarship centres in North America forms an in depth case study and,across all countries represented, new partnerships, roles and initiatives are discussed and provide sources for inspiration and adoption. Specifically we draw from the literature on career coaching and identify the professional and personal qualities that characterise your successes.

• Stability – holding onto the core values that imbue our professional lives with purpose and meaning
• Flexibility – being able to accept and flow with change
• Stretch – being willing to move out of your comfort zone and leave behind legacy practices

These findings are refreshingly positive – librarians are being bold and as they emerge as robustly digitally resilient, their future feels positively secure.

About Developing Digtial Scholarship

Developing Digital Scholarship: Emerging practices in academic libraries, edited by Alison Mackenzie and Lindsey Martin, spans a wide range of contrasting perspectives, contexts, insights and case studies, which explore the relationships between digital scholarship, contemporary academic libraries and professional practice. 

In a time of shifting goalposts and rigorous competition for scant resources, public librarians and managers are increasingly called upon to collect and utilise data which will enable them to innovate, to evolve, and to justify both their social and economic worth. This approach to professional practice has strong and well developed foundations (Eldredge, 2012) and is backed by international library advocates and practitioners alike. But it is also a model increasingly espoused by professional bodies (CILIP Impact Toolkit) and national governments. The latter being most recently and specifically evident in the consultation document Libraries Deliver: Ambition for Public Libraries in England 2016-2021 where the significance of, and a national UK requirement for evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP) is clearly laid out.  

The ‘Ambition for Public Libraries’ does, however, acknowledge a number of existing data issues which will be all too familiar to many public library practitioners: the focus on “inputs rather than outputs and long-term impact”, an emphasis on “quantitative data over qualitative data” “a ‘time delay’ in accessing up-to-date information”, “‘siloed’ datasets”, “data… held behind pay walls” and “a lack of resource to make effective use of available data”. Such obstacles, combined with other practical and organisational barriers such as the responsibilities of general management; an ever widening service portfolio and an ever shrinking budget, might make drawing on or participating in evidence based practice seem an almost insurmountable task.

In 2015, Pam Ryan posted a 'Call to Action’ for public librarians: "We need to collectively take responsibility for changing public library culture and take ownership of telling our own stories and sharing our evidence". But where and how to begin? Koufogiannakis and Brettle’s new EBLIP framework ‘Articulate, Assemble, Assess, Agree, Adapt’ (Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice, 2016) offers a realistic model for workplace application which takes into account “the context in which librarians work” and the types of evidence which are available and appropriate to their decision making. Top tips for public library practitioners include: 

Keep an open mind

Traditional research evidence (whether quantitative, qualitative, mixed method or secondary), remains key to professional practice, but it should be considered one aspect of a complex and often unique puzzle. When taking a “holistic approach to EBP in librarianship”, variety is key, and Koufogiannakis and Brettle (2016) have identified two other overarching categories: “local evidence” (including statistics , evaluation, documentation, observation, anecdotal evidence and organisational realities) and “professional knowledge” (expertise, tacit knowledge, input from colleagues, best practice from other organisations and non-research literature) - each element of which may be of potentially equal value in reaching a “well informed and considered professional opinion.”

Build on success (or don't reinvent the wheel)

If you have a problem that you need to address, or an idea that you want to try, it’s likely that someone else in your sector, or at a comparable institution, has already tried something similar. Before you start your project or process, do a quick literature search, check your mailing list archives, and if you can’t find anything there, ask at your next regional meeting, or email colleagues working in similar fields who may be willing to share examples of their own best practice. Refine and modify your search as you go and you'll uncover plenty of tools that you can apply, or at least gain a better understanding of the issues and potential solutions involved. 

Watch and learn

Don’t always assume that you know what your users want: watch how they use your service, how they operate within the environment; how far do they get by themselves, at what point do they need help to find the information they need? Local, empirical evidence can be crucial in understanding what your users want, and in helping you to develop processes and systems that are intuitive for library users, rather than librarians themselves (Gillespie, 2014, Partridge, 2016). Incorporate user comments into your service design, move or expand your collections according to need. Then look at what worked, what didn’t, and what can be improved.

Focus on the free

It is undoubtedly frustrating that public librarians do not always have the same easy access to resources as their academic peers. But there are other ways to collect, engage with and organise your evidence. Tools such as the CILIP Impact Toolkit and GOV.UK’s Libraries shaping the future: toolkit and case studies; Arts Council England’s ‘Inspiring Learning for All’ framework, research published by the Carnegie Trust, Public Libraries News and open access journals such as Evidence Based Library and Information Practice and The Journal of Information Literacy are a good place to start. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists over 50 more.  

And now it’s over to you…

Whatever you do, do something. Your sector needs you, so “build our evidence-base, inform our collective practice, and…tell our stories” (Ryan, 2015). Why not use the comments below to share the ways in which you use evidence in your daily practice or to highlight relevant open access resources which can be used by the international public library community?

About Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice

Becky Cole is a contributor to the book Being Evidence Based in Library and Information Practice (2016). The book is edited by Denise Koufogiannakis and Alison Brettle and builds a research-grounded, theoretical foundation for evidence based library and information practice. It is divided into two parts: firstly, exploring the background to EBLIP and proposing a new model for its application in the workplace and secondly, providing an overview EBLIP developments in academic, public, health, school and special libraries around the world.

Facet Publishing have announced the release of Developing Digital Scholarship: Emerging practices in academic libraries

This new book, edited by Alison Mackenzie and Lindsey Martin, provides strategic insights drawn from librarians who are meeting the challenge of digital scholarship, utilizing the latest technologies and creating new knowledge in partnership with researchers, scholars, colleagues and students.

The impact of digital on libraries has extended far beyond its transformation of content, to the development of services, the extension and enhancement of access to research and to teaching and learning systems. As a result, the fluidity of the digital environment can often be at odds with the more systematic approaches to development traditionally taken by academic libraries, which has also led to a new generation of roles and shifting responsibilities with staff training and development often playing ‘catch-up’. One of the key challenges to emerge is how best to demonstrate expertise in digital scholarship which draws on the specialist technical knowledge of the profession and maintains and grows its relevance for staff, students and researchers.

Developing Digital Scholarship spans a wide range of contrasting perspectives, contexts, insights and case studies, which explore the relationships between digital scholarship, contemporary academic libraries and professional practice. 

The editors said,” Our book demonstrates that there are opportunities to be bold, remodel, trial new approaches and reposition the library as a key partner in the process of digital scholarship.”

Alison Mackenzie is the Dean of Learning Services at Edge Hill University. Alison has been an active contributor in the development of the profession having held roles on the SCONUL Board, and as Chair of the performance Measurement and Quality Strategy group. She is currently a member of the Northern Collaboration steering group and is co-editor of this book.

Lindsey Martin is the Assistant Head of learning Services and is responsible for the learning technologies managed and supported by Learning Services. She has responsibility for the virtual learning environment and its associated systems, media production, classroom AV, and development of staff digital capability. Lindsey has worked in academic libraries for the past 20+ years in a variety of roles. She has been active on the Heads of eLearning Forum Steering group (HeLF) for a number of years and is currently its Chair. She is co-editor of this book.

- ends

Press and review copies contact:

James Williams, Marketing Manager, Facet Publishing
Tel: +44 (0)20 7255 0597
Email: james.williams@facetpublishing.co.uk

Notes:

Developing Digital Scholarship: Emerging practices in academic libraries | Oct 2016 | 192pp | paperback: 9781783301102 | £49.95 | hardback: 9781783301782 | £89.95

The book is published by Facet Publishing and is available from Bookpoint Ltd | Tel: +44 (0)1235 827702 | Fax: +44 (0)1235 827703 | Email: facet@bookpoint.co.uk | Web: www.facetpublishing.co.uk. | Mailing Address: Mail Order Dept, 39 Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4TD. It is available in North America from the American Library Association.

CILIPinKent is pleased to offer library professionals and para-professionals the opportunity to visit The Women's Library at London School of Economics. 

'The Women’s Library documents all aspects of women’s lives, with an emphasis on women in the UK throughout the great political, economic and social changes of the past 150 years. It includes 60,000 books and pamphlets, 3,000 journal titles, over 500 archives and 5,000 museum objects, including photographs, posters, badges and banners.'

The visit will include a tour of a LGBT exhibition marking the anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1967. 

More information at www.lse.ac.uk/library/collecti...

Hear Ye Hear Ye, I hereby announce the CILIPinKENT Christmas Quiz!

Join us to celebrate the festive season.

In the capable hands of our quizmaster we can promise you an enjoyable evening of fun. We have a range of questions to get your brain ticking, and prizes for the winners!

You can come in ready-made teams (Teams are of up to 4 people. Remember to book a ticket for each member of the team) or you can come on your own or with friends and join a team on the night.

Supper will be served at half time. You can order your food on the night (they have a selection of good pub-like food) or, if you fancy a Christmas-themed meal, please email us (CILIPinKENT@gmail.com) with your choice in advance from this menu http://bit.ly/2dCQ0xH

The entry fee will go towards the cost of a prize for the winning teams.

A chance to tour a School Library and learn about the work of a school librarian. 

If you cannot attend this important event you can still follow the proceedings using either Twitter and hashtag: #Strixlecture

or by following the live stream which will show both the speakers and their PowerPoints:

http://geolsoc.adobeconnect.com/ukeig1610/

In addition to the Strix Annual Lecture given by the 2015 winner of the award, Professor Peter Ingwersen, we are lucky to have an introductory lecture - Search: then and now -- with particular reference to the web - given by the winner of the first ever Award in 1998, Stephen Robertson.

A further highlight of the afternoon will be the awarding of the 2016 Tony Kent Strix Award to Professor Maristella Agosti.

The full programme can be found at http://www.cilip.org.uk/uk-einformation-group/events/strix-annual-lecture

where you can still register for the event, and further details of both winners can be found at:

http://www.cilip.org.uk/uk-einformation-group/awards-and-bursaries/tony-kent-strix-award/tony-kent-strix-award-winners

The RSL is the main science library of Oxford University and has holdings of around 1 million items.  It covers subjects from biochemistry to zoology via engineering, forestry, medicine and more. The librarians also run innovative reader services projects including loaning iPads and hosting an Edible Book Festival (mostly cake!) for World Book Day. The tour will talk about the history of the library, show us round the spaces and collections, and wrap up with a demonstration of the library's 3D printer.

We will stop at the King's Arms after the tour for a drink and a little festive season networking.

A visit to Lancaster Libraries is being organised by the NW Group of CILIP Local Studies.

Date: 16 November 2016
Location: The Ruskin Library
Highlights: The Whitehouse Collection

Schedule:
11.00am  A tour of the Ruskin Library
1.30pm    Special collections at Lancaster University Library
2.00pm   Tour of Lancaster University Library

There is a regular bus service to the University from the train station. Detailed advice on travelling to the university can be found at http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/contact-and-getting-here/maps-and-travel

Please contact :

Linda Clarke: linda.clarke@cheshiresharedservices.gov.uk to book a place

Deadline: 9th November, 2016

This article aims to provide an overview of the importance of political advocacy to our profession and offers practical guidance on how to effectively engage in it. It is not intended to be a comprehensive guide on what is a wide and varied subject matter but instead seeks to draw on personal experience to provide information and assistance to those wishing to explore the subject.

This article originally appeared in An Leabharlann: The Irish Library Volume 25: Issue 2 October 2016

Two significant new research projects have been approved under the CILIP Information Literacy Group Research Bursary scheme. One will look at the information practices and experiences of New Syrian Scots refugees who are resettling in Scotland; and the second seeks to understand how mis-information influences young people’s psychological, physical, and behavioural reactions to functioning with a person with perceived extremist views - and whether there is a link between these reactions and people's level of ability to make sound judgements about information they are presented.

Lost in information? New Syrian Scots’ information literacy way-finding practices

This is a scoping study that aims to examine the information related experiences and information literacy practices of Syrian New Scots (the Syrian refugees in Scotland) during their resettlement and integration.

More specifically, the research aims to explore the following areas:

• New Syrian Scots’ ‘ways of knowing’ for addressing critical social inclusion needs (e.g. housing, welfare, education, benefits, employability, rights and entitlements) within their new socio-cultural setting and via their interaction with people, tools and processes, including community contacts and regional support organizations, formal and informal information sources (the internet, social media and mobile technologies, books, guides, non-textual/visual sources) and interpersonal communication (with friends and family or other social connections);
• the barriers (e.g. English language, socio-cultural differences) and enablers (local community support, new technologies and media) they  encounter in the process of addressing their key information needs;
• how Syrian New Scots could be further supported to adapt to their local communities, feel a sense of belongingness and successfully establish their identity into the Scottish society.

The project will be conducted through interviews with Scottish Refugee Council representatives and focus groups with New Syrian Scots families in Aberdeen and Glasgow. The duration of this project is from October 2016 to February 2017.

The outcomes will help towards making recommendations on how to best aid Syrian newcomers in their social inclusion and community engagement and how to support their habitual and emerging information landscapes for their resettlement and adaptation. 

The findings will be of interest to local and regional support organizations and community volunteer groups who contribute to the social wellbeing and social integration of Syrian New Scots, as well as public libraries as centres for educational and cultural orientation sessions and support for newly settled refugees and for the communities that welcome them.

Information literacy and wellbeing

Worldwide, people engage with a variety of information outlets to gain insight into world events. To this end, it is not known how mis-information (e.g. websites promoting religious or racist extremism) affects young people’s well-being (including psychological and physical responses). What is also uncertain is how young peoples’ level of ability to make judgments about the online information they encounter is a protecting factor against the ill-being (i.e. negative stress responses) that mis-information may cause.

This project seeks to understand how such mis-information influences young people’s psychological, physical, and behavioural reactions to functioning with a person with perceived extremist views. We also wish to find out whether there is a link between these reactions and peoples level of ability to make sound judgements about information they are presented. We expect that young people who are good at making judgements about information will be less affected by people perceived to have extremist views. We will be working with participants aged 16-24 because they are the most likely users of the Internet and therefore exposed to mis-information on a regular basis, which may result in the development of ill-being, especially through prolonged social media use.

This multidisciplinary project brings together experts across information literacy, user experience, applied psychology and psychophysiological stress reactivity. The team believes that the way that people make judgements about information moderates the relationship between mis-information and cardiovascular responses in stressful social situations. This research has wide implications for policy makers, educationalists and governments, indicating for the first time that information literacy may have social and physical, as well as educational benefits, and that it should be added to current preventative measures against mis-information.

This is a new multidisciplinary collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University, Northumbria University, and Staffordshire University. The team brings together expertise from the fields of Information Science, Psychology, and Sport & Exercise Science.

Two significant new research projects have been approved under the CILIP Information Literacy Group Research Bursary scheme. One will look at the information practices and experiences of New Syrian Scots refugees who are resettling in Scotland; and the second seeks to understand how mis-information influences young people’s psychological, physical, and behavioural reactions to functioning with a person with perceived extremist views - and whether there is a link between these reactions and people's level of ability to make sound judgements about information they are presented.

Lost in information? New Syrian Scots’ information literacy way-finding practices

This is a scoping study that aims to examine the information related experiences and information literacy practices of Syrian New Scots (the Syrian refugees in Scotland) during their resettlement and integration.

More specifically, the research aims to explore the following areas:

• New Syrian Scots’ ‘ways of knowing’ for addressing critical social inclusion needs (e.g. housing, welfare, education, benefits, employability, rights and entitlements) within their new socio-cultural setting and via their interaction with people, tools and processes, including community contacts and regional support organizations, formal and informal information sources (the internet, social media and mobile technologies, books, guides, non-textual/visual sources) and interpersonal communication (with friends and family or other social connections);
• the barriers (e.g. English language, socio-cultural differences) and enablers (local community support, new technologies and media) they  encounter in the process of addressing their key information needs;
• how Syrian New Scots could be further supported to adapt to their local communities, feel a sense of belongingness and successfully establish their identity into the Scottish society.

The project will be conducted through interviews with Scottish Refugee Council representatives and focus groups with New Syrian Scots families in Aberdeen and Glasgow. The duration of this project is from October 2016 to February 2017.

The outcomes will help towards making recommendations on how to best aid Syrian newcomers in their social inclusion and community engagement and how to support their habitual and emerging information landscapes for their resettlement and adaptation. 

The findings will be of interest to local and regional support organizations and community volunteer groups who contribute to the social wellbeing and social integration of Syrian New Scots, as well as public libraries as centres for educational and cultural orientation sessions and support for newly settled refugees and for the communities that welcome them.

Information literacy and wellbeing

Worldwide, people engage with a variety of information outlets to gain insight into world events. To this end, it is not known how mis-information (e.g. websites promoting religious or racist extremism) affects young people’s well-being (including psychological and physical responses). What is also uncertain is how young peoples’ level of ability to make judgments about the online information they encounter is a protecting factor against the ill-being (i.e. negative stress responses) that mis-information may cause.

This project seeks to understand how such mis-information influences young people’s psychological, physical, and behavioural reactions to functioning with a person with perceived extremist views. We also wish to find out whether there is a link between these reactions and peoples level of ability to make sound judgements about information they are presented. We expect that young people who are good at making judgements about information will be less affected by people perceived to have extremist views. We will be working with participants aged 16-24 because they are the most likely users of the Internet and therefore exposed to mis-information on a regular basis, which may result in the development of ill-being, especially through prolonged social media use.

This multidisciplinary project brings together experts across information literacy, user experience, applied psychology and psychophysiological stress reactivity. The team believes that the way that people make judgements about information moderates the relationship between mis-information and cardiovascular responses in stressful social situations. This research has wide implications for policy makers, educationalists and governments, indicating for the first time that information literacy may have social and physical, as well as educational benefits, and that it should be added to current preventative measures against mis-information.

This is a new multidisciplinary collaboration between Manchester Metropolitan University, Northumbria University, and Staffordshire University. The team brings together expertise from the fields of Information Science, Psychology, and Sport & Exercise Science.

CILIP, the library and information association has called on Westminster City Council to halt proposed cuts to the library budget of £750,000 a year until a proper public consultation has been carried out.

In an open letter CILIP CEO Nick Poole has written to Westminster Council Chief Executive Charlie Parker with concerns about the proposals and the impact it will have on communities and the local economy.

Nick Poole said, “Westminster Libraries are some of the best in the country, helping 140,000 people to set up a new business, tackling social isolation and exclusion and are cultural beacons in their communities providing space for exhibitions and performances, access to reading and unique archives. I am profoundly concerned about the impact of these budget reductions on the quality of services the public expect and deserve. Without question the Council should consult with the public and consider their views carefully.”

In the letter Nick Poole sets out the case for properly resourced and staffed libraries, saying “They play a crucial role providing access to information and knowledge, supporting small businesses and employment, improving health and well being and providing everyone with opportunities for learning and developing new skills.” He raises specific concerns about the apparent lack of public consultation about the impact of this budget reduction and seeks assurance that public consultation will take place and proposals will not be confirmed until the views of residents have been fully considered.

Following a House of Lords debate on the importance of libraries on the 13 October CILIP has warned about the pending impact of the Autumn Statement on Local Authority budgets. Nick Poole said, “Through My Library By Right CILIP is campaigning for the public’s rights to quality library services to be respected and for central and local Government to follow their duties under the law. Although libraries are statutory services their budgets are not ring-fenced, and while we wait for the Government to publish a robust strategy for public libraries in England I am concerned that under-pressure Councils will make ever deeper cuts.”

-ends-

Press contact

Mark Taylor
Director of External Relations, CILIP
Email: mark.taylor@cilip.org.uk
Tel: 020 7255 0654
Mobile: 07792 635 305

Notes for editors

CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals is the leading voice for the information, knowledge management and library profession. Our goal is to put information and library skills at the heart of an equal, democratic and prosperous society by 2020. Registered charity no. 313014. www.cilip.org.uk

Last week Ingenta, a leading software provider to the publishing industry, launched Ingenta Open, a new hosting platform solution and discovery portal designed exclusively for Open Access content, noting that with an increasing amount of Open Access content being published, much of which is indexed across a variety of sites or stored away in institutional repositories, Ingenta Open is a new central hub and browsing service for researchers, students and the general public specifically seeking Open Access resources. The press release follows:

The platform hosts content from all scholarly disciplines and caters for multiple formats, including whole books, chapters, monographs, single articles and entire journals. It will eventually provide access to millions of Open Access articles, whether they are hosted on the platform itself, indexed via third party services such as DOAJ & OAPEN.

Ingenta Open provides users with access without any registration requirements, while offering a clean and responsive design, a simple interface and an easy-to-use search function.

Publishers who choose to host their Open Access content on the platform will immediately be able to tap into the Ingenta Connect network of over 25,000 registered institutions, and millions of end users across 170 countries. Further publisher benefits include:

• Distribution of metadata to EBSCO, OCLC, InfoTrieve, NLM, and other discovery services
• Tagging in Google Scholar
• Access as HTML or PDF
• Bolt-on services, including automated APC processing, print-on-demand and social media marketing are planned for future editions

Byron Russell, Head of Ingenta Connect, said: “One of the main reasons behind the academic publishing community migrating towards Open Access models was to make content more readily available, and free-of-charge, to users. The problem is a great deal of these resources are hidden away in institutional siloes or poorly indexed online with minimal discoverability options. Our aim in creating Ingenta Open is to make Open Access really open – to provide users with a globally central access point for all Open Access content online and to guarantee that publishers and authors get the visibility their research deserves. “The portal is designed to be intuitive for the end user, who can search and discover academic research in any discipline, in any format, on any device, with just a few clicks. For publishers the solution offers a hassle-free and affordable way of hosting, indexing and disseminating research, smoothing over many of the pain points associated with managing Open Access content in the process. We are extremely excited with this innovative new offering and we look forward to launching it and then rolling out addition features in years to come.”

For more information, please visit www.ingentaopen.com

Notes to Editors:

For more information, please contact: Daniel Freeman, Midas PR +44 020 7361 7866 daniel.freeman@midaspr.co.uk Julia Charnock, Ingenta plc +44 (0) 1865 397873 Julia.charnock@ingenta.com

About Ingenta:
Ingenta is the world-leading provider of content solutions that transform business. We cover the publishing process from end to end with our suite of commercial products, CMS and advertising solutions and content services packages. Combining our unmatched publishing knowledge, global operations and customer support with our extensive technology and service products, we offer the industry’s only full spectrum of solutions to help publishers manage and monetise their content effectively. Listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, the company operates jointly from Europe (Oxford) and North America (Boston and New Jersey), with local offices in Brazil, India and China. Assisting 450 trade and scholarly publishers for nearly 40 years, Ingenta solves the fundamental issues content providers face. 

Amazon sells a quarter of all print books and two-thirds of ebooks. It hosts 31% of the internet and is even setting up its own freight carrier. How can anyone compete? 

Well, you can't. So don’t.

Why bother competing on shipping when the book your customer wants is only 5 minutes walk away? Why compete on range when your customer only wants good books that they will love? Why compete on price when you can offer something no one else has?

There are lots of things that Amazon can’t or don’t do: discovery, community, curation, trust, rarity, immediacy – a list of things that libraries happen to be very good at.

Kickstarter

In 2015, there were 2,967 literary projects funded through the crowd-funding platform Kickstarter. That is a huge amount of money that didn’t go to Amazon or to a traditional publisher.

Book projects such as the stunning One Third Stories – beautifully teaching languages or The Island of Lost Things, a stunning book about solitude, thrive on Kickstarter, offering exclusive access and rewards to people willing to pay up-front for a product.

Launched in 2009, the platform offers customers rarity, community, connection with real people (creators own their email lists if successful), a sense of beneficence, plus the material satisfaction of owning something first, something totally new. The experience of buying it is almost as special as the thing itself – which could never be said of Amazon.

Toppsta

Amazon lists over 50 million books, but your customer is not interested in 99.99999% of them. Selectivity is an advantage.

“Every week we are inundated with requests from publishers and authors but we have to be selective and believe in the books we feature, otherwise we’re going to lose the trust of the community we’ve worked so hard to build,” says Georgina Atwell, founder of Toppsta, a children’s book review site launched in 2014. 

Being a specialist builds trust and loyalty, and Toppsta has built a huge audience of book lovers by quieting the noise.

Near St

Warehouses, planes, trucks, postage and packaging… that’s Amazon’s burden. But Near St knows that the book you want is already within reach right now, no shipping necessary. The idea is that you can browse the real-time shelves of your local bookshops.

Co-founder Nick Brackenbury says, "We started Near St because it's so difficult to find and buy exactly what you want from a shop nearby. The by-product of solving that problem is taking on Amazon, because they aren't set up to serve this kind of customer." That’s the point – there are so many customers that other businesses can serve better than Amazon can.

Near St isn’t just helping people find books. It’s also helping people find book places. “We've a customer who's ordered books for collection from a shop in almost every part of London, is slowly touring all of the independents across the city.” Amazon just can’t do that.

So, how can libraries work with these platforms?

Well, who is to say that libraries shouldn't share their stock with platforms like Near St? And Toppsta would love to work with librarians - Georgina says to email her at georgina@toppsa.com with any ideas. Crowd-funding sites have already seen various library projects funded. These include A Little Free Library for Woolwich, Banned Books Week at the Vonnegut Library and Bring the Hulk to the Northlake Public Library.

There are lots of other areas – browsing, series information, sensible recommendations, in-person events... what start-ups or platforms have you seen that can take on Amazon?