Blogs in a corporate/academic environment

Some interesting discussion in the last session of the morning on the use of blogs - and in one case, wikis - by or in institutions. The University of Warwick encourages all students to blog, and risks the occasional bad press to reap a lot of positive advantages. Blogging at IBM is seen as important communication between groups and employees, and Philippe Borremans also admitted that a bonus was that the knowledge of employees was formalised as it was blogged, enabling IBM to 'capture' it. The Guardian is also blogging and enjoying the results of informal journalism and feedback. One interesting point was that nearly all topics are triggered by a Guardian employee's column - so no job losses yet, then!
Chris Armstrong

Drugs! Everything (almost) you wanted to know about pharmaceutical information

UKeiG committee member Shaida Dorabjee will be giving a presentation on "Pharmaceutical Information - traditional and not-so-traditional sources" as part of the Online free seminar programme tomorrow (Thursday) at 12.00 to 12.30 in Theatre C. It is an express journey through the various stages of drug development and marketing, highlighting just some of the varied information sources available. Shaida is also giving a one-day course on the subject later on in 2006 as part of the UKeiG training programme.

Web Search Tools You Might Have Missed

Don't forget that UKeiG committee member Karen Blakeman is giving a free seminar tomorrow, Thursday 1st December, on search tools you might have missed. Venue: Theatre E, Online Information Exhibition, Olympia. Time: 11.00-11.30.

"Search" presentations on the web

If you did not manage to get to Karen Blakeman's presentations yesterday (Hints and Tips on Searching the Massive Web, Desktop Search Tools Compared), copies of the slides are now on the web at http://www.rba.co.uk/presentations/. They will not mean much without the commentary, but the talk on desktop search will be written up as an article for eLucidate.

Messy information (2): Connotea

Ben Lund, of Nature Publishing Group, continued the theme of the day's keynote in the Day 1 final session, describing how Connotea could be used to bookmark articles and tag them with keywords so that other users would find them. Users can also create RSS feeds from both tags and other users who appear to be working in the same area as they are. Let the world add to your research!
I still see tagging as an essentially unreliable form of information retrieval (see post on my blog) but used in conjunction with more formal approaches (as both Ben and David Weinberger emphasised) it is almost certain to locate stuff you wouldn't have found.
It may be 'messy' but its still information!
Chris Armstrong

Caption competition

So what is the stand rep saying to the punter? Or what is he thinking?
"Comment" your suggestions to this post and win a mystery prize!

Messy information

Inspirational keynote from David Weinberger - the future is in communal information, and David explained why this approach works - possibly, or probably, in conjunction with more formal routes - but certainly as a means of bringing information that you wouldn't have found otherwise. Let the world find your information for you - blogs, wikis and social classification (Connotea and Delicious) are the way forward. I shall change some of my views(!) see my blog next week.
Chris Armstrong

They're under starters orders....

..and they're off!

Here we are on stand 139 and after a few hiccups - well, a few near disasters actually - the stand is buzzing with visitors.

The first problem was that the computer did the Blue Screen of Death on us the first couple of times that we tried to boot it up. In fact putting a boot up it was what we felt like doing an hour later. Once it decided it was going to behave we had to set up the Internet connection. Of course, all of us have customised our own systems so much and are using such weird and wonderful variations of operating systems, that it took us another half an hour to find the right settings panel.

But still the wretched thing refused to connect. By chance, we glanced down at the system unit. "What's that cable down there supposed to be for?" Christine asked. A definite 'doh' moment as Karen realised that the network cable was not plugged in. It is now and as you can see we are up and running.

If you are at Online 2005 come round and have a chat - stand 139. There are free pencils, post-it notes and very elegant pens, with the UKeiG logo, if you fill in one of our questionnaires.

UKeiG presentations at Online 2005 - Tuesday 29th

It is the first day of Online Information 2005 and members of UKeiG are scheduled to give both conference presentations and free exhibition seminars today.

Karen will be giving some hints and tips on searching the "massive web" at 11.45 in theatre E as part of the Information Masterclass series. In the afternoon, she will be talking about desktop search tools in the main conference (Track 1 - Tools for Effective Information Management). Also in this session is Mark Sandserson, Senior Lecturer in Information Studies at the University of Sheffield, who is presenting "Tools developed for image retrieval". This is an ideal opportunity for those of you missed his talk at the UKeiG AGM event to catch up with developments in this fascinating field.

Over in Theatre A at 15.00, as part of the Business Information in Focus strand, committee member Tracy Kent is giving a presentation on "X or y factor: how to locate statistical data successfully".

UKeiG Survey

Are you a member of UKeiG? If so, we would like to hear from you. We would like your feedback on the services that we provide and on our activities, such as eLucidate and our training programme. Please take a few moments to fill in the survey questionnaire.

If you are coming to Online Information 2005 at Olympia, pop round to stand 139 where we have some good old fashioned paper versions that you can fill in.

It's Online Information Week!

Yes folks, it's "Online Information Week", and library and information professionals from all over the world will be descending on Olympia in London for the annual conference and exhibition. UKeiG will be on stand 139 so pop-round and say "Hello" and find out what we have planned for 2006.

Members of the management committee will be on the stand throughout the week offering help and advice on everything to do with electronic information. So that you have an idea of what to expect, here are two shady characters - sorry- two of our leading lights on last year's stand: UKeiG Gary Horrocks on the left and Vice Chair Chris Armstrong.

UKeiG uses SWIKI with its Blog

Hi

We have added a SWIKI to our Blog...

A SWIKI is a Search WIKI: a search facility focussed on our area of interest with a 'cloud' of popular searches. It's a WIKI because the 'cloud' of recent popular searches changes according to how the search engine is used. (If lots of you search for 'desktop searching' it will get added to the cloud of relevant searches.) You can click on one of these popular searches or enter your own search term, and the search will be conducted primarily in web sites that are central to our focus.

Try it and see...

Chris