UKeiG seminar at Umbrella - Phil Bradley on Web 2.0

A reminder to those of you attending Umbrella 2007 that Phil Bradley will be talking about 'Practical Issues for Web 2.0 in a Library Environment'.

The seminar is hosted by UKeiG and taking place on Thursday 28h June 2007 at 15.30.

Venue: De Havilland Campus, University of Hertfordshire

Further details are available on the Umbrella 2007 web site.

Does your intranet meet accessibility standards?

Free informal intranets forum for UKeiG members.

Thursday 5th July 2007, 11.30-15.00hrs

To be held at:

Disability Rights Commission, Arndale House, The Arndale Centre, Manchester, M4 3AQ

and by videoconferencing at

Disability Rights Commission, 3rd floor, Fox Court, 14 Grays Inn Road, London, WC1X 8HN

Come and meet your intranet colleagues! If you are involved in intranets and would like to meet your colleagues, this informal forum is for you.

Speakers:

The Disability Rights Commission's Stephen Beesley and Simon Pickering will be speaking on guidance and legal issues around accessible intranets and websites.

Carol Philips will be demonstrating the Disability Rights Commission's Intranet, with a focus on access issues.

Claire Pillar from North Cumbria NHS Informatics Service will be talking about her experiences of usability testing of their intranets.

Lunch will be provided in Manchester.

If you would like to attend this meeting, please contact:

Helen Davies
Information Manager, Trades Union Congress
Intranet Forum Co-ordinator for UK eInformation Group
Direct line: 020 7467 1207
Email: hdavies@tuc.org.uk

If you are not a member of UKeiG, and would like to come along to this meeting, visit the UKeiG website: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/join/index.html for joining details.

New UKeiG Factsheet on Managing Images

Top Tips on Managing your Images

Compiled by Roger Mills, Bio- and Environmental Sciences Librarian, Oxford University Library Services

If you are involved in any areas of Image Management, this factsheet is for you! It includes top tips for finding, using and keeping images, plus other key issues such as copyright. Anyone involved in working with images will find this a useful guide to help them on their way.

UKeiG Factsheets are a member benefit and members can find them on the UKeiG website: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/members/access/factsheets/index.html

If you are not a member of UKeiG, and would like to have access to the wide range of factsheets UKeiG provides, visit the UKeiG website: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/join/index.html for joining details.

AGM Powerpoint and Annual Seminar Photos

Gary Horrocks Chair's report to the AGM, which was held on 13th June 2007, is now available as a Powerpoint.

Photos of some of the speakers at the Annual Seminar held on the same day are on Flickr.

CILIP Governance Implementation Group: News

The Governance Implementation Group (GiG) met again on Friday, and so – as usual – here is an update on progress.

A small number of responses were received to the consultation exercise with Branches and Groups, etc with respect to the Policy Forum specification. The responses were largely positive, but there were a few queries. The GiG felt that the best way to respond to these – as none of the questions affect the way in which it is anticipated the Policy Forum will work – was to publish all responses on the GiG web pages, followed shortly by a ‘FAQ’.

Most of the meeting was spent going through the first draft of the Regulations which had been received from the CILIP lawyers. The GiG meets again before Council in July and so, in keeping with our timetable, the new Regulations should be presented to Council on the 16^th.

Also to go to Council, will be the specification for the new Remunerations Panel, and the interim rules for election to the (new) 2008 Council, as agreed with the Scrutineers Board.

CILIP and the Governance Implementation Group

Although I have not posted much about the work of the CILIP Governance Implementation Group since our last meeting, a lot of work has been going on behind the scenes in preparation for tomorrow's meeting.

Most importantly, the CILIP lawyers have been working on a draft of the Regulations - we shall be working our way through these tomorrow. Also, the draft Policy Forum Specification has been circulated in a further consultation exercise.

A number of comments on this from Groups and Branches have been received; as also have some other member communications, and we shall be considering all of these tomorrow.

Also, as members will have been aware, three articles about the process of moving to a new governance model have been published in Update. Two of the articles are available on the CILIP GiG web page.

There will be a full progress report following the meeting.

Chris Armstrong

Free Intranets Forum meeting: Manchester: 5th July

Does your intranet meet accessibility standards?

Free informal intranets forum meeting for UKeiG members to be held at:

Disability Rights Commission, Arndale House, The Arndale Centre, Manchester, M4 3AQ

Thursday 5th July 2007, 11.30-15.00hrs

Speakers:

• The Disability Rights Commission's Stephen Beesley & Simon Pickering will be speaking on guidance and legal issues around accessible intranets & websites.


• Carol Philips will be demonstrating the Disability Rights Commission's Intranet, with a focus on access issues.


• Claire Pillar from North Cumbria NHS Informatics Service will be talking about her experiences of usability testing of their intranets.
  

Come and meet your intranet colleagues! If you are involved in intranets and would like to meet your colleagues, this informal forum is for you.

Lunch will be provided.

If you would like to attend this meeting, please contact:

Helen Davies, Information Manager, Trades Union Congress and Intranet Forum Co-ordinator for UK eInformation Group.

Direct line: 020 7467 1207 or Email: hdavies@tuc.org.uk

If you are not a member of UkeiG, and would like to come along to this meeting, visit the UkeiG website: www.ukeig.org.uk/join/index.html for joining details.

Virtual Social Medium for Intranet Officers

Thank you very much, all who filled in the recent survey to assess interest in the setting up of a vitual social medium for intanet officers/managers.

This is a headline version of the results - the full results will appear on the UKeiG website soon.

We started by inviting only the UKeiG Intranets forum members to participate. After a fortnight and 23 answers from the forum, we extended it to all on LIS- UKeiG.

1. A total of 42 want to communicate with members of the Intranets Forum. Approx 20 are from the forum membership, 22 from the rest of UKeIG

2. 15 currently have something they want to post

3. Top three reasons for wanting to communicate outside the face to face meetings are:
A. to seek solutions to intranet problems
B. to continue discussions started at face to face meetings
C. to provide examples of what you are doing with your intranet .

Five other reasons are listed

4. 8 already use another medium for discussing intranets (dgroups.org/groups/webmasters, nww.webteam.nhs.uk, CDL Intranets Forum, Intranet Benchmarking Forum). But none of these are obviously open and free for all UKeIG (or all Intranet Forum) members to join

5. Potenial participants want a range of facilities:
A. a web, or email, based discussion forum
B. facility for developing and sharing documents
C. a facility for displaying examples (screenshots, ppt slides etc)

6. 20 respondents would be happy for a new medium set up under the UKeiG Intranets Forum to be open to anyone interested in intranets.

Many thanks to UKeiG member, Dion Lindsay, for undertaking the survey and collating these results. For those of you attending our intranets forum meeting on the 7th June at the TUC, Dion will be presenting and facilitating a discussing on how we take a virtual social medium forward.

UKeiG Browser Share - May 2007

May's UKeiG web site browser share stats are based on 47,000 page views. IE still leads the pack with 63% (IE 6 has 33% and 7 has 30%), and Firefox (2.X + 1.X) comes in at number two with 29%. The others are Safari 1.X (4%), Mozilla 1.X (2%), Opera 9.X (1%) and OmniWeb (1%). The big surprise this month is the significant increase in Mac browsers.

Note that this analysis does not include any browser that has less than 1% share of the total, nor does it include the RSS readers that access the various feeds on the UKeiG web site. The latter is earmarked for inclusion next time we run the monthly analysis.

UKeiG response to CILIP Policy Forum: Draft Specification

The UKeiG management committee has formally responded to the CILIP Policy Forum: Draft Specification. The text of our response is posted below and a PDF of the document is available on the UKeiG Web site.

UKeiG welcomes the rationale behind the remit, principles and role of the Policy Forum for a number of reasons.

• It provides an excellent opportunity for Groups to input into the future direction of CILIP via their Group representative in an informal but dynamic forum

• It represents a significant simplification of the existing committee structure

• The suggested review of the membership structure after a year would be a useful way of addressing any initial start-up problems

There are, however, a number of concerns.

• The suggested membership of over forty has the potential to make it far too unwieldy to be productive as a forum for encouraging innovative ideas or productive debate unless careful consideration is given to the agenda and structure of the meetings. Large scale agendas with little opportunity for interaction can be demoralising and perceived as a waste of people's time

• Smaller discussion groups and breakout/parallel sessions initiated by engaging and thought-provoking presentations would facilitate brainstorming and the development of new ideas and strategies. These discussion groups could be formed from those Groups that have the relevant knowledge and expertise to bring informed debate to the table. There would have to be some sort of plenary session to initiate meetings and draw together conclusions and outcomes

• Members would have to be committed to lively debate and proactive contribution. Clarity on their role and responsibilities would be helpful; including guidance and systematic procedures for obtaining feedback and input from all the Group membership

• E-working would have to be a major component of this Forum, not just for task and finish but also in planning the agenda and circulating documents, for example. The use of Web 2 technologies such as Wikis and blogs should be considered to improve efficiency and collaboration

• As the number of CILIP Groups reduce, it would make far more sense to reduce the membership accordingly

• As the Forum has no decision-making role, there will have to be transparency on how suggested policies are submitted, prioritised, adopted and rejected, beyond the basic parameter of financial restraints

Gary Horrocks on behalf of the UKeiG Management Committee

UKeiG - Annual General Meeting

The 29th AGM will be held on Wednesday, 13 June 2006 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, 13.50-14.20 hours, in the Bloomsbury Suite, Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London, WC1H 0XG.

The papers for the AGM including the agenda, the minutes of the 2006 AGM, UKeiG management committee report, and financial report are available for download as a PDF [75 KB, opens in a new window].

If you are planning to attend the AGM, please notify Christine Baker, UKeiG Honorary Secretary:

Christine A Baker
UKeiG Administration/Hon Sec
Piglet Cottage, Redmire,
LEYBURN, DL8 4EH, North Yorkshire,
United Kingdom
Tel & Fax: 01969 625751
Email: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk

If you are coming to the AGM, why not book into the UKeiG Annual Seminar: 'Riding the waves or treading water? Confronting the challenges of a volatile electronic environment', which will be held in conjunction with the AGM.