Beating the credit crunch: Preparing bids to secure additional funding

There are places still available on UKeiG's new course, Beating the credit crunch: Preparing bids to secure additional funding

Venue: CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Date & time: Tuesday, 30th June 2009, 9.30-16.30

Course Outline

This practical and participative one day training event is designed to provide Information professionals with an introduction to preparing bids to successfully secure additional funding. In today's economic climate and changing professional scene, your service may not have sufficient money, staff time, or expertise to support new activities. This course has been developed to help you write a compelling bid to convince potential funders to support your new endeavours.

The sessions will include:

• Defining the 'project' to be funded
• Estimating realistic budgets, resources and timetables
• Writing compelling and convincing bids
• Exploring the types of funding available, with examples

Who should attend?

This workshop will be of benefit to Information Professionals working in middle and senior management positions in public and private sector organisations who want:

• A better understanding of how to write successful bids
• More knowledge of potential funding sources
• An enthusiasm and greater confidence to bid for funding

Course Presenter - Mary Auckland

Mary is an independent consultant and trainer following a long career as a senior manager in academic libraries. She has considerable experience of producing successful bids and securing funding, and of assessing bids for bodies suck as the Joint Information Systems Committee.

Further details and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2009/June/Preparingbids.html

Workshop: Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 for Intranets and Projects

Workshop: Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 for Intranets and Projects
Venue: The City Suite, Thistle City Hotel, Barbican, London, EC1V 8DS
Date & Time: Thursday 21st May 2009, 9.30-16.30
Costs (including lunch and refreshments): UKeiG members £140 + VAT (£161.00); others £170 + VAT (£195.50)

Further details and booking form: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2009/May/SharePoint.html

Course Outline

Many organisations with a strong commitment to Microsoft are moving to implement SharePoint 2007 (often referred to as MOSS07) as a general-purpose intranet/collaboration/document management application. As a result, intranet and web managers are increasingly under some pressure from their organisation to migrate their intranet to SharePoint 2007 and even defend why they feel it is not of benefit to the organisation to do so.

The objective of this workshop is to outline the benefits and challenges of SharePoint 2007 implementations so that intranet managers are better prepared to discuss these with colleagues in the IT department in developing a business case and implementation plan for using SharePoint 2007.

The main sections of the workshop will be

• An introduction to SharePoint 2007
• Supporting collaboration with SharePoint 2007
• Using SharePoint 2007 for intranet content management
• SharePoint 2007 search functionality
• Planning for a SharePoint 2007 implementation
• Working with Microsoft channel partners
• Future plans for SharePoint 2007
• Critical success factors

Who should attend

Intranet and web managers who are considering migrating from their current content management and collaboration applications to SharePoint 2007. No technical knowledge of SharePoint will be required.

Presenter

The course will be presented by Martin White, Managing Director, Intranet Focus Ltd, who has evaluated SharePoint 2007 on behalf of a number of his clients and is writing a report on the use of SharePoint 2007 for intranet applications.

UKeiG has the CILIP Seal of Recognition, which recognises high standards in the content and relevance of training courses. See http://www.cilip.org.uk/qualificationschartership/seal/ for details.

Web 2.0 in real life 21st April - place available due to cancellation - Update

Update 21 April 2009: This place has now been filled.

Event: Web 2.0 in real life
Venue: The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool, 1 Brownlow Street, Liverpool
Date: Tuesday, 21st April 2009, 09.30 - 16.30

Due to a last minute cancellation a place has become available on the popular UKeiG Web 2 course run by Karen Blakeman. This course has been fully booked for some time and places are at a premium, so take advantage of this opportunity!

If you are interested in this course please contact Christine Baker direct:
Tel & Fax 01969 625751.
Email: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk

Course Outline

Find out how 2.0 applications are being used in libraries and information centres, and what actually works. Blogs, wikis, RSS? YouTube, podcasts, Slideshare? Flickr, Connotea, LibraryThing? Facebook, Second Life, Twitter? This workshop will look at the reality of 2.0: what is useful and what is destined for Gartner's 'Trough of Disillusionment', never to be seen again.

The workshop will start with a brief overview of Web 2.0 and what it means. It will then look in more detail at how 'stuff' can be used as sources of information, as a means of enhancing services to users, and raising the profile of information services. The areas covered will include:

• Blogs, wikis, RSS feeds
• Shared authoring tools
• Start pages e.g. iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes
• Social bookmarking services
• Using YouTube and Flickr as information resources and to promote your group or organisation
• "Presentation" sites such as Slideshare and Authorstream
• Social networking sites e.g. Facebook
• To Twitter or not to Twitter

There will be a heavy practical element to the workshop so that participants can explore Web 2 and try out the technologies for themselves. There will be extensive notes and exercise sheets to guide participants through the day, and all the information and presentations will be available electronically.

Additional date for Web 2.0 in Real Life

The workshop on Web 2.0 in Real Life to be held on Tuesday 21st April is now full. The event is being repeated on the following day, Wednesday 22nd April, at the same venue. (The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool, 1 Brownlow Street, Liverpool).

Full details and a booking form are available on the UKeiG web site.

UKeiG Workshop: Searching the Internet - Google and beyond

Venue: The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
Date: Wednesday, 1st April 2009, 9.30 - 16.30

Some comments from delegates attending this meeting in 2008:
"Fascinating insight into the world beyond Google " "One of the best workshops I've ever attended".. "A revelation! - enjoyed every minute"

Course Outline

With the major search engines claiming coverage of over 20 billion web pages in their databases, it is becoming increasingly difficult to locate relevant information. Most of us head straight for Google when we want to search the Internet but Google is not the only search tool. This workshop looks at recent developments at Google and the alternatives, especially the new kids on the block and Web 2.0 'stuff'. Karen Blakeman will take you through the best of the search engine world and highlight how they can be used to significantly improve your results. By the end of the day, participants will have a vital toolkit to help them search more effectively, including key search tools, comparisons, top tips and essential search techniques.

Topics to be covered include:

• different types of search tools and how they work
• making the most of Google and new features
• alternatives to Google
• advanced search techniques to help you track down the so-called "hidden web"
• image, audio, video and news
• blogs, RSS, wikis and Web 2.0 resources
• setting up your customised search engine
• tracking down pages that have disappeared

Delegates will have ample opportunity to test out advanced search techniques and to compare different search engines. A significant part of the day will be taken up with practical sessions; exercises will be provided but delegates are free to try out searches of their own. This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience. The techniques and approaches covered can be applied to all subject areas.

N.B. Places on this course are strictly limited because of access to PCs so please book early to avoid disappointment

Course Presenter: Karen Blakeman

Karen Blakeman has worked in the information profession for over twenty years and has been a freelance consultant since 1989. Her company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Karen writes for "Business Information Searcher". She also publishes a monthly, electronic newsletter called "Tales from the Terminal Room". Her publications include "Search Strategies for the Internet". She is a Fellow of CILIP and in 2002 received the Information World Review Information Professional of the Year award.

Costs (including lunch and refreshments):

UKeiG members £160 + VAT (£188.00); others £190 + VAT (£223.25)

Further information and a booking form are at http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2009/April/GoogleandBeyondManchester200904.html

UKeiG Workshop: Web 2.0 in real life

Venue: The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool, 1 Brownlow Street, Liverpool
Date: Tuesday, 21st April 2009, 09.30 - 16.30

Course Outline

Find out how 2.0 applications are being used in libraries and information centres, and what actually works. Blogs, wikis, RSS? YouTube, podcasts, Slideshare? Flickr, Connotea, LibraryThing? Facebook, Second Life, Twitter? This workshop will look at the reality of 2.0: what is useful and what is destined for Gartner's 'Trough of Disillusionment', never to be seen again.

The workshop will start with a brief overview of Web 2.0 and what it means. It will then look in more detail at how 'stuff' can be used as sources of information, as a means of enhancing services to users, and raising the profile of information services. The areas covered will include:

• Blogs, wikis, RSS feeds
• Shared authoring tools
• Start pages e.g. iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes
• Social bookmarking services
• Using YouTube and Flickr as information resources and to promote your group or organisation
• Presentation" sites such as Slideshare and Authorstream
• Social networking sites e.g. Facebook
• To Twitter or not to Twitter

There will be a heavy practical element to the workshop so that participants can explore Web 2 and try out the technologies for themselves. There will be extensive notes and exercise sheets to guide participants through the day, and all the information and presentations will be available electronically.

N.B. Places on this course are strictly limited because of access to PCs so please book early to avoid disappointment

Course Presenter: Karen Blakeman
Karen Blakeman has worked in the information profession for over twenty years and has been a freelance consultant since 1989. Her company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Karen writes for "Business Information Searcher". She also publishes a monthly, electronic newsletter called "Tales from the Terminal Room". Her publications include "Search Strategies for the Internet". She was recently made an Honorary Fellow of CILIP and in 2002 she received the Information World Review Information Professional of the Year award

Costs (including lunch and refreshments):

UKeiG members £160 + VAT (£188.00); others £190 + VAT (£223.25)

Further details and a booking form are at: http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2009/April/Web2InRealLife.html

Essential Copyright for Information Professionals

What You Need to Know - and Preparing for Change!

Further information at http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2009/March/EssentialCopyright2009-03-17.html

Venue: CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE

Date: Tuesday, 17th March 2009, 9.30-16.15

Course Outline

Copyright remains one of the most challenging legal issues for information professionals in all areas of the information industries. This one-day introductory course will chart a path through the complexity of the subject. It will cover all essential aspects of copyright and associated rights. Delegates will be taken step-by-step through the fundamentals of copyright. Woven into the sessions will be the latest information on forthcoming changes to UK law on copyright and how you need to understand and prepare for them now. Understanding of each topic will be illuminated by real-life examples of copyright issues. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of contexts.

The sessions will include:

• Copyright - what is it, how does it arise and how long does it last?
• Ownership of copyright
• Categories of copyright works
• The rights of the copyright owner
• Permitted acts and exceptions to copyright
• Database right
• Moral rights
• Licensing schemes for education, commercial and business organisations
• Overview of copyright in the digital environment
• The Gowers Review - Planning for Change: a special, dedicated session on how the likely reforms to UK law currently under implementation from the Gowers Review will affect you, and how will you benefit. What do you need to be doing now?

The course will be led by presentations but will include real-life problems and scenarios for discussion, and plenty of opportunity for questions and answers.

Who Should Attend

Copyright is relevant to anyone involved in creation, storage, accessing, publishing or use of information. Anyone working with information, especially digital information, or who needs a sound grasp of the foundations of copyright will therefore benefit from the Course.

Course Presenter

Laurence Bebbington is Faculty Team Leader (Social Sciences, Law and Education) and Information Services Copyright Officer at the University of Nottingham. He has presented papers and led seminars on various aspects of legal issues in information work. He has published various articles and papers and is a joint editor (with C.J. Armstrong) and contributor to the 2nd edition of Staying Legal: A Guide To Issues And Practice Affecting the Library, Information and Publishing Sectors, FACET (2003).

For more information or to book a place on this course, please visit www.ukeig.org.uk or email meetings@ukeig.org.uk

UKeiG Workshop: Intranet Governance

Venue: CILIP, 7 Ridgmount Street, London, WC1E 7AE
Date: Thursday 9th October 2008, 9.30-16.30

Course outline

Most organisations have strategies and policies for just about every aspect of operations, but rarely for the intranet. Intranets have now become essential information platforms, and need to be resourced appropriately.

The objective of this workshop is to set out the key elements of an intranet governance strategy. The workshop will cover:

• Making a business case for an intranet
• Developing an intranet strategy
• Turning a strategy into an operational plan
• Creating and managing the intranet team
• Supporting the work of content authors
• Achieving intranet impact
• Developing and undertaking usability tests
• Gaining user feedback

As well as copies of the presentations delegates will be provided with a template for an intranet governance strategy. The workshop will include some group work and good opportunities to share ideas and experiences.

Who should attend

Intranet managers who recognise that they need to develop business cases for investment in intranet staff and other resources, or who need to write corporate policy documents for intranet operations.

Course Presenter

The course will be given by Martin White, Intranet Focus Ltd. who has a wide experience of intranet strategy issues based on over 50 intranet projects carried out in the UK, Europe, the USA and the Middle East.

For more information or to book a place on this course, please visit http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/October/IntranetGovernance.html or email meetings@ukeig.org.uk

UKeiG workshop (Liverpool):Searching the Internet - Google and Beyond

Due to a last minute cancellation we now have one place available on our workshop 'Searching the Internet: Google and Beyond'.

Venue: The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool, 1 Brownlow Street, Liverpool

Date and time: Friday, 16th May 2008, 09.30 - 16.30

Workshop outline:
http://www.ukeig.org.uk/training/2008/May/beyondgoogle.html

Please contact Christine Baker if you are interested in attending.
Tel & Fax: 01969 625751 +44 1969 625751
Email: CABaker@ukeig.org.uk

Further details:

With the major search engines claiming coverage of over 20 billion web pages in their databases, it is becoming increasingly difficult to locate relevant information. Most of us head straight for Google when we want to search the Internet but Google is not the only search tool, and the competition is hotting up. This workshop looks at recent developments at Google and the alternatives, especially the new kids on the block and Web 2.0 'stuff'. There will be advice on locating serious blogs, RSS feeds, audio, video and podcasts of news broadcasts and interviews. Karen Blakeman will take you through the best of the search engine world and highlight how they can be used to significantly improve your results. By the end of the day, participants will have a vital toolkit to help them search more effectively, including key search tools, comparisons, top tips and essential search techniques.

Topics to be covered include:

* different types of search tools and how they work
* making the most of Google and new features
* alternatives to Google
* advanced search techniques to help you track down the "hidden web"
* image, audio, video and news
* Blogs, RSS, wikis and Web 2.0 resources
* tracking down pages that have disappeared

Participants will have ample opportunity to test out advanced search techniques and to compare different search engines. A significant part of the day will be taken up with practical sessions; exercises will be provided but delegates are free to try out searches of their own. This workshop is suitable for all levels of experience. The techniques and approaches covered can be applied to all subject areas.

Course Presenter: Karen Blakeman

Karen Blakeman has worked in the information profession for over twenty years and has been a freelance consultant since 1989. Her company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Karen writes for "Business Information Searcher.” She also publishes a monthly, electronic newsletter called "Tales from the Terminal Room.” Her publications include "Search Strategies for the Internet,” now in its sixth edition. She is a Fellow of CILIP and in 2002 she received the Information World Review Information Professional of the Year award.

Top Business Research Tips (2)

Yes, it's another Business Information workshop Top Tips. This one was a rerun of the UKeiG event held on 2nd April, 2008. The participant mix was half private, half public sector. At the end of the day they were asked to come with a list of top sites and search tips. Between them, those attending the workshop spent half the day trying out hundreds of web sites - some of them not even mentioned by me. This is their collective list of sites that they felt were worth considering as key resources. In some cases I have also included the comments from the people nominating the site. It is interesting that there are only two sources that appear in both lists, and one of them does not really count: it was my own site, from which some of the course notes were derived so you might consider the delegates to have been brainwashed!

1. Silobreaker.com http://www.silobreaker.com/. One of the two sites that appears in both the April 2nd and this list. A relatively new service pulling together information from newspapers, journals, blogs, video and audio. In addition It offers geographical hotspots, trends and a network visualisation tool that was singled out by several workshop participants as being particularly useful.
   
   
2. OFFSTATS http://www.offstats.auckland.ac.nz/ The new set of web pages for the University of Auckland Library providing information on Official Statistics on the Web and at a new address. An excellent starting point for official statistics by country and subject/industry. As well as the makeover, there have been many additions to the collection of resources.
   
   
3. Research Wikis http://www.researchwikis.com/. This is a wiki covering market and industry data that is in the public domain; several workshop delegates commented that it looks promising. The content is variable in quality. Some reports are highly structured and detailed while others are just a "stub", many are US biased, and the sources of the data are not always cited. Nevertheless, the reports do give you an idea of the issues affecting the sector and the terminology that is used. One of the University based delegates thought that the site's recommended structure and headings for a report would be useful to students who are new to carrying out industry and market research.
   
   
4. Bureau van Dijk's (BvD) "A Taste of Mint" http://mintportal.bvdep.com/ A free directory from BvD giving basic information on companies world-wide. Comment from one experienced researcher: "It found the company I have been looking for when every other directory has failed!"
   
   
5. Google Finance http://www.google.co.uk/finance/, http://www.google.com/finance/ [This was not covered in the 2nd April workshop. Until now, it has been so awful and unreliable hat I have ignored it]. This is a possible competitor to Yahoo Finance. It has been steadily improving over the last 18 months since its initial launch but still does not quite have the authoritative "feel" of Yahoo Finance. Also it does not appear to have the individual stock exchange coverage of Yahoo. It does, though, beat Yahoo when it comes to the share price graph and historical downloads options. The share price graphs are 'annotated' with labels at the appropriate time on the graph and these link to news articles that are listed to the right of the graph. Yahoo Finance's downloadable historical share price data in figures goes back 5 years: Google's goes back to 1996.
   
   
6. Google News. For the UK go to http://news.google.co.uk/ but there are a plethora of country versions. Good coverage of the last 30 days of free world-wide, national, local and industry news resources. One workshop participant said that Google News found a breaking story that the industry press and her subscription services had not yet picked up.
   
   
7. The Wayback Machine - The Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/. The Wayback Machine takes periodic snapshots of the Internet. Ideal for seeing how a company portrayed itself on the Internet in the past and for tracking down sites, pages or documents that have disappeared.
   
   
8. Chipwrapper http://www.chipwrapper.co.uk/ a Custom Google Search Engine that searches across the UK’s major national newspapers: The Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Sun, The People, News of the World, The Scotsman, Daily Star, The Telegraph and The Times. It also searches the BBC News web site, ITN and Sky. There is a review of Chipwrapper on my blog at http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2007/12/29/chipwrapper-search-uk-newspapers/
   
   
9. UK National Statistics http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ We will not go into the confusion users suffered when UK government official statistics web sites were re-organised on 1st April 2008 [No, it was not an April Fool's]. Work your way through the new menus and you will eventually end up on the on the old statistics.gov.uk pages. Even without the frequent design changes, the site can be difficult to navigate. Nevertheless, there is an incredible amount of good quality data here. For the web based 'stuff' and formatted documents (PDF. DOC, XLS, PPT) it is often easier to go to the Google Advanced Search page, type in your terms in the search box at the top of the page and in the 'Search within a site or domain' box type in statistics.gov.uk . If you want to look for specific file formats, select the file extension from the drop down menu under 'File type'. The 'Time Series' data have to be search from within the statistics.gov.uk site itself.
   
   
10. Companies House http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/. The UK official companies registry. This is the closest you can get to the original company documents that a registered company has to file. Some information is provided free of charge (Use the Webcheck service). Documents are charged for on a pay as you go basis.
    
    
11. RBA Sources of Business Information http://www.rba.co.uk/sources/. Selected sources of business information organised by type e.g. statistics, share prices, company registers.

Business Information on the Internet

To be held at Kings College London, Guy's Campus, London Bridge, London

Date: Wednesday, 2nd April 2008, 9.30 - 16.30

Course outline

This one day workshop looks at key sources of business information available on the Internet. It will compare what is available for free with pay-as-you-go and subscription services, and highlight quality, coverage, functionality and price.

Topics to be covered include:

• key starting points, evaluated listings and portals
• company information, including information on SMEs
• directories and marketing resources
• news, blogs, alerts and RSS
• official statistics and market data
• key search techniques

On completing this course you will

• have the key starting points at your fingertips
• have essential resources for the different types of business information
• be able to search more effectively and quickly for business information
• be able to assess when you will have to start paying for information
• have compiled your own Top 10 business resources

Course Presenter: Karen Blakeman

Karen Blakeman has worked in the information profession for over twenty years and has been a freelance consultant since 1989. Her company (RBA Information Services) provides training and consultancy on the use of the Internet, and on accessing and managing information resources. Karen writes for "Business Information Searcher.” She also publishes a monthly, electronic newsletter called "Tales from the Terminal Room.” Her publications include "Search Strategies for the Internet,” now in its sixth edition. She is a Fellow of CILIP and in 2002 she received the Information World Review Information Professional of the Year award.

Further details are available on the UKeiG website.

Image Management in Bio- and Environmental Sciences: New Directions

Image Management in Bio- and Environmental Sciences: New Directions

to be held at

The John Rylands University Library, University of Manchester
Thursday, 31st May, 2007, 9.30 – 16.30

Workshop Outline
The bio- and environmental sciences cover a broad spectrum from taxonomy to bioinformatics, farming to climate change, with a correspondingly wide range of information resources ranging from historic manuscripts to genomic databanks. Images form an important component of all these and achieving holistic management of diverse resources to allow easy correlation of their information content is challenging, especially for small information units and ‘one-man-bands’. Developing technologies offer new opportunities but can themselves produce new demands in devising effective strategies for their use. This workshop aims to share experiences and float ideas in areas where there are as yet no ‘right answers’!

Details and a booking form can be found on the UKeiG web site, or contact Christine Baker for further details on Tel & Fax: +44 (0)1969 625751, email: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk

RSS, Blogs and Wikis - additional date and venue

The workshop on RSS, Blogs and Wikis being run on 27th April, 10th May and 17th May are now fully booked but the event is being re-run in Newcastle on Wednesday, 11th July 2007. Details and a booking form can be found on the UKeiG web site, or contact Christine Baker for further details on Tel & Fax: +44 (0)1969 625751, email: cabaker@ukeig.org.uk