Information School News

In November 2024, the University hosted the annual CILIP Prison Libraries Group Training Day. This was organised by CILIP’s Prison Libraries Group alongside Dr Jayne Finlay, Lecturer in Librarianship at the Information School. Three students from the Information School received bursaries to attend the event and have reflected on their experiences below. Rebecca Breinholt, MA Librarianship I’m interested in the work of prison libraries but know very little about how they actually operate so I was incredibly grateful to be given a student bursary to attend the CILIP Prison Libraries Group Training Day. Excited but a bit unsure of myself when I showed up, I quickly discovered how kind, dedicated, and knowledgeable the people engaged in this work proved to be. We heard from professionals on a range of topics including literacy and creativity, helping prisoners access legal information, neurodiversity, family projects, as well as a report on the results of a large study of UK prison librar...

MORPHSS aims to investigate and promote open research practices in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).  The project is designed to create frameworks and guidelines to encourage adoption of open practices in HSS as well contribute to our knowledge of such practices. The three-year, £800,000 project is a collaboration between Cambridge University Library, Cambridge Digital Humanities, Coventry University, the University of Sheffield and the University of Southampton. It is jointly funded by the Research England Development (RED) Fund, the Wellcome Trust and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.  The work to be carried out at Sheffield will be led by Stephen Pinfield, who now has a process in train to recruit a postgraduate research associate to work on the project for the next two years. The Sheffield team will contribute to the project as a whole but will focus for a significant proportion of their time investigating open practices in the Social Sciences, pa...

Professor Stephen Pinfield has contributed to an article for The Conversation, entitled 'The peer review system no longer works to guarantee academic rigour - a different approach is needed' The article discusses the issues with academic peer review and the innovative platform MetaROR which is intended to help address some of these problems, whilst also acting as a sort of 'metaresearch experiment'. Read the article here.

Returning to Sheffield after more than a decade has been a mixture of nostalgia and new opportunities. I first came here in 2011 to complete my MA in Librarianship, and now, I find myself back as a visiting scholar at the Information School. My time as a visiting researcher at the University of Sheffield has been truly rewarding. I am an academic staff at Harran University in Turkey supported for this visit by Tubitak (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey). This visit has been a great opportunity for my academic and professional development. I am conducting research on artificial intelligence within GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions. I have especially valued the support of my supervisor Dr. Andrew Cox who has guided me through this process. He is an extremely helpful, supportive and understanding person. The University of Sheffield has provided me with an excellent working environment, surrounded by helpful staff and dynamic research...

 The British Academy has today published thirteen discussion papers from a range of expert perspectives across the ‘SHAPE’ disciplines (Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy) to explore the question: ‘What are the possibilities of a good digital society?’  The papers explore a wide range of issues, from the environmental impacts of digitalised daily life to the possibilities of ‘good’ Generative AI in the cultural and creative industries, to examining more closely what we mean by a ‘good digital society’. Among the papers is one authored by information School Lecturer Dr Kate Miltner, with Dr Tim Highfield from the Department of Sociological Studies. Their paper focuses on "good" uses of generative AI in the cultural & creative industries. Alongside the papers is an introductory summary that provides a thematic overview of the papers and points to how we might conceptualise the principles that underpin these diverse visions of a good digital ...

MA Library & Information Services Management student Wafa shares her experiences from the LILAC Conference 2024. I was fortunate to receive one of two #LILAC24 Conference bursaries that took place in Leeds, generously provided by the wonderful Information School ! I always make the most of ‘library world’ events, but this was by far the most enlightening and thought-provoking conference I have ever attended. It was my first visit to Leeds, and I made the most of it. I joined the local library (housed in a beautiful Grade II listed building), took a late-night stroll around town, and visited the grand mosque, where I happily stumbled across adorable bunnies in the Leeds University Eco Garden! The city is filled with culture and numerous higher education institutions, making it an excellent choice for a conference focused on information literacy.  Top Left: Mila the Media and Information Literacy Alliance turtle crocheted by Eva Garcia Grau  Top Right: Me and my library car...