Information School News

Prof Sheila Corrall and University Librarian Martin Lewis (a member of the iSchool's Advisory Panel) are attending the 7th International Digital Curation Conference in Bristol on 6-7 December, where they are jointly presenting a poster on Building Library Capacity for Managing Data. The poster depicts updated and new models that capture current thinking and emergent practice on roles and competencies in the changing digital landscape to help library and information professionals make sense of the challenges and opportunities in the present environment.

iSchool PhD student Simon Wakeling joined a librarian, publisher and academic in a panel debate on "Library Bypass: Rational Response or Road to Nowhere?" at the 2011 Online Information Conference in London today. Simon, who graduated from our MSc Electronic & Digital Library Management programme in 2010, was selected for the event through a competitive process. The panel session was sponsored by ProQuest.

Friday 4th November at 3:00, ICOSS Conference Room Information, Technology and Research: Adoption, Adaptation, and Innovation Across the Disciplines Dr. Eric Meyer Research Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford Oxford, UK Website: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/?id=120 Bio: Dr Eric T. Meyer is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford since 2007. His main area of research has been understanding, from a social informatics perspective, how e-research is enabling innovation in practices and in the kinds of research questions that can be pursued. Talk: Dr Meyer will discuss how technology is being adopted and adapted by different scholarly disciplines in both social sciences and sciences, and how research innovation and technology advances are inter-linked. The talk will demonstrate using empirical evidence that while disciplinary differences are important, not all the stereotypes of disciplines stand up to scrutiny. In addition, he...

Dr Paul Clough is attending the Enterprise Search Summit 2012 conference in London, where he is chairing and presenting.

Students from the Health Informatics Research Group are presenting their research at the 15th International Symposium on Health Information Management Research (ISHIMR 2011) which takes place on the 8-9 September 2011, in Zurich, Switzerland. Liz Brewster is presenting a poster on her work entitled "Concepts of bibliotherapy: from initial definitions to patient empowerment" in collaboration with her supervisor, Barbara Sen. Robinah Namuleme is giving a paper on her research entitled "Information disconnects for people infected with, or affected by, HIV/AIDs" in collaboration with Nigel Ford and Peter Bath. Tom Poulter is presenting a poster on his research "Requirements for oncology EPRs – a mixed methods approach" in collaboration with Peter Bath. Tom is also presenting a paper on "An Analysis of Electronic Document Management in Oncology Care" in collaboration with Brian Gannon (Birkbeck College) and Peter Bath. Tomislav Dimitrovski is presen...

Barbara Sen and Peter Bath, from the Information School, are organising the 15th International Symposium for Health Information Management Research (ISHIMR 2011) in collaboration with colleagues from the University Hospital Zurich and the University of St Gallen, Switzerland. The conference is being held in Zurich on 8-9th September 2011 and is being attended by over 70 delegates from different countries throughout the world. Barbara Sen is organising the doctoral forum at the conference. Further details are available at: http://www.ishimr2011.com/

On the 13th July Professor Ford spoke on "Technology, libraries and personalisation" at CILIP's Umbrella conference , a national event organized for all the special interest groups of the UK professional association for information professionals.

Several iSchool members participated in the i3 conference that took place at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, last week. Two staff members presented: Dr Andrew Cox on Information in everyday practice and Sheila Webber presented a paper coauthored with Dr Phussadee Dokphrom (recent graduate and now Head of Department at Silpakorn University): Conceptions of Information literacy: Result findings from the case study of undergraduate students in the Faculty of Arts, Silpakorn University, Thailand . Another recent doctoral graduate, Dr Shahd Salha , presented her research on The Variations and the Changes in the School librarians’ conceptions of Information Literacy . Finally, current PhD student R obinah Kalemeera Namuleme (co-author Professor Nigel Ford ) presented HIV and AIDS related health information behaviour: an ethnographic study . Photo by Sheila Webber: Piper at the i3 Conference

Carly Miller, a student at the University of Sheffield, has won the first CILIP/IFLA Aspire Award. She will receive a free residential place at CILIP’s flagship conference, Umbrella 2011. The conference will take place at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield on 12-13 July. The Aspire Award was created in memory of CILIP’s Chief Executive Bob McKee, who died in August 2010. The Award will support Bob's passionate interests – developing new professionals and strengthening international relationships. It will help new professionals develop through networking at UK and international events. To win the award, qualifying CILIP members were required to identify an ambition or overall aim that attending Umbrella would help realise. They also had to demonstrate how attending the conference would bring a definable contribution to the library profession. Consideration was given to how their ambition related to Bob McKee’s core belief in the role of libraries as a means to a fairer and ...

The next meeting of the journal club in Second Life, the virtual world, will be on Wednesday June 29 2011, at 12 noon SL time (8pm UK time, see http://tinyurl.com/5so6eb9 for times elsewhere). We will be discussing: Webber, S., Boon, S. and Johnston, B. (2005) "A comparison of UK academics' conceptions of information literacy in two disciplines: English and Marketing." Library and Information Research , 29 (93), 4-1. http://www.lirg.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/197 Questions for discussion will include: have you observed differences in the information literacy of students and faculty in different disciplines? This is a one hour session, with a short introduction in voice, and discussion in text chat. The location is : http://slurl.com/secondlife/infolit%20ischool/106/208/30/ (you need a SL avatar and the SL browser installed on your computer, to attend). There will be a short orientation session for people who haven't used SL before, at 9am SL time (5pm...

Information School researcher, PhD student and MA Librarianship graduate Paula Goodale has been awarded one of just 5 coveted places at the DREaM project launch conference . The conference, organised by the Library and Information Science Research Coalition, takes place at the British Library Conference Centre, London on Tuesday 19th July 2011. The theme of the conference is Out of the Comfort Zone .

Eight current members of the School's Chemoinformatics Research Group are participating in the 9th International Conference on Chemical Structures in The Netherlands June 5-9th - the major conferences in the field in 2011. 9th International Conference on Chemical Structures Sheffield has a very strong presence at the meeting. The group is contributing two oral presentations: Richard Sherhod (Mining of emerging structural patterns for http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifidentification of toxicophores) and Ben Allen (De novo design of synthetically feasible compounds using reaction vectors and evolutionary multiobjective optimisation); three poster presentations: Hua Xiang, Sonny Gan and Jorge Valencia; and Val Gillet is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. In addition, there are three oral presentations by our ex-PhD students (Sarah Aaron, Dave Wood and George Papadatos) and three posters (Richard Martin, Maciej Haranczyk, Nathan Brown).

On 13th June starting 11am Second Life time (which is 7pm UK time, 2pm EST, see http://tinyurl.com/5uf9wvk for times elsewhere) we are celebrating the fact that we became an iSchool with a full programme of events in Second Life. You will need a SL avatar and the SL browser installed on your computer to participate. - 11:00 SLT: Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in SL), Senior Lecturer, the iSchool, University of Sheffield & Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research. "Introduction to the iSchool and opening of the Exhibition" - 11:15 SLT: Dr Lorri Mon (Lorri Momiji in SL), Assistant Professor, College of Communication and Information, Florida State University. "Libraries and social media." [Presentation in voice] - 12.00 SLT: Dr Joe Sanchez (North Lamar in SL), Assistant Professor, School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University. "Reconfigurable culture: a journey through cyber ethnography." [Presentation in voice] - 12:4...

Prof Sheila Corrall's paper on 'Educating the Academic Librarian as a Blended Professional' has won a 2011 Emerald Literati Network Award for Excellence, having been judged the best paper published in the journal Library Management during 2010. The paper is freely available on open access until 1 September 2011 at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?show=abstract&articleid=1891435&.

Sheila Webber gave a presentation at the UK University Science and Technology Librarians' Group (USTLG) meeting on May 9th held in Sheffield. Her powerpoint on Information Literacy and the role of the supervisor: a supervisor's perspective can be viewed here: http://www.slideshare.net/sheilawebber/information-literacy-and-the-role-of-the-supervisor-a-supervisors-perspective Sheila also presented (together with Bill Johnston, Strathclyde University) two sessions in May at the University of Tallin, Estonia , as a guest lecturer for an international Masters programme, DILL (International Master in Digital Library Learning). The sessions focused on the Information Literate Organisation.

Peter was interviewed by the national TV stations in Albania, ScanTV and News24. During these interviews, Peter discussed how health informatics can benefit patients and the public. The interviews were broadcast on Albanian television on Wednesday 25th May 2011.

Peter Bath and Professor Panos Ketikidis, Vice Principal for Research, Innovation and External Affairs at City College, an International Faculty of the University of Sheffield had meetings with Dr. Visho Ajazi Lika, Deputy Minister for Technology, Information and Communication, and with the Deputy Minister for Health in Albania, Mr. Albert Gajo in Tirana. The photograph shows Peter and Professor Ketikidis (right) with Dr. Lika (centre). Peter and Professor Ketikidis also had meetings with Professor Alfred Priftanji, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Tirana, and with Dr. Klodian Alljbeu, C.E.O. at the American Hospital of Tirana. The meetings were arranged in collaboration with the American University of Tirana.

The Deputy Minister for Health in Albania, Mr. Albert Gajo, introduced Peter Bath's seminar entitled "Health Informatics: opportunities and challenges for the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in health care" at the International Hotel, Tirana on Tuesday 25th May. The picture shows Mr. Gajo introducing Peter Bath's talk; during his introduction Mr. Gajo stressed the importance of health informatics for modern health care. The seminar was attended by over 250 people. It was arranged by Professor Panos Ketikidis, Vice Principal for Research, Innovation and External Affairs at City College, an International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, in collaboration with the American University of Tirana.

This week, Peter Bath is visiting Tirana in Albania and Skopje in F.Y.R. of Macedonia to give seminars on Health Informatics to healthcare professionals, service mangers and and health planners. These visits are in collaboration with Professor Panos Ketikidis, Vice Principal for Research, Innovation and External Affairs at City College, an International Faculty of the University of Sheffield. Peter will also be visiting the South-East Europe Research Centre (SEERC) in Thessaloniki, Greece to give an open seminar for research staff and students.

There was strong participation from the iSchool at the LILAC (Information Literacy) conference that took place 18-20 April 2011 in London. Sheila Webber copresented a talk on Fostering health information literacy through use of a virtual world with US librarian Elizabeth Marripodi (it was also co-autored by Rossana Barrios, University of Puerto Rico), presented a poster on Developing concepts of Information Literacy and was a panel member in the discussion on Information literacy: a tick box, skills list or a set of holistic, objective, intersubjective and enriching values? Sheila Corrall contributed a pecha kucha on Information-Handling Training for Researchers: Towards a More Cohesive Environment , and presented papers on Data Literacy Conceptions and Pedagogies: Redefining Information Literacy Frameworks for the 21st Century and (with Norwegian-based librarian Maria Carme-Torras) Using Cross-Cutting Groups to Enact Information Literacy Strategy: A Comparative Case Study of No...

The students on the MA Librarianship programme have launched their own student newsletter available at http://issuu.com/theregentlibrarian News and reviews from the students.

Laura Williams MA Librarianship student has been awarded a bursary to attend the BIALL 2011 conference in Newcastle. Congratulations to Laura.

Alice Schofield PhD student was awarded first prize for her Pecha Kucha presentation at the Vitae Yorkshire and NE Humberside Hub conference on "Communication to the Public" in Durham on 6th April. Her presentation gave an overview of the early stages of her study: "Evaluating the intellectual assets of the Scholarship and Collections Directorate at the British Library". Alice was awrded first prize against competition from students from both social science and pure science disciplines.

Peter Bath is an invited speaker at the HC 2011 conference on Tuesday 5th April 2011. The HC 2011 conference is organised by the British Computing Society (BCS) / Chartered Institute for IT, and is the leading conference in the UK for IT managers in the National Health Service. Peter's talk is entitled "The interface between information, health and healthcare delivery". Other invited speakers at the conference include Rt. Hon Andrew Lansley CBE MP, Secretary of State for Health and the Department of Health’s Chief Information Officer, Christine Connelly. Further details about the conference can be found at: http://www.hc2011.co.uk/conference/

Late March saw a personal milestone for Peter Willett with the appearance in print of his 500-th publication, which was based on an MSc Chemoinformatics dissertation project: Gardiner, E.J. et al . (2011) “Effectiveness of 2D fingerprints for scaffold hopping”, Future Medicinal Chemistry , 3 , 405-414.

Congratulations to Sam Wiggins MA Librarianship student on this award. Sam will be attending the SLA Conference in Phildelphia in June as part of this award. He also receives a one year membership of SLA, and will gain experience in co-ordinating SLA events throughout the year.

Dr Paul Clough gave a research seminar at Glasgow University on Monday, March 14th. His topic was Providing Personalized Access To Cultural Heritage Information . His abstract was as follows. "In this talk I will describe a new European project called PATHS (Personalized Access To cultural Heritage Spaces) that aims to support information exploration and discovery through digital cultural heritage collections. This project aims to implement the user models discussed in this paper and provide a mechanism for users to create and share pathways through information spaces for learning and knowledge discovery. Personalized access to digital cultural heritage resources will be provided by adapting suggested routes to the requirements of individual users and groups, such as students/teachers, professional archivists and historians and scholars. In particular, I will discuss the use of paths or trails as a flexible and powerful model for personalized access to cultural heritage spaces an...

Lauren Smith, a graduate of last year's MA Librarianship course, has been identified as a "mover and shaker 2011" on the Library Journal website. It notes that " the "one-woman library-saving machine," campaigned tirelessly throughout 2010 against the closure of libraries in Great Britain ... The actions of this self-described "library campaigner" are a lesson in commitment for the rest of us." http://www.libraryjournal.com/csp/cms/sites/LJ/LJInPrint/MoversAndShakers/profiles2011/moversandshakersSmithL.csp

Peter Bath has been awarded the Horton Cup for the Best Figure/Portrait study for his print "Watching" (shown left) in the Sheffield Photographic Society annual exhibition. Peter's other print "A Quiet Moment" (shown right) received a "Highly Commended" award in the Small Prints section. The Sheffield Photographic Society was established in 1864 and is one of the oldest photographic societies in the world. The annual exhibition is on display from Thursday 24th to Sunday 27th February 2011 in the Anglican Cathedral, Church Street, Sheffield. Admission is free.

We are pleased to announce that OCLC are to sponsor a new annual £100 prize for the best postgraduate dissertation on a digital library theme. Founded in 1967, OCLC Online Computer Library Center is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing the rate of rise of library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials. http://www.oclc.org/uk/en/about/default.htm

The School recently welcomed back its 2010 graduates on the MA and MSc programmes. Students arrived back in Sheffield for the Graduation Ceremony and attended a reception hosted by the School, during which prizes were presented to individual students for their achievements in the dissertation and/or programme overall. A sample of photos taken at the reception/award ceremony can be viewed at: http://dagda.shef.ac.uk/iSchoolGraduation/ Prints of images can be ordered from Peter Bath (p.a.bath@Sheffield.ac.uk).

The 5th meeting of the Centre for Information Literacy Research's innovative information literacy/ information behaviour journal club, which takes place in the virtual world Second Life, was on 2nd February 2011. Participants from the UK, USA and Poland were discussing: Corrall, S. (2007). "Benchmarking strategic engagement with information literacy in higher education: towards a working model". Information Research , 12 (4) http://informationr.net/ir/12-4/paper328.html . This video gives a glimpse of the proceedings. The next journal club meeting is on 23rd February.

The School paid tribute to Professor Wilf Saunders, founder of the Postgraduate School of Librarianship (now the Information School) and Professor Tom Wilson, Head of Department for some 15 years and world leading academic in information studies, during a special event to name iSchool rooms in their honour. Find out more and view pictures of the event at http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/staff/honoured_colleagues.html

Rabab Al Jishi, who completed our MSc Chemoinformatics programme in September, has had a paper on chemical bibliometrics published in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling , the leading chemoinformatics journal. Rabab's paper is based on her dissertation project, and the full reference is: Al Jishi, R. & Willett, P. “The Journal of Chemical Documentation and the Journal of Chemical Information and Computer Sciences : Publication and citation statistics”. Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling , 50 , 2010, 1915-1923.

Vanessa Fuidge, who completed our MA Librarianship programme in September, has had a paper on music librarianship published in Brio , the journal of the UK and Ireland Branch of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres. Vanessa's paper is based on her dissertation project: the full reference is: Fuidge, V. & Willett, P. ''The role of the music specialist in music collections in English public libraries”. Brio , 47 (2), 2010, 36-46.