Information School News

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...

Professor of Information Services Management Stephen Pinfield has just published a new book,  Achieving Global Open Access - The Need for Scientific, Epistemic and Participatory Openness. The book explores some of the key conditions that are necessary to deliver global Open Access (OA) that is effective and equitable. It is aimed at academics and students engaged in the fields of Library and Information Science, OA or publishing. It can be read online here , and a print version will be published in the coming weeks.

 I was absolutely delighted to receive a bursary place to attend FestivIL by LILAC. I have just finished my first year of the distance learning Library and Information Services Management course. The module I enjoyed the most was Information Literacy and I was excited to learn more about the best practices from experienced information professionals at FestivIL. Day One After a shaky start with Zoom (it had to do an update just before the conference started!), I was able to log into the Welcome session. In order to encourage conversation and networking at a virtual event, it was explained how you could attend two campfire conversations a day. Campfire conversations involved being randomly allocated into a breakout room where you could talk to other delegates. I decided to give it a try and enjoyed my first session so much, I opted to join for each campfire conversation. In each session, I felt that I could reflect on the conference and share my experience.  Emily Drabinski’s Ma...

In the ‘Public and School Libraries’ module a group of Librarianship and Library & Information Services Management (LISM) Masters students have started to read from a range of different titles for children and young people. Each of the books we have selected has won either the CILIP Carnegie prize for fiction, or the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration, and many are also included in the World Book Day ‘ 100 stories to share ’ list.  The students are asked to record their thoughts on the books they have been reading, to consider any emerging patterns/themes, and to think about the extent to which the winning titles reflect the judging criteria for the Carnegie prize . We will continue reading throughout the semester, but as this is World Book Day here are a few examples of our thoughts after the first couple of weeks of the module. -Dr Briony Birdi, Module Coordinator The Poet X – Elizabeth Acevedo (Carnegie Medal winner, 2019) Wow! This is one of those sorts of books t...

Blog: My Year as a Library and Information Services Management Student by Rachel Colley Rachel Colley I’ve just finished my first year of my Master’s degree which is a Library and Information Services Management degree. This course has been challenging but in a way that has pushed me further in my academic studies. It has allowed me to write various types of assignments that I have not had experience of writing before in my undergraduate degree. These experiences have shown me that I am capable of more than I thought of when it came to my academic studies and assignments and what I have achieved because of this over the past year.  Two of my favourite modules that I have had so far have been the Libraries, Information and Society as well as Leadership, Strategy and Change modules. These modules have both taught me in detail how the mechanisms of libraries work with the key different aspects along with how the management structure works within the library and information services se...

I just want to preface this blog post by stating that I understand that everyone’s week is different. Especially if you are a distance learner. In this blog post I am going to outline my average week with what my other commitments are along with the periods during the day with which I study. The days that I am busy regularly are Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. The commitments I have beside university work is my volunteer work which is twelve hours a week, my university ambassador job, any appointments I might have and any hobbies that I may have such as reading, writing and making YouTube videos. This blog post is to give tips that I’ve learnt from both my undergraduate degree and the first term of my postgraduate about how I’ve been able to manage my time as well as being able to have time to look after myself and to relax. I hope you’re able to take something away from this and for it to help you in managing your studies. Here are a few tips that you can p...

Two weeks on from #CILIPconf2019 has allowed me plenty of time to reflect on what I learnt over the two whirlwind days. Firstly, if you ever have the opportunity to go… GO! It is friendly and gives you a real taste of a variety of sectors of the profession and creates an atmosphere that is sure to inspire information professionals to go out and make a difference. One of the stand out things I have taken away from the conference was its focus on equality and diversity and that librarianship is overwhelming white… 97% of information professionals in the UK identify as white which is not representative of our society which is 88% (CILIP, 2019).  In her keynote speech, Hong-Anh Nguyen (@DeweyDecibelle) used a quotation from Ed Yong: “I knew that I care about equality so I deluded myself into thinking that I wasn’t part of the problem.  I assumed that my passive concern would be enough.  Passive concern never is.” This struck a chord with me – equality is important to me –...

It was a great honour for me to participate in the two-day CILIP Conference with my lovely Information School classmates in Manchester on July 3. This conference is a major annual event of information experts. I was very grateful to be sponsored by the University of Sheffield to attend this event. Within a limited two-day period, we have gained a lot of industry knowledge, career inspiration, and advanced techniques from talented speakers. It is also a friendly and open platform for discussing and sharing different opinions with other participants. It was a valuable experience in my life. The conference included five topics: big ideas, specialisms, knowledge & information management, skill & technical and career insight. For each topic, there were several seminars and workshops. Among these sessions, I was very interested in the K & IM government seminar led by Dr Derek Shaw, Dr Dominic Davies and Larry Mount. They showed us many actual cases from the Ministry of Defe...

I was so lucky to gain a bursary from the Information School to attend the UK CILIP Conference 2019. It was a great opportunity for me to meet professionals from information-related industries, as well as other students from the Information School. I got to chat with some fantastic people and made friends with other students. The conference involved broad topics related to information and librarianship, such as Artificial Intelligence, Diversity and Data Behaviour, which allowed every attendee to find topics they were interested in. Attending different sessions of the conference sparked many new ideas and different ways of thinking regarding leadership skills needed by information professionals, which are so important for a future career. This blog will focus on what kind of skills recruiters are looking for from information professionals, based on three experts’ views. According to Sally Connor, who is a senior analyst from PWC, it is vital to have strategic thinking and always as...

The CILIP Conference 2019 was held in Manchester and I was really excited to be able to attend and represent the Information School at the exhibition stand. It was really beneficial to meet a variety of people from the library and information profession and to share my experiences of being a distance learner on the Library and Information Services Management course. The conference programme had a variety of really inspirational keynote speakers including AI expert Kriti Sharma who raised questions about the neutrality of AI in terms of diversity, Hong-Anh Nguyen from the King’s Fund who highlighted the need for greater diversity in the library and information profession, and Creative Guide Aat Vos, who had some really impressive ideas about the design of libraries. There was a wide range of break-out sessions to choose from across the two days covering topics such as digital innovation, health, diversity in reading, career tips, information literacy, and linked data to name just a fe...