Information School News

I’ve been a Student Ambassador for the Information School this academic year, which mostly involved talking to prospective students for my course, MA Librarianship, during Open Days. As well as (hopefully) helping them make a decision about where to study, I also found this really useful for myself; I got to talk to other people working, or wanting to work, in the same profession as me, and it also gave me a chance to reflect on my own experiences so far. I also really enjoyed getting to know other Student Ambassadors from other courses in the Information School – it was good to check in with them throughout the year, particularly when the dissertation period rolled around! With fellow student ambassador, MSc Data Science student Na Li I had the chance to try out some other skills when I took on a special project for the School. I filmed myself on a day out around Sheffield where I tried out as many free activities as I could (find out what I got up to here ). This was a gre...

This year’s CILIP Conference was held in Brighton and I was delighted to be able to represent the University of Sheffield at the Information School stand. This proved to be a really wonderful experience and afforded me plenty of opportunities to speak to current, former and prospective students and to chat with the myriad different information professionals who stopped by the stand throughout the duration of the conference. The keynote speeches were really interesting and covered topics across different library and information sectors, from GDPR to children’s library services. I particularly enjoyed Penny Young’s talk about the scope of the House of Commons library service . In such a political turbulent time, much of what Penny discussed helped re-humanise MPs in the face of tabloid coverage and really emphasised the need for and use of evidence to inform our elected representatives. The work that the HOC library do is essential and extensive and it was fascinating to hear her exper...

To celebrate the launch of the iSchool Society, a coffee afternoon was held on the 6th of October in the iSpace. This is the first official Information School society registered with the Students Union. Postgraduate taught and research students had the opportunity to vote for future events and to sign up for membership. One of the key aims is to bring together postgraduate taught and postgraduate research students in take part in inclusive social events. The committee is formed of four postgraduate research students as followed: Marc Bonne (President), Liliana Garcia (Secretary), Wasim Ahmed (Publicity and Inclusion Officer), and Itzelle Medina (Treasurer). The Information School Society has a Facebook page where you can keep up to dates with events, and a Twitter account which will contain information on any event cancellations or alterations. Membership can be purchased from the website of the society .

CILIP Conference (5-6 July, Manchester) is a highlight of the professional calendar for library and information professionals in the UK, and this year the Information School is delighted to award bursaries for six postgraduate students to attend the conference and share their experiences. Our bursary award-winners are: Hannah Beckitt – MA Library and Information Services Management Erica Brown – MA Digital Library Management Jaimee McRoberts – MA Library and Information Services Management Itzelle Medina – PhD (and previous MA Librarianship student) Lucy Sinclair – MA Librarianship Louise Wasson – MA Library and Information Services Management All are looking forward to making the most of the conference programme , including excellent keynotes by Carla Hayden, the Librarian of Congress, and Luciano Floridi of the Oxford Internet Institute, and the Your Career track, which is sponsored by the Information School. Watch out for tweets and blog posts from our students about thei...