Information School News

We are delighted to announce that we have been able to secure significant funding from the Faculty of Social Sciences, the University’s Alumni Grants Scheme and our own annual budget to improve a number of teaching rooms, meeting spaces and shared areas around the School.  We hope that improvements will be a welcome upgrade to the facilities available to all our continuing students of the School as well as staff and visitors.  This considerable six-figure financial investment will be the biggest since the School moved into Regent Court in 1993. During Summer 2012 we will be undertaking a works programme to carry out the proposed improvements which will be as follows: Creation of a brand new shared common space and new groupwork/interview rooms for all students (UG, PGT, PGR) and staff Upgrades to the Professor Tom Wilson Teaching Laboratory Creation of a new ‘Digital Media Suite’ in RC-324 for teaching and research Creation of a new staff meeting room in RC-231 (c...

Prof Sheila Corrall travelled to London on Monday to participate in a discussion day organised by Research Libraries UK (RLUK) on the Roles of Libraries in Research Data Management. She spoke on the skills needed by librarians and whether libraries and library/information schools were ready to meet the new demands. Sheffield's Director of Library Services, Martin Lewis (a member of the iSchool's Advisory Panel), also spoke at the event on his experiences of library staff working with other RDM actors in the institution.

The national MmIT conference was hosted in Sheffield yesterday. You can follow a lot of the action on Twitter . More informal commentary on the event ... on Michelle's library stuff , Lady Pen's treasure trove and Sensible shoes . Further news will follow on the MmIT blog . Special thanks go to students who got involved in helping to organise the conference John Bottomley Linda Kemp Jen Smith Simon Wakeling & also to the following students who did a marvellous job helping out on the day: Michelle Bond Nancy Broadfoot Sarah Cole (Official photographer) Penelope Dunn Adoree Hatton Anna Richards Leanne Wain

Congratulations to Ruth Jenkins, student on our MA Librarianship degree, who has been announced as one of the five winners of the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award (ECCA) 2012 . Ruth is studying with us following a graduate traineeship at the Bodleian Social Science Library at the University of Oxford. Ruth has also worked as a library assistant in a public library and Devon School Library Service. Ruth is co-sponsored by the Business and Finance Division.

An American Humanities' academic has just written a piece praising our island, Infolit iSchool , in Second Life: you can find it here: http://educatinglotus.wordpress.com/2012/04/06/the-university-of-sheffield-uk-infolit-ischool/ . She says "I applaud Sheila Webber (Sheila Yoshikawa in SL), Information Studies faculty member and Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research, for creating a wonderfully vibrant student learning space, one that uses Inquiry Based Learning." On the right you see another complimentary message, just sent by Sarah Chauncey, Director of Information Resources and Learning Technologies for Rockland BOCES and doctoral student at Syracuse University.

Sheffield iSchool has a strong presence again at the Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference taking place in Glasgow on 11-13 April. Yesterday, Prof Sheila Corrall delivered a paper on Webscale Discovery and Information Literacy with John Dove, President of Credo Reference. Today, Sheila will lead a workshop on Exploring Good Practice for Research Supervisors in Information Literacy Development with Ruth Stubbings of Loughborough University, while Pam McKinney and Barbara Sen present a paper on Reflection for Learning: Understanding the Value of Reflective Writing for Information Literacy Development. In addition, Munirah Abdulhadi is presenting a poster on Collaborative Social Tagging and Information Literacy, based on her PhD research supervised by Barbara and Dr Paul Clough.

Bookings are still being taken for the MMIT national conference, which is taking place in Sheffield University on the 17th April. Staff and students from the School have been actively involved in setting up and running the conference. Programme and booking details Alumni of the iSchool can still apply for a free place, thanks to the School's generosity in funding two free places. OCLC are also funding two free places for current LIS students at any Information Department in the UK. To apply send 100 words explaining how the conference would improve your employability to a.m.cox@sheffield.ac.uk