Dumpling in a Hanky

There was a motion proposed last week by the Magistrate's Association in England and Wales, to end the swearing of oaths in court on the bible and other holy books. Although the motion was defeated , there was a sentence that caught my eye: Had the motion been passed, it would probably have needed the approval of parliament to bring the change about. The previous version of the story mentioned it in this way: The practice is so old that it is not clear whether it is simply custom or if Parliament would have to change it. And Oaths sworn on the Bible are old enough for the Magistrates' Association to be unsure whether they are mere custom and practice or whether they were laid down by law. So, whatever the decision in Cardiff, it might need the approval of Parliament to bring the change about.  I found this quite unusual: changes to the law were being proposed, but the people proposing the changes didn't actually know how they would go about changing it! ...

This post is a collaboration between @ijclark and myself, and is essentially a very rough outline of something that has been variously discussed between Ian, @ellyob and me. It is rough but we think it might be worth taking forward as an idea and we were hoping others could pitch in and help develop it, potentially bringing it to fruition. Ultimately, we need your input to help refine this idea and, perhaps, to help us get it off the ground. This information is also cross posted on Ian's Infoism blog. The Why As a librarian who worked in a commercial law firm, I was very sensitive to the fact that any public statements of opinion made by me, on any topic, could be interpreted by my employer or clients as a breach of my employment contract. This was especially true if they could be seen to contradicted my firm’s stance on certain sectors or were overtly political. This meant that I had to be careful not to involve myself online with any contentious issues, and had to restri...

Now, I thought I'd come up against every permutation of a bad application process. There's the traditional application form that has been created in Word, and looks very pretty, but goes to pieces when you actually try and fill it in - the text boxes that are too small to hold the information, but the size can't be adjusted; the tables that have margins set beyond the edge of the page so your text disappears; the layouts that dissolve into incoherency and random page-straddling tables when anything is actually typed into the form. Or the forms that only allow for 3 previous roles, and are set so that no extra areas can be inserted. Or the job that was advertised once with a strict warning that the guidance notes must be used to complete the form...without the guidance notes available (that one was re-advertised, and the epically complex guidance notes magically appeared that time). Or the company that required application forms to be printed, signed, and scanned for submiss...

So, between Thursday 13th June and Saturday 15th June, I attended the annual BIALL conference in Glasgow, thanks to the help of a generous bursary from BIALL. Now, due to funding restrictions with my previous employer, I'd not been able to attend this event since 2008 . As this is the main professional event for the UK legal information sector, I always felt frustrated that I was missing out on being somewhere where important developments were being discussed, and that I wasn't getting to make the connections with people that I should. However, since 2008, lots of things have changed, especially in the way people who are effectively strangers to each other can communicate. Basically: Twitter happened. Now, through Twitter, I feel like I have an excellent network of contacts both within my sector and outside it, and as I restrict the amount of people I follow/allow to follow me, I feel I really know them quite well. So when I need help with anything, I can ask my contacts...

On the 24th of April, I went along to the National Library of Scotland to attend the SLA Europe event “Meeting, Tweeting and Fb’ing” , which promised to cover topics such as “how useful is social media for libraries? Can Facebook really help me to promote what I do? What benefits can using LinkedIn bring me as an information professional? “ We began with Bryan Christie of the National Library of Scotland (NLS) giving us an overview of the aims and activities of the NLS on social media. The purpose of this approach is to increase the NLS’ digital presence, and raise awareness of the interesting, non-digital materials within its collections, especially to a younger audience. Bryan views a relevant social media presence as being like journalism – you have to find the interesting information. He’s found that posts on Twitter publicising material from the NLS collections is driving traffic to the NLS website, for more information on these materials. Examples of traffic-creating posts o...

Since my earlier post (multitasking lunch breaks R Us!), I've had some more feedback on peoples feelings about the proposed names for CILIP, and it seems that a lot of people are unhappy that the words "library" or "librarian" aren't included in the options. Now, it may just be because of my recent job hunting experiences, but I don't see that the skills of an information professional are tied to the words library or librarian. If I had restricted my job search to only those sectors, I would never have found a job (there have been a grand total of 3 library roles advertised in 3 months). I have looked at roles with terms like: data, knowledge, information, management, administrator, researcher, project co-ordinator, digital, policy. Those terms are all related to dealing with information professionally, and to me, the core skills of an information professional lie in their ability to effectively manage information, in whatever format it may come in. Hi...

So, recently, CILIP apparently sent out an email regarding a consultation on a change of brand image, and name. I say apparently, as despite being a member, I never got this email. When I went to the website to log in and check why it wasn't sent to me, it didn't let me log in. I tried a password reset, and that email came through, so it *can* send emails to me...but the password it sent won't let me log in. I’m losing the will to keep trying. Overall, this is kind of symptomatic of how I feel about CILIP, and how useless its IT systems are.... Anyway, the consultation is on changing CILIP’s currently, clunky and meaningless name (picked as the best of a previous bad lot, as David McMenemy showed with this link to the 2000 consultation results ) to something more meaningful and relevant is open. If you want to take part, it’s here . I was a good girl, and pootled over yesterday to take part, and after filling in all the bumph, I got to view the glorious options. Oh. My. ...