Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: New Library World, Volume 114, Issue 5/6
The Quick Reads campaign aims to get adults into the habit of reading, and new books have been released for 2013. These books are designed to appeal to people who are not big readers and are shorter than many of the best sellers. The Quick Reads project was launched in 2006 and has distributed more than 4.3 million books through supermarkets, bookshops and workplaces as well as through charities and prisons. In her article, Rankin discusses the National Year of Reading campaign in the UK. The aim of this campaign was to promote reading in the family and beyond and to help build a nation of readers – and evidence indicates that it had a big impact. One of the concluding points is that librarians play a key role as reading champions, supporting all sections of the community including the digital natives of the twenty-first century.
The Europeana Connection Kit has been developed to help organisation to share digital content through the Europeana portal. The Europeana Inside project will test new open source software that will make it easier for partner institutions to open up their collections, and the aim is for Europeana Inside to lead to a critical mass of content being shared between European cultural institutions. Collaboration is the topic of the article from Sveum, but with focus on collaborative writing. He reports on the results of a study into the experiences of collaborative writing and presentation of scientific papers at Bobcatsss international conferences. Responses indicate that collaborative writing has many advantages and is a superior strategy for learning LIS subjects. He points out that while the data is from Bobcatsss, the findings may be more widely relevant.
Results from CILIP’s questionnaire on qualifications provided the Future Skills project with invaluable comparative data about whether perceptions of members and employers changed based on the value of qualification and the way in which they are delivered. The responses have fed into the final stage of the qualifications review. Future Skills is one of the strategic issues that CILIP has been progressing over the past two years. The article from Maesaroh and Genoni discusses the future of Indonesian library education in terms of 13 recommendations which are based on the first comprehensive analysis of the educational and continuing professional development needs of Indonesian academic librarians. They identify the need to raise the standards of Indonesian library education and the importance of the role which the Indonesian Library Association has to play in raising the quality of library education and the status of librarians.
The Discover Festival, organised by South Gloucestershire library service, UK,put on hundreds of events. The aim of the festival was to give local people a better understanding of all the activities and services available to them, and this was delivered through a partnership with local people, community groups and business. The library staff team developed some great activities and provided community events which promoted all the opportunities that exist for local people. Library staff teams is the topic of the article from Dethloff and German, but with focus on web teams. They raise issues and challenges with the formation and structure of web teams and the benefit of using team formation theory. They discuss a case study about the formation of a web and usability team and how the team structure affected the success of the group.
A new app has been launched by the Copyright Licensing Agency which is designed to streamline the process of rights management for information professionals. This free app allows information professionals to take advantage of the wide range of resources available to them without fear of infringing copyright law by simplifying the compliance process. The app is available for smart phones and tablets through Apple’s App store and the Google play store as well as through a web version at www.cla.co.uk/titlesearch. In their article, Ballard and Blaine discuss a case study on a library’s development of a full-service mobile phone application. The case study demonstrates the use of a team approach and the stages involved as the library went from concept to product, rolling out the service with a multimedia information campaign.
The Africa Portal is an open access resource for policy research on Africa which has celebrated its second anniversary. The portal is part of the Africa Initiative and provides a resource for researchers as well as providing a platform to publish work. It has seen a sharp growth in content and in users,especially in Africa, but also in policy centres across the globe. To mark its second anniversary the Africa Portal has produced a special infographic that shows its achievements www.africaportal.org/2nd-anniversary. The article from Mavodza focuses on recent open access initiatives in the United Arab Emirates(UAE). She considers many of the concepts being discussed regarding open access initiatives both in the UAE and globally and concludes that great strides have been made in the UAE in terms of understanding and making use of open access initiatives.
Linda Ashcroft
