Use Articles

Recent Articles on Use

• Turning complaints into compliments in a city library service
  September 2010
  In the last year or so, we at Edinburgh City Libraries have developed our online presence with social media. This article looks at how we've...
  
  
• How is SharePoint used in Libraries?
  August 2010
  Introduction A survey conducted in July 2009 showed that 441 representatives from governmental, non-profit, profit and academic...
  
  
• Part 2: How Do THEY Use Information? Investigating the user information process
  July 2010
  In the second part of Scott Brown's real life case studies on using, reusing, and repurposing information we move into the real Bermuda Triangle....
  
  
• Book Review: Building and Running a Successful Research Business. A guide for the Independent Information Professional
  June 2010
  Building and Running a Successful Research Business.  A guide for the Independent Information Professional.  Second Edition....
  
  
• Part 1: 'Retreading', not Reinventing, the Wheel: How info pros repurpose content for increased efficiency and visibility
  June 2010
  Do you constantly feel that you are reinventing the wheel in your FUMSI practice? I hold up my hands and will admit to 'a few' deja vu...
  
  
• Next generation catalogues, discovery interfaces and their role in helping meet changing user needs
  May 2010
  The needs and behaviours of library users are changing. As access to information increases, and ways to obtain information get faster and easier,...
  
  
• Coalition calling: focusing the research efforts in the LIS industry
  April 2010
  What 'use' do we make of information and when does this information join together and start to build an evidence base? It is this ‘use' of the real...
  
  
• Life is Tweet: Social Media at Orkney Library & Archive
  March 2010
  In the last two issues of Fumsi 'Use' we have travelled into the worlds of the pharmaceutical and construction industries to see examples...
  
  
• Construction PR and Marketing: Leveraging Web 2.0 tools
  February 2010
  What are the tren ds for 2010? Fellow FUMSI editor Martin Belam thinks that social media tools have been hot news in 2009 and will...
  
  
• Pharmaceutical industry: a discovery-led approach to social media
  January 2010
  What are the trends for 2010? Fellow FUMSI editor Martin Belam thinks that social media tools have been hot news in 2009 and will continue to be in...
  
  
• Disadvantaged Information Users: Prison Case Study
  December 2009
  Literacy and inclusion are common themes in information use. We often think of disadvantaged communities that require unique ideas and...
  
  
• Improving Library Services: Using Mashups
  November 2009
  Whenever someone mentions the ter m 'mashup' I inevitably think of two things, 'Monster Mash' and mashed potatoes. Don't ask me why; I know...
  
  
• JISC: Applications for Inclusion
  October 2009
  Readers who work in further and higher education (FE/HE) across the UK may be familiar with JISC, also known as the Joint Information Systems Committee,...
  
  
• Using Information to Drive Business Processes: A Case Study
  September 2009
  All businesses thrive on internal information. It drives their processes and helps to meet their goals, deliver strategies and help with...
  
  
• A Case Study: Using Evidenced Based Research to Change Attitudes Towards Home Births
  August 2009
  What do you think of when you hear the words ‘home birth'? Do you envision a sudden emergency and a panic-stricken dash to the hospital, or...
  
  
• Reference Desk: Tips on Using Your Wits
  July 2009
  How were you trained to find information? Possibly you were not trained at all. One would like to think otherwise, but I suspect most of us were plonked at...
  
  
• Information Risk
  June 2009
  It is not an exaggeration to say that the lifeblood of today's organisation, whether it be in the private or public sector, is information. All...
  
  
• Business Insight: BestForBusiness
  June 2009
  2009 is the ninetieth anniversary of Business Insight, Birmingham Central Library's business information service providing free business information and...
  
  
• Information Services Add Value: Measuring and Proving It
  May 2009
  Written by Dennie Heye Whether working within government or for-profit organisations, information service departments will...
  
  
• EBooks and Traditional Texts: Complementary or Mutually Exclusive?
  April 2009
  EBooks and Traditional Texts: Complementary or Mutually Exclusive? Written by Kate Worlock The eBooks market has been poised for...
  
  
• Research: A Strategy for Raising $1 Million
  February 2009
  I sometimes struggle to define my role with clients. There are days that I would tell you that I am a researcher.  Other days, I would tell you that I...
  
  
• Answering the Call: Better Knowledge Management = Better Customer Service
  January 2009
  Contact centres are widely used by both the private and public sector as a means of ‘doing business' without having to go to a specific location. The...
  
  
• Free Data: Turning It into Something Worth Paying For
  November 2008
  The availability of so much information on the Internet, free at the point  of use, has led the public into a false sense of security, believing that...
  
  
• Introduction to Federated Search
  October 2008
  Federated search - also known as metasearch or a distributed information retrieval system - provides one portal for searching information from multiple...
  
  
• Second Life for Business: Ten Techniques
  October 2008
  In this article I'll talk about business uses for Second Life (SL) ( http://www.secondlife.com/ ) and give some tips for working in SL. SL is a virtual...
  
  
• Making a Difference to Patient Care: Using Evidence Based Medicine
  September 2008
  Evidence Based Medicine - EBM. It's a phrase much beloved by politicians. We're all increasingly familiar with it, but where did it come from, and how did...
  
  
• Selling Photographs in the Digital Age
  August 2008
  People have been licensing photographs almost since the inception of  the medium in the nineteenth century. Victorian picture agencies like the London...
  
  
• Do We Have to Work Harder in a Downturn?
  July 2008
  As I write this article at the beginning of the downturn, I realise how fortunate I am that my information department has not yet been affected by...
  
  
• Convenience Trumps Quality: How Digital Natives Use Information
  June 2008
  It has been seven years since Marc Prensky launched the concept of digital natives (the post-www generations) and digital immigrants (everyone else!) on...
  
  
• Library and Information Show 2008: Information Literacy is Key
  May 2008
  The Library and Information Show (LIS), an annual event for the UK library and information community, took place over two days in April at the...
  
  
• Information Provision: Adding Value
  May 2008
  Information professionals are often seen as peripherally providing a service to an organisation rather than being an integral part of the management of...
  
  
• Develop Your Independent Business: Using Information Strategically
  April 2008
  As an independent information professional you are quite well versed (if not expert) in finding, using, synthesising and delivering information to your...
  
  
• Exposing the secret state
  April 2008
  There isn't an information professional in the world these days who doesn't have to demonstrate that they add value. But media librarians - the folk who...
  
  
• Legal Research: Turning It into Competitive Advantage
  April 2008
  Legal research often conjures up images of assistants scurrying to find case law, related statutes, regulations to prove an argument, or an attorney...
  
  
• Nontraditional Careers for Info Pros: Why Consider Alternatives?
  March 2008
  Our changing information landscape opens up new options for librarians and info pros to transfer their skills to a myriad of nontraditional fields. Some of...
  
  
• Statistics: Can You Really Believe the Figures?
  February 2008
  Hard, objective, accurate, definitive, precise numbers are beguilingly appealing. Yet in reality numbers are often subjective, vague, provisional and...
  
  
• Have a beta-test mind - just do it!: An interview with the British Library and SLA
  January 2008
  What do a publicly funded institution like the British Library and the competitive members of the Special Libraries Association have to offer each other in...
  
  
• FreePint reports from this year's Online Information exhibition at Olympia
  December 2007
  This year's Online Information conference and exhibition at Olympia (4-6 December 2007, Olympia, UK) attracted thousands of visitors, over 230 exhibitors...
  
  
• 1997-2007: A Decade of Find, Use, Manage, Share
  December 2007
  On the evolutionary scale, 10 years isn't even a blip, not a blink, not a breath in. It's hardly anything at all. But on the information scale, especially...
  
  
• Survival Guide: Online Social Networking
  September 2007
  Online social networking provides you with a venue to connect with people whom you already know, grow your relationships and find new people connected to...
  
  
• Social Tools for Business Use: Messages from a Web 2.0 Conference
  September 2007
  In the past few months, it's been hard to ignore the phenomenon of Facebook. This online social networking tool has even caught the attention of...
  
  
• RSS Update: It's RSS, Jim, but Not as We Know It
  July 2007
  One of the classic lines from Star Trek was when, on seeing new life on a strange planet, Dr McCoy turned to Captain Kirk and said in an ominous tone:...
  
  
• Beyond Online: In-Depth Report from SLA
  June 2007
  Every once in a while, I think, it's not a bad idea to venture outside your personal comfort zone. For me, that means getting away from the computer. I...
  
  
• SLA Special Report: Your Wish Was Our Command
  June 2007
  Prior to SLA, Free Pint Limited ran a survey across our communities (particularly FreePint, ResourceShelf, DocuTicker and Jinfo) to get users' feedback on...
  
  
• Development 2.0: A New Paradigm for the Non-Profit Sector?
  May 2007
  The transition from Development 1.0 to Development 2.0 One interesting aspect - which is sometimes forgotten - behind O'Reilly Media's coining of...
  
  
• Distance Learning, ifs KnowledgeBank and Usability
  April 2007
  Introduction As access to the Internet becomes less expensive and more widely available, distance learning is becoming an increasingly efficient...
  
  
• Product Evaluations: Completing a Needs Assessment
  April 2007
  Over the course of doing business, every organisation encounters the need to conduct product evaluations. Sometimes evaluations are no more complex than...
  
  
• Business Information Trends: The Times They Are a-Changin'
  March 2007
  There's something of a seismic shift occurring in the ownership structure of a couple of our best-known information companies. The news that Thomson...
  
  
• Public Eye: Using Eye Tracking Software To Improve the Usability of Your Website
  January 2007
  The web design industry is understandably excited about eye-tracking technology. Finally, technology that knows what the people who use your website are...
  
  
• Risk Management Report: An Essential Toolkit for Businesses
  January 2007
  
  
  
• Wikipedia: To Use or Not To Use
  December 2006
  In July 2006, the American comedian Stephen Colbert defined 'wikiality' (a combination of the words 'Wikipedia' and 'reality') as 'truth by consensus'....
  
  
• Social Revolution: Bloggers Dominate Online
  December 2006
  Bloggers may not rule the world (yet) but they do wield surprising power. They can turn elections, expose scandal, and shift public thought. Blogging, and...
  
  
• Understanding Today's Capital: Thomas Stewart Delves into His Keynote at Online Information 2006
  November 2006
  Think for a minute: what did you buy yesterday? A newspaper? A tank of petrol? Online advertising space? A local area connection? If you're like most people...
  
  
• What They Say and Do: Practical Tips for Harvesting Reliable User Feedback for Planning
  October 2006
  [This article reflects key points in a presentation to be given by the authors at the Internet Librarian International conference in London, 16-17 October...
  
  
• Business Information Trends: Adding Value and Creating Customised Applications
  October 2006
  The latest annual European Online Information Market survey from IRN Research < http://www.irn-research.com/ > values the European online market at...
  
  
• On the Verge of Revolution - Open-access Publishing
  July 2006
  Online technology has revolutionised how scholars communicate with each other. It is also changing how publishers do business. Those of us who rely on...
  
  
• Trends in business information, provision and use
  May 2006
  The VIP publications, VIP and VIP Eye, are concerned with the business information industry - its products, its providers and its users <...
  
  
• Gleaning consumer intelligence from blogs and podcasts
  May 2006
  Introduction Blogs and podcasts provide intelligence for consumer trend monitoring. In conjunction with your existing consumer intelligence (CI)...
  
  
• Low-Profile Regs You Don't Want to Miss: The Re-Use of Public Sector Information Regulations 2005
  March 2006
  The worst release time for a thoughtful and thought-provoking foreign film shot by hand in black-and-white is a simultaneous release of The Lord of the...
  
  

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