Reflecting on Yesterday, Understanding Today, Planning for Tomorrow

The Umbrella 2013 Conference

Yesterday I attended the first day of the Umbrella 2013 conference. The opening day of the two-day conference was full of fascinating talks and interesting discussions – the highlight of which was the closing plenary talk which asked “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s a librarian?“. But no ordinary librarian – Victoria Treadway, Clinical Library at the Wirral Hospital Teaching Hospital Trust, in an engrossing double act with Doctor Girendra Sadera described how, by going beyond one’s comfort zone and working closely with others in a team working in the hospital’s Critical Care Unit, librarians could literally save lives.

We’re All Information Professionals Now!

If this was the highlight of the first day, there was also an undercurrent related to the uncertainties of the future of the library profession and CILIP, the professional organisation for librarians and information professionals. Perhaps it would appear strange for librarians and information professionals to be uncertain of their future in an information-rich society. But as Annie Mauger (CLIP CEO) tweeted during the opening plenary earlier today: “We’re all information professionals“. But if we all all information professionals (Channel 4 news journalists, researchers and, indeed, ordinary people many of whom will now have to curate increasingly large volumes pf digital resources) what differentiates information professionals who choose – or choose not – to belong to a professional organisation?

Reflecting on Yesterday, Understanding Today, Planning for Tomorrow

My contribution to the conference was to present a paper on “Reflecting on Yesterday, Understanding Today, Planning for Tomorrow” which argues that librarians need to adopt evidence-based approaches to planning for the implications of technological developments. The paper summarised the approaches which have been taken by the JISC Observatory and argued that, in light of the imminent demise of the JISC Observatory following the cessation of the core funding for UKOLN and CETIS, institutions may wish to adopt the methodology developed by the JISC Observatory team.

Since the presentation only lasted for 20 minutes it was possibly to give an overview of the JISC Observatory team work. However I would hope that the paper (for which Paul Hollins, Director of CETIS, was a co-author) will be published shortly. In addition an extended version of the slides are available on Slideshare and are embedded below.

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