News & Events

e-books observatory

2009-11-19 14:51

The key findings and observations from the JISC national e-books observatory project will be presented on 19th November at the JISC Collections Annual Conference. The e-books observatory project was set up to help publishers, libraries and funding bodies understand e-book users and the market effect on traditional print sales to students.

Digital Revolution

2009-11-20 18:13

The BBC's Digital Revolution cameras returned to UCL on 14th November. Over 70 webusers, aged from 12 to 74 took part in an experiment designed by CIBER and Dan Gluckman of the BBC to reveal the influence of internet access on information seeking behaviour. Recorded in the UCL Science Library and directed by Molly Milton, a graduate of UCL, the programme which will be broadcast in the new year.

David Nicholas has contributed a blog post to the project's website: we skitter or bounce along the surface of the Web rarely penetrating very far or dwelling very long, but we do not know why —this is what the BBC experiment will tell us.

Community Archives, the shaping of memory

2009-11-16 14:41

Andrew Flinn and Mary Stevens have contributed a chapter to Community Archives, the shaping of memory, published this month by Facet Publishing.

… the act of recovering, telling and then preserving one's own history is not merely one of intellectual vanity; nor can it be dismissed — as some still seek to do — as a mildly diverting leisure activity with some socially desirable outcomes.

Community Archives, the shaping of memory focuses on the ways in which records reflect community identity and collective memory, and the implications of capturing, appraising and documenting these core societal elements - with particular focus on the ways in which recent advances in technology can overcome traditional obstacles, as well as how technologies themselves offer possibilities of creating new virtual communities.

Assessing Information Needs

2009-11-16 14:40

The third edition of Assessing Information Needs in the Age of the Digital Consumer by David Nicholas and Eti Herman will be published by Routledge in December.

Aiming at ensuring that everyone obtains the rich rewards available in today's information-centred society, this book seeks to provide a systematic method for the understanding, appreciation and evaluation of information needs, which alone can guarantee the value of information to the consumer.

Ljubljana Book Fair

2009-10-02 19:55

Iain Stevenson has been invited to the Ljubljana Book Fair, Slovenia in November. Professor Stevenson will present two keynotes at the event, one on Environmental Issues in Publishing and the other on the role of Robert Maxwell in the history of publishing in the twentieth century. The latter paper features new and surprising research that Professor Stevenson includes in his forthcoming book Book Makers. British Publishing in the twentieth century.