Category: wiki

UK Library Blogs update

I’m continuing to add to this list, as and when I can, and trawl through those already on the list to check for changes since the last visit / my mistakes in the collection of the initial list (my apologies to Neil Infield for accidentally renaming him to Ian!)

Also, I received an email telling me to look at FADE Library‘s great work on collecting UK health library blogs, which I will(with their kind permission) also add in to the overall list (and blog about in a later post) to try and make it as comprehensive as possible. Unfortunately, my email provider went squiffy and deleted the original email before I could reply, so I don’t know who to credit for alerting me to this massive piece of work by the FADE staff, and also means their own blog details were zapped! If this was you, please can you get back in touch so I can add your blog, and say thank you personally!

Don’t go on holiday!

I tell ya, it takes at least a week to catch up on the week you were away…and now I’m off to Dublin this afternoon until Sunday, so I can only imagine how long it’ll take me to catch up again when I get back!

One useful thing I have done while on holibobs though is play with Yahoo Pipes, to create a feed of feeds. After being a total doofus and needing the help of the lovely law.librarians group to fix things (how come they could easily explain what a video didn’t?) I’ve had a stab at making some usefulness from the UK Librarian Bloggers wiki, starting with (hopefully) a feed of all the academic library blog feeds on there.

If I’m lucky, you should be able to do something with it, like subscribe to it. Although I haven’t got as far as actually testing that theory myself.
Hopefully, you’ll find it here :

http://pipes.yahoo.com/jennie/ukacademiclibraryblogs

And even more hopefully, it’ll be useful to someone! Let me know if it works, and if it’s useful. If it is, I’ll start creating more…public libraries, special libraries, Scottish, English, Welsh etc…

Wikis in business continuity planning

This post at Information Overlord caught my eye. We’ve been discussing for a while the best way to incorporate some business continuity planning into the library service: ie, what would happen if one of the two of us (who a lot of the time function as solo librarians, dealing with the issues arising in our own offices with little or no reference to the other) was suddenly unable to work.

Or, even worse, if one of use decided to leave!! *takes moment to lie down and stop hyperventilating at thought of boss ever leaving*

The structure of the company, the core duties of each staff member, the procedures needed for each activity, the suppliers we use, the products we take, the codes we use, who to ask internally for various things, data on the special professional interests of each fee earner…all information essential to getting our jobs done, but if and when one person isn’t there, is the other person fully equipped with information to continue without them for any length of time?

So, in order to try and get some of this sorted out before it would ever be needed, we’re thinking about perhaps using a wiki as an online staff handbook.

Benefits:

  • Large volume of information / documentation stored without taking up large amounts of physical space.
  • Securable.
  • Easily editable.
  • Always the ‘current’ version.
  • Restrictions on user access to prevent tampering.
  • Availability off site, essential if staff are unable to access buildings / offices.
  • Would allow new staff to familiarise themselves with basic company / service information before starting role. (although this would cause issues with security, would need to investigate whether parts of wikis are lockable / hideable, or whether it would need to be a separate ‘Handbook Lite’ version)

Downsides:

  • Without a current Library staff handbook, a lot of time will need to be invested to get the relevant information onto a wiki.
  • It will only be useful if maintained, so staff would need to be committed to maintaining it properly and updating regularly as information changes.
  • Possibility of it being hacked into, and sensitive information accessed.

Hmmm…much to think about, and lots of ‘normal’ work to be done before attempting this. It’s an ongoing problem: so much daily work to do that you never get the time to do the preventative work!