January , 2010Happy New Year!
Happy New Year and welcome to the first Information Matters newsletter of 2010. The newsletter is written by the academic staff who teach on the postgraduate library and information courses at the University of Brighton. The contents are designed to be of interest to anyone working in the library and information world with guest interviews, information about new web resources, productivity tips and news about upcoming events and training courses at the University of Brighton.
For more information about our courses click HERE
. In this month's newsletter we offer some tips for getting better organised at work and advice for anyone looking for work in the library and information world. Our guest interviewee this month is Sue Hill who tells us about some of the technologies she uses at work as well as some of the challenges she envisages for the information profession over the next decade. Please get in touch if you have any comments or questions about this newsletter or our courses. My contact details are at the bottom of this page.
Martin De Saulles, Head of Division of Information Management, University of Brighton
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5 Tips for Getting Organised in 2010
by Martin De Saulles
64% of people's new year resolutions are to be better organised in their work lives. Below are 5 tips for coping with information overload, setting priorities and generally feeling more relaxed about the pressures of work:
1. Control email, don't let it control you. If you can, adjust your email client to only check your email several times a day. Turn off those automatic notifications that beep and flash at you when a new email arrives. If responding to an email is going to take more than 2 minutes, move it to a Pending folder and deal with it later. If you use Microsoft Outlook (and most of us do) buy/borrow "
Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook" by Michael Linenberger;
2. If you don't already use an RSS reader (I use Google Reader) to keep on top of news and your favourite web sites, start using it. If you do already use RSS, spend 20 minutes weeding your subscriptions so you don't get that feeling of despair when you see how many items are unread. If you don't know what RSS is or why it might be able to help you better manage information take a look at this YouTube video;
3. Adopt a clean desk policy. Although I'm not perfect at this, I do try to leave my desk clear before I leave the office. The main benefit is the next morning and not arriving to the detritus of the previous day. It also prevents important notes and reminders being buried under books etc.;
4. Move from being reactive to proactive. It is easy to spend most of the workday responding to emails, telephone calls and colleagues and neglect working on the things that matter to us. Make a list of some of the projects you want to complete over the coming 12 months. You may not achieve them all but the act of writing them down will focus your mind on what matters to you and be a vital step in the starting the new year in a positive mood;
5. Adopt the Getting Things Done methodolgy. If you're really serious about improving your productivity and becoming more organised I can recommend the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology by David Allen. His common sense approach which does not require any specific technology has certainly helped me over the previous 2 years.
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Looking For a Job?
by Martin De Saulles
While the market is still rather wobbly for job seekers in the library and information professional sectors, there are still jobs being advertised. Some of them, like this position of Knowledge Director for Social Computing look very interesting and indicate an interesting direction that the information profession may be heading. The main agencies that specialise in these types of jobs are:
Sue Hill Recruitment
TFPL/Intelligent Resources
Glen Recruitment
InfoMatch
There are also several web sites/email updates that specialise in library and information vacancies:
Jinfo
LISJOBNET
For practical advice on creating a CV, filling in application forms and performing well in interviews see this article from Sue Hill Recruitment.
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Blog of the month
Every month I'll highlight a blog which I subscribe to and which I think is worth visiting. This month it's the Content Matters blog by Barry Graubart which contains "Occasional ruminations on the convergence of content and technology."
Content Matters is one of those blogs which I always read (unlike some I subscribe to but have a backlog of posts to catch up on). Barry is not the most prolific blogger but he usually has some interesting and pertinent observations on how the internet is changing the way we produce, deliver and consume content. His recent post
on Rupert Murdoch's outburst against Google really got to the heart of some of the issues facing the news industry.
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Web 2.0 site of the month
Want to know what is being said about you on the web? Visit 123People and type in your name. While there are other sites that do similar things, the feature I like on 123People is the tag cloud it generates.
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Free Report of the Month
Every month we'll highlight a free downloadable report. This month it's a large report on the mobile communications sector from Morgan Stanley. Mobile devices and services are going to be one of the major drivers of change in the information sector over the coming decade and this report contains lots of charts and data about trends in this area. There are 3 PDF versions of the report, from a 92 page summary to a massive 659 page overview of all things mobile. The Morgan Stanley page for downloading these reports is HERE.
For the latest news on useful and free information available via the internet visit the Docuticker blog.
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