IWR Blog

You can't close down people

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:42:23 GMT

It is time to see social networking sites as just that. Networking sites. Says Archana Venkatraman Two incidents earlier this week took the paranoia around networking tools to an absurd level. One was when MI6 chief Sir John Sawers's personal...

Talking local archives

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:30:59 GMT

A roadshow on preserving information in the digital age took place in York on Friday 26 June. Those who have set up the event should be congratulated. The organisers are the National Archives, the Society of Archivists and the Digital...

Face the paradoxes

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:26:12 GMT

Peter Williams reports from the Library Show in Birmingham Speaking at the Library Show, British Library chief executive Dame Lynne Brindley said there was never a better time to be a librarian. But she also said that the current period...

Tweeters and non-Tweeters

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 14:45:46 GMT

It is well worth repeating the cliché - internet has transformed our lives. Information, news, file-sharing, catch up television, blogs, entertainment and social networking. Layer upon layer, it is a world unto itself. While this virtual world exposes us to...

In God we trust, in public sectors... we don't

Fri, 15 May 2009 15:17:00 GMT

More than the controversial nature of the DNA database, the fact that it exists with the government is worrying, writes Archana Venkatraman

How about children hosting a history blog

Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:41:42 GMT

A shake-up of the primary curriculum to reflect the modern times is a refreshing move writes Archana Venkatraman. But should we make information technology a material of education than a medium of education? According to The Guardian (that has seen...

Facebook works hard to avoid losing face

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:08:27 GMT

Information professionals with an interest in privacy issues will be following the data trials and tribulations of social networking phenomena with some interest. The story so far goes something like this. A couple of weeks ago the company released an...

Autonomy and Interwoven - a sign of things to come?

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:03:56 GMT

So it finally happened. Speculaors have been predicting the acquisition of Interwoven and Vignette in the ECM space for years now, and last week, UK success story and erstwhile enterprise search firm Autonomy announced it was to snap up the...

ECM for greener IT?

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:05:00 GMT

Guess what? An effective, enterprise-wide content management strategy can make your organisation more agile, efficient and save you significant energy costs. Yes, you might already be aware of this fact, as it's fairly obvious that ditching paper, printers and copiers...

Financial firms must try harder

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 10:30:28 GMT

After the publicity avalanche of data breaches in 2008, you could be forgiven for thinking that public and private sector organisations have already begun to take data protection more seriously. Unfortunately, new research seems to suggest the opposite. Now, with...

Notice: January Issue

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 10:31:50 GMT

Any subscribers wondering where their first issue of '09 is will have to wait a bit longer I'm afraid. The decision has been made to combine the January and February issues (similar to what we usually do with the July/August...

More thoughts on 2009

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 09:57:18 GMT

So in my last post I might have mentioned that I'd had my fill of year prediction and round-up stories. And you might also, having probably read nothing but over the last week and a half orgy of chocolate, wine...

ECM for 2009

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 12:29:53 GMT

So it's that time of the year again - the time of the year where we spend most of our days writing endless year round-up or prediction stories for your delectation. Having had my fill of that, and stretched my...

PHP and .Net - a third way?

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:35:12 GMT

There are certain topics in the world of information technology which always excite intense debate and near-religious fervour. PC versus Mac, open source versus proprietary; whatever stories we push out which may come down on one or other side, you...

UK data breach notification laws?

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:01:19 GMT

After all the recent news about the new powers to be granted to the Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, another piece of information pushed out by the Ministry of Justice appears to have gone rather unnoticed. It was a definitive statement...

Online Information Conference - Day 3; The Digital Company in 2013

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:38:45 GMT

How will technology change the way organisation operate and do business with one another? The task of understanding how we use information whether as casual browser, consumer or scholar has been one of the elements examined rigorously on the last...

UPDATE: What Future for Search?

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:42:14 GMT

I was going to wait until tomorrow's keynote on Search before blogging about this, but I understand that the session will now count Andrew Kanter, Chief Operating Officer from Autonomy as a panellist. As one of the senior figures at...

Online Information Conference - Day 2: Using Web 2.0 tools in a learning environment

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:31:09 GMT

We all hear a lot about how Web 2.0 is applicable to all areas of life, both at work and at play. The education sector is certainly no exception with the library poised to play a crucial role in what...

Online Information Conference - Do We Have a Profession? (part 2)

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:12:52 GMT

Following Natalie Ceeney's presentation, Gloria Zamora (President Elect, SLA, USA) examined the alternate careers on offer for the intrepid info pro. With a similar position to Ceeney she added "We are our own worse enemy, we need to blow our...

Online Information Conference - Day 2

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:03:49 GMT

Do We Have a Profession? The somewhat controversial sounding title of this morning's session was posed to us by Natalie Ceeney, head of The National Archives (TNA) and as of last night, IWR's Information Professional of the Year. "We are...

Reasons to be cheerful

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 08:55:51 GMT

First day of Online Information always has a special buzz about it and yesterday was no exception. The conference was crowded and at some points during the day it was standing (or sitting on the floor) only in some of...

IWR Information Professional of the Year 2008

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:51:54 GMT

IWR would like to offer their congratulations to Natalie Ceeney (CEO of The National Archives) who has just been announced as Information Professional of the Year 2008. Having met and interviewed Ceeney soon after I joined IWR, I was quickly...

Online Information - Innovators Under the Spotlight

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:45:54 GMT

After my somewhat lengthy post of Clay Shirky's opening keynote I wanted to keep this next post brief. It was a session of information innovation experts giving us their advice on how best to implement your own online strategy. As...

Online Information - Open Keynote, Clay Shirky part 2

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:13:14 GMT

Utilising crowds in Business What does that mean for business models? For Shirky in the old Gutenberg economic model (publisher decides what is distributed in order to make money) the risk is born by the publisher. What the internet has...

Online Information Conference - Opening Keynote, Clay Shirky

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 11:42:29 GMT

Part 1 Clay Shirky, author of "Here Comes Everyone" spoke to assembled delegates this morning about the nature of how we like to share and use our information and how that has led to the next information distribution revolution. Shirky...