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2017 Stevenson Award

By uczcmsm, on 1 November 2017

On Monday 23rd October, past and present students gathered with other lovely people at the rather majestic Stationers’ Hall to attend the inaugural Stevenson lecture. The evening was a celebration of book historian and UCL professor Iain Stevenson (1950-2017) hosted by Bloomsbury Chapter and UCL Publishing. Simon Eliot gave an inspiring talk entitled: ‘Letters, Leaflets, and Lectures: Before and Beyond the Book 1840-1945’ – we learnt lots (including the correlation between pay and height for Victorian male servants) and were reminded of weird and wonderful things (such as the reason for the holes in our front doors).

At the end of the evening, Daniel Boswell presented the U.C.L Stevenson Award 2017. We obviously wanted to know more about the winner and runners up, Claire, Dominic and Sarah – so here is a little insight!

Winner: Claire Ormsby-Potter

Claire OP Head Shot

A fun fact about yourself:

This question always gives me conniptions because I’m never sure what’s interesting, haha! How about – I actually trained as a teacher after leaving University, but realised that it absolutely wasn’t for me.

What was your favourite moment of the year?

I’m not sure it’s possible to identify a single moment. The whole course was a really great experience for me, and all the opportunities I had as part of it were unbelievable.

What project/piece of work were you most proud of and why?

Probably my Children’s assignment. I got my highest mark for it, and just waxed lyrical about books for ages, interspersed with cartoons I drew. It was a lot of fun!

Runner Up: Dominic Aveiro

Dominic Aveiro Head Shot

A fun fact about yourself: 

Not many people know this about me (…okay, maybe quite a few people do), I used to be in the Metropolitan Police Service…and before you ask, the answer is yes – I have arrested someone.

What was your favourite moment of the year?

This is a hard one for me as there are so many great moments to draw from. Nevertheless, I will have to focus upon a string of moments, or to be more precise, Thursdays. Why were Thursdays so important? Well – not only had the academic week ended for us (though all our classes were great) – it also meant going to the pub! Here, great friendships were forged. Not surprisingly (or perhaps, surprisingly?), the pub was an environment that was highly conducive to communication.

What project/piece of work were you most proud of and why?

Without a shadow of a doubt, my absolute pride and joy was the piece of work I did for Children’s Publishing. I basically designed a DK-inspired Dragon Ball piece on InDesign with the skills I had gained from Publishing Skills. This is the wonderful thing about the Publishing MA – skills are transferable…and encouraged!

 

 

If you want to see what they’re up to now, give them a little follow:

Claire: @okyeahbut

Dom: @DominicAveiro

Sarah: @sjfcarver

Indie-visits to Libraries: LIS Students Out and About by Ivan Donadello

By Anne Welsh, on 21 November 2014

 

Cambridge

The one-year spent in the full time Masters course passes by very quickly. You start and, all of a sudden, it is January and Term 1 has gone. Then you find yourself putting together that case study and after a minute you are writing up your dissertation. In all this, visiting libraries is a (very) good idea.

 

The idea came about spontaneously to my classmates and me. As comprehensive as it can possibly be, a LIS course could never cover all the possible aspects of libraries in all their fields. Academic libraries are the first and most common example for library students, but we wanted to explore a bit more what there was out there. Departments would organise visits as part of their curricula, but self-organised students visits respond more to the students’ natural curiosity. And it was fun!

 

How? We pulled together the resources we had and we used our contacts. Those who had spent a year in a Graduate Traineeship relied on the relations in the previous workplace: simply, they asked their previous supervisor whether they where willing to host a visit by eager library students. Others used personal contacts and their network to arrange a visit. We have never tried to directly contact a library we were interested in, presenting ourselves as “UCL LIS students”, but I am confident that very few libraries would have turned us down: sharing and teaching are at the core of the profession!

 

What? Our visits were approximately two hours long: enough time to look around and have a relaxed chat with the staff. The more questions, the more engaging the experience was – and it also helps a lot to think critically about ideas and experiences one might have. We managed only 3: the more the better, but studying full time and in some cases having part-time jobs made it difficult to do any more. For the same reasons, each time the group was not too large: trying to fit a visit into everybody’s schedules was of course impossible – doodle helps a lot. We have been to the library of Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London and to the Idea Store in Whitechapel, a new concept of public library that aims at serving at its best their community. We also treated ourselves with a one-day trip to Cambridge to visit the library of Trinity College. Here and there, a couple of pubs.

 

Why? It has been a great way to think about libraries out of the “write-that-assignment” frame of mind and to build stronger relations among ourselves beyond the university walls. It has been useful in terms of inspiration and a good exercise in planning and organising. Meeting professionals in a more informal situation also allowed us to ask more questions and free up your own curiosity. I believe we gained an awareness of the diversity and the options that exist in libraries.

—–

Ivan Donadello (@ibancelafa) was one of the MA LIS class of 2012-13, and is now Senior Library Assistant at UCL Institute of Ophthalmology.

Image: Trinity College by Laura Newman (@librarylandL), used with permission. Pictured, from left to right: Ivan Donadello (@ibancelafa), Natalie Kent (@natalielkent), Richard Hobart, Fiona Watson, Ella Taylor and Alexandra Kohn.

Note: the appearance of the byline on this post is auto-generated, indicating that it was posted by Anne Welsh. Ivan Donadello is the sole author of this piece, and Laura Newman holds the copyright for the image.

The Stationers’ Company Postgraduate Bursary by Charlotte Middleton

By Anne Welsh, on 12 November 2014

Stationers

Editorial note (Anne Welsh): UCL DIS is fortunate to benefit from the Stationers’ Company Postgraduate Bursary Scheme, with a member of the MA LIS cohort under 25 years old being selected each year for the generous financial and mentorship package. On 27 October, the bursary holder for 2013-14, Charlotte Middleton was made free of the Company, alongside Aislinn O’Connell, who holds an award from the Stationers for her PhD in Publishing. This year’s recipient, Tavian Hunter, also attended the ceremony to receive her bursary certificate and meet her mentor.

In this blog post, Charlotte describes the award and what joining the Stationers’ Company has meant to her as a new information professional:

Receiving one of the Stationers’ Bursaries has been fantastic. In addition to the bursary itself – which contributes considerably to the cost of the Masters’ fees – bursary recipients also receive guidance and support from a mentor, provided by the Stationers, in their studies, their work and in their interactions with the Company. My mentor, Sarah, was kind and friendly; she showed me around her work, encouraged me to attend Stationers’ events and introduced me to other members of the Company.

Recipients also receive the first three years of your membership of the Stationers’ Company for free which is, in my opinion, what sets this scholarship apart. Membership of one of the London Guilds is a rare honour, as well as being excellent fun.

Since receiving the bursary I have attended several new members’ evenings which are a great opportunity to meet other young and new Stationers, and there are always excellent wines and canapés. I have visited the Stationers’ Library and Archive on several occasions, attended the Printers’ Carols Service at Christmas and enjoyed several networking events.

I have also attended several excellent talks: the first about the digitisation of the Stationers’ Registers; the Annual Lecture about the printing of currencies and passports; and another about the history of private printing presses in Britain.

I also attended the Lord Mayor’s Show Luncheon after last year’s parade, and this year I have had the privilege of helping to organise the Stationers’ float and walk in the parade.

Being a member of the Stationers’ Company is a tremendous honour: to be granted the opportunity to be part of a Guild with such a prestigious six hundred year history in the book trade, to meet fascinating people and to drink excellent wine is by far the greatest aspect of this bursary.

I would encourage anyone who is thinking of applying to do so.

—–

Charlotte Middleton (@Middletonwest) was the Stationers’ Company Postgraduate Bursary recipient for UCL in 2013-14. Having completed her MA LIS, she is currently building a portfolio career in Special Collections, and is one of the panellists at the CPD25 event ‘Applying to Study Library and Information Science’ on Tuesday 18 November 2014.

Applicants for the MA LIS who are under 25 are encouraged to apply for the Stationers’ Company Postgraduate Bursary Scheme and will be contacted by the Department at the appropriate stage in the application process.

Note: the appearance of the byline on this post is auto-generated, indicating that it was posted by Anne Welsh. Charlotte Middleton is the sole author of this piece.

Profiles in Law Librarianship

By Anne Welsh, on 2 December 2012

At our recent open day, we were pleased to meet prospective students from a range of sectors including academic, health, business and law.

Perhaps because we teach a traditional MA LIS, with core modules in Cataloguing and Classification, Collection Management, Information Sources, Management and PCIT, or perhaps because so many of our alumni have gone on to prominent positions within RLUK and other academic libraries, one of the frequently asked questions was how many of our students go on to careers in the commercial sector.

We are honestly able to say that an increasing number of our graduates go into commercial roles, both within traditional information services and in new media positions. It’s a happy co-incidence that one such recent graduate has just been featured on the Special Libraries Association Legal Division’s ‘Profiles in Law Librarianship’. 

Marie Cannon was a member of last year’s cohort of students. Arriving with a background in the legal sector, she took advantage of opportunities within the MA to try out different areas before deciding to target law firms in pursuit of her first professional post. She was one of the first in her year to obtain a post, and one of many students to combine finishing her dissertation with starting a new role. She also received a scholarship to attend the SLA conference in Chicago last summer, and is now a board member for SLA Europe, for whom she runs the SLA Europe Blog. Social media was a developing professional passion for Marie during her time at UCL, when, as well as starting her own blog, she authored two entries during her work placement at Senate House – ‘Rare Books Revealed‘ and ‘Rare Books Revealed 2‘.

Information professionals are a friendly group of people, and Marie is no exception to this. I’m sure if you have questions about her route into law librarianship, her time studying at UCL, or, indeed, her love of baking and decorating beautiful cakes, she will be happy to be found on twitter @mariegcannon.

Read Marie’s interview on the SLA Legal Division website.

Image: Marie Grace Cannon’s Blog

Seeking SLAIS and DIS Alumni

By Holly B Kosmin, on 12 June 2012

UCL graduation

image by mansikka

UCL DIS (Department of Information Studies) is gathering information about its alumni, including former students of SLAIS (School of Library, Archives, and Information Studies – we changed our name in January 2009).

If you’re one of our alumni then we’d like to know what you’re up to now. Please can you tell us if you’re working, volunteering, studying or doing something else? What organisation are you at? What do you do? Where in the world are you?

You can comment on this post if you like, with your name, email address and details, or if you’d prefer to send us an email please do at:  l.keshav@ucl.ac.uk.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to share this information with anyone without your permission, and if we use it to produce data on UCL DIS/SLAIS alumni it will not be linked to you as an individual. We may contact you again to ask if we can use you as a case study for our website but we will not do so unless you have expressly agreed to this.

Please help us spread the word and reach as many alumni as possible by passing this on to other alumni you’re in touch with, and sharing the link on Facebook and Twitter.

Many thanks!

Contribute to the Blog

By Anne Welsh, on 21 May 2012

 

If you are a current student or one of our alumni (dating back to our time as the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies) and have professional news to share, we’d love to hear from you. Find out how to contribute on our “About” page.

 

 

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Image: elod beregszaszi, copyright commons, some rights reserved.

UCL DIS at CIG 2012

By Anne Welsh, on 21 May 2012

Two students have had papers accepted at the main UK conference for cataloguing and indexing, CIG 2012: the Value of Cataloguing, which takes place in Sheffield, 10-11 September.

William Earp will give a lightning talk entitled ‘Connecting the dots: the birth of RDA, the death of MARC and the library semantic web’, based on his current MA LIS dissertation research.

Kate Whaite (MPhil / PhD) will speak on ‘Finding value in History: gaining knowledge by examining historical practices’, which draws on her experience in the impact of historical methods within cataloguing practice gained in her MA LIS and PhD studies. Kate is also second author on a full paper at the conference, in which she and Anne Welsh (Lecturer in LIS) elucidate ‘Our hybrid history and its action points for today’. Following the conference’s keynote address, this will open the first session in the conference theme ‘Working with New Standards’.

From a glance at the draft programme (pdf) it seems that other lightning round papers are practitioner-authored, so it is good to see UCL DIS flying the flag for the academic study of cataloguing.

 

Twitter and Publishers

By Nick P Canty, on 13 July 2011

Anne Thoring (MA Publishing 2009-10) has published her dissertation research. ‘Corporate Tweeting: Analysing the use of Twitter as a marketing tool by UK trade publishers’ appears in the latest issue of the Springer journal Publishing Research Quarterly.

The research found that just 42% of the sample of publishers had a Twitter account. Medium sized and larger publishers were most likely to Tweet, with the medium sized companies most active. The average publishers Tweeted during the working week and posts were mainly normal Tweets and not retweets or replies.

The majority of Tweets were about competitions, games or votes, followed by information about books and then authors. Most content was exclusive to Twitter and did not appear in the News section of the publisher’s website or other social media. The majority of Tweets contained hyperlinks.

The article is available to read through the UCL library e-journal service

Best Paper

By Anne Welsh, on 11 July 2011

Thanks to Sue Hill Recruitment for pointing out that Katie Birkwood (MA LIS 2008) and Naomi Herbert won the prize for best paper at this year’s New Professionals Conference.

The slides for paper, ‘Teaching old books new tricks: how special collections outreach can help you, your career, and your library’ are available from Katie’s blog. Naomi Herbert has also posted them, along with the interesting observation that “Despite a marked emphasis on Twitter throughout the conference, the presentations that got the audience vote were those that put emphasis on engaging people face to face or building a network outside of your usual ‘followers.'”

 

If you are an alumnus of one of our courses and have news to share, please send an email, including your course and year of graduation to the address on our ‘About’ page.

 

Photo: Biddy Fisher presenting Katie and Naomi with their award, by Sarah Ison.

Canadian Scholarship

By Anne Welsh, on 4 July 2011

Amy De’Ath (MA Publishing 2009) is about to leave her role as Junior Digital Editor at Andersen Press to study for a PhD at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, where she has won a 4-year scholarship. She will be researching contemporary feminist poetry and philosophy. Amy’s first collection of poetry, Erec & Enide was published by Salt Publishing last year (cover image left).

 

If you are a DIS or SLAIS alumnus with professional news to share, do get in touch.

 

Image: Amy DeAth. Erec & Enide (Salt, 2010).