‘E-Libraries and Green Libraries’

‘E-libraries and Green Libraries: exploring accessibility and sustainability’ is the theme of  the 2009 CoFHE Conference, details of which are now available on the CoFHE Website. The conference is being held from 17 to 19 June 2009 at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

I will be running a workshop or two at the conference on Web 2.0/Library 2.0 in FE – based on our experiences of utilising Web 2.0 tools  in FE as part of a CyMAL funded Inspiring Learning project.

CoFHE Cymru conference 2009

The CoFHE Cymru conference 2009 now has a wiki. The event will be held on Friday 24 April 2009 at Coleg Glan Hafren (Cardiff) and is free of charge owing to generous funding from CILIP Cymru. Places can be booked through Dan Huws.

October FE library update

CoFHE Conference 2009

Further details of the 2009 CoFHE conference have been confirmed:

‘E-libraries and green-libraries: exploring accessibility and sustainability’

Dates for your diary! Advance notice of the 2009 Annual CoFHE Conference, to be held Wednesday 17th June to Friday 19th June 2009 at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh. Please contact Jo Rowley (JRowley@qmu.ac.uk) to be kept informed of conference developments.

CoFHE Cymru Conference 2009

Owing to generous funding from the Kathleen Cooks fund it can be confirmed that the Welsh CoFHE conference will take place on Friday 24 April 2009 at Coleg Glan Hafren (Cardiff). The conference will feature speakers on good practice in FE and HE libraries. The conference will be free of charge to CoFHE Cymru members.

FE learning resources self-evaluation toolkit

Promotional events are currently being planned with JISC RSCs and regional CoFHE circles in the North West, West Midlands, South West and London. Please contact your local RSC for more details. 

Information literacy articles

The journal Communication in Information Literacyis available full text online and the current issue includes an interesting article on the use of Web 2.0 tools in teaching information literacy:

Patrick Ragains, ‘Web 2.0: Opportunities for Information Literacy Instruction’

CoFHE Conference 2009

The 2009 CoFHE conference is being planned for Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh from Wednesday 17 to Friday 19 June 2009.

The theme of the conference will be creating sustainable library services. The conference will also feature workshops on Web 2.0 and showcase the new FE learning resource toolkits which are due for publication in England, Scotland and Wales.

Prices are still to be confirmed but the full delegate fee for CoFHE members will be around £190 +VAT (£220+VAT for non-members). The conference is likely to run from approximately midday on Wednesday through to midday on the Friday.

Full details will appear on the CoFHE website when they become available. If there is a topic you would particularly like to see a workshop on then please leave a comment.

CoFHE UC&R Conference 2008

As a fairly regular attendee of CoFHE conferences I can honestly say that this year’s conference has been the best one I have attended.

Although I could be called biased, owing to my (very peripheral) role on the organising committee, this year’s conference had an excellent balance of FE and HE speakers and workshops.

Some of the interesting concepts and information sources I picked up on included:

‘Creepy tree house‘

This was defined as the negative perception students have of Web 2.0 technologies used to entice them in to engagement with libraries or the curriculum. 

So obviously the challenge we have to face is to develop Web 2.0 technologies which look like ‘friendly tree houses’!

Mention was made of hard evidence from Greenwich Community College that students who made use of the LRC perform better than those that don’t.

There was widespread use of Youtube in presentations and workshops some of the highlights, all from mediatedcultures.net, were:

A vision of students today – which looks at the changing nature of student life

World Simulation – a Web 2.0 world simulator using Twitter

The machine is us – a good introduction to Web 2.0 (should have been in my workshop but it kept crashing!)