SLA Europe Chapter

Are you going to New Orleans?

Plans for SLA's annual conference are at an advanced stage. Will you be in New Orleans? Do let us know if you are!

It's going to be a busy few days, packed with opportunities to learn, network and chat with vendors. So if you're there, be sure to make time for the International events. 

Information Services in Transition: A Global Debate

promises to be a great session as our expert panel from Europe, Australasia and Asia discuss the challenges faced by their information profession as they strive to develop knowledge strategies in their communities.  This promises to be a very lively debate as they share their thoughts on the trends and initiatives evolving around the world.

We know travel budgets are tight, so if you'd struggle to get to Newcastle, let alone New Orleans, there are plenty of ways to catch up with the conference remotely. Follow the buildup and the happenings via Twitter - hashtag is #sla2010. SLA Europe board attendees will be tweeting and blogging where we can.

Check back to this blog (or sign up for our RSS feed, or follow @slaeurope on Twitter) for more updates on conference sessions ...

Next event: SLA(m) on 18 May

SLA(e) are holding an SLA(m) evening on Tuesday 18th May 2010

This will be a great opportunity to build and cement relationships; find out more about what your fellow professionals are currently concerned with, how they and their employers are dealing with today’s market, and where they think Information is headed.

And for our new members who may not have attended one of our evenings before, we’d love this opportunity to say hello over drinks and a few nibbles.

This fantastic evening and our limited complimentary bar will be generously sponsored by SLA Europe, TFPL and FreePint.

    

Date: Tuesday 18th May

Place: Patch Bar

Time: 6pm

Registration Form is here

Numbers are limited so please do reserve your place before it’s too late!

(Reservations will not be accepted after Monday 17th May 2010)

Save the Date: Strictly Come Networking - your chance to SLA(m)

Save the date...

SLA Europe are holding an evening of networking and fun in the heart of London on Tuesday 18th May

Get your sparkle ready and look out for more details soon.

Tweeting While You Work: Event review

Meghan Jones, Assistant Electronic Services Librarian at the King's Fund, has written a review of the recent SLA Twitter seminar.

Thanks once again to Lexis Nexis for their sponsorship of this event.

Tweeting While You Work was an utterly fascinating event, hosted in very genial surroundings. The three speakers: Julie Hall, Judith Lewis and Dr. Hazel Hall took us through the benefits of using Twitter in professional contexts as well as pointing out the potential pitfalls and how to avoid them - Judith Lewis from Seshet’s talk was particularly invaluable on this point and I would definitely recommend reading her slides/listening to the audio as taking pratfalls on social media is something that all professional users need to put at the top of their list - and how they used the service as a means of gathering information, disseminating information and in Judith Lewis and Julie Hall’s case - gaining business

All three women had multiple accounts with very clearly marked boundaries between them and that came through as a very important point - keep business separate from pleasure when it comes to Twitter (and other social media

As mentioned, Judith Lewis’s talk focused on the pitfalls of Twitter and most importantly, what to do when you’ve fallen down into them, while Julie Hall’s talk focused on how she has used it for her company Woman Unlimited and what she has learnt from that. Dr. Hazel Hall provided an excellent list: Ten Tips in Ten Tweets, where she used Twitter itself to post and illustrate the potential uses of Twitter in a work related context, with an example of one of her academic projects

The panel was ably hosted by Bob De Laney of the sponsor, Lexis Nexis, who posed an interesting question - would the panellists use Twitter if they had to pay for it? The answer was mostly yes but with caveats!

Another reminder that SLA members can access all the presentations and recording of the event via the SLA Europe Wiki space. If it's your first time on the wiki you'll need to log in to the SLA website at www.sla.org and create a username. If you're already registered you should be good to access via this link.

And finally, save the date: the next SLA Europe event is on 18 May.