Did you miss Dr. Bernie Hogan’s public lecture last week?  The Social Media Lab has posted the audio file on their website, and have synched the slides to correspond with Dr. Hogan’s lecture.  You’ll find the Slidecast on Socialmedialab.ca.

Next Wednesday, March 9, at 12:30 p.m., Dr. Matthew Grenby will be giving a talk entitled “The Child Reader and the Birth of Children’s Literature” in McCain 1198. If you’re at all interested children’s literature and child reading habits, this may be of interest. Sadly, it’s during the Reading Practices class, but for those of you interested in children’s services who aren’t in INFO 6070, you’re welcome to attend! More details, below.

Dr. Mathew O. Grenby
Director of Research
Reader in Children’s Literature
Reviews General Editor, Journal for 18th Century Studies
School of English Literature
Language and Linguistics
Newcastle University
Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.

Dr. Matthew Grenby will be visiting Halifax next week. He will give a
talk in room 1198 on Wednesday March 9th at 12:30 p.m. The topic of his
talk will be “The Child Reader and the Birth of Children’s Literature”.
A light lunch will follow the talk.

The audio recording of the IM Public Lecture given by Ann Mattheman and Kate Greene Stanhope is now available online: The Future of Law Librarianship audio.

Please also refer to their lecture follow-up on the blog: Ann Matthewman & Kate Greene Stanhope blog post.

Kate Greene Stanhope and I spent a very interesting evening with the Legal Literature and Librarianship class last Thursday.  We hope that the discussion left folks feeling enthused about law librarianship.  It is a great career option with opportunities in various types of law libraries all of which offer intellectual challenge and practical experience.

During the question period,  some concern was expressed regarding the future of law librarianship.  I think this was particularly, but not exclusively,  in regard to law firm libraries.  Will law libraries be assumed into knowledge management or information technology departments?  Will their role in helping legal professionals find and understand the law fade as electronic legal information becomes prevalent and print materials fade into the background?

I think not.  As I said Thursday evening, there will always be the need for specialists and intermediaries to manage and help interpret the burgeoning mass of information.  Librarianship has always been a form of knowledge management and new techniques and software do not change that.  It is up to librarians to work with information technology departments, to help IT professionals understand how information and knowledge are used, and conversely to understand ourselves how information is stored and manipulated.  Additionally, it is up to us to take an active role in strategic planning for our organizations and to make sure we know and interact with the key players.

Related to this discussion, is that of what we call ourselves.  Personally, I prefer to be called a librarian.  But would it make any difference if I was referred to as an information specialist, a knowledge manager, or a resource coordinator.  Again, I do not think so.

Dalhousie University will be hosting the fifth annual writing event “W.H.I.P.S.” (Write Here, in Plain Sight) on Friday, January 21, in the Rowe Management building. It runs from 9:00-3:00. The idea behind the event is to give people the opportunity to watch others write. Writing is a skill that is taught but never actually demonstrated to people. A variety of authors write for two hour blocks while audience members are free to interact with the author. Authors vary from professors, students, fiction writers, journalists, columnists, and others.

Every word, every typo, every moment of writer’s block will be projected on large screens. Witness the horror, the struggle, and the triumph.

Writers share their thoughts as they plow through the process. Ask questions while you watch. Open to everyone!  Enter and leave whenever you like as long as you do so quietly!

For more information, contact Deanna Foster at pdf@dal.ca or 494-4556

The Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR) is meeting in Halifax, NS, May 9-12, 2011. Health Informatics is a theme for that conference, so interested students, researchers and decision makers in NS are invited to submit abstracts for oral and panel presentations and posters. The deadline for submissions is Jan 14, 2011 midnight. For more information visit http://cahspr.ca/en/conference.

Richard Alvarez, President and Chief Executive Officer of Canada Health Infoway is a plenary speaker and this would be an opportunity for him to meet with the local health informatics community.

Patrick Ellis (MLIS 1988) will be co-presenting at AccessOLA on the Canadian Virtual Health Library project which is currently working through the operational and governance components with funding from Canada Institutes for Health Research.  This will be great opportunity for folks outside the health library environment to hear about this unique Canadian initiative.

Program blurb:

Patrick Ellis, Dalhousie University;
Jim Henderson, McGill University;
Jessie McGowan, University of Ottawa

Health librarians and stakeholders have worked for many years on a vision of a Canadian Virtual Health Library  (CVHL) to link and leverage resources, services and expertise effectively so that health providers across the country  have easy access to high quality information via a bilingual interface.  For more information visit the CVHL website.