Digital Journalist Survival Guide: Tech terms you should know

At last - a glossary of all those techie terms and acronyms that non-tech information professionals and journalists should know. PoynterOnline's Jennifer 8.Lee has compiled this with the help of the Hacks/Hackers group. As the ResourceShelf put it, being able to "translate from 'geek speak' to layman terms is an excellent skill to have."

Digitising newspapers

In last week's Media Guardian Dan Sabbagh examined James Murdoch's claims that the British Library's plan to digitise newspapers was for commercial gain. Obviously the accusations centre around copyright, but there's an interesting response in today's paper where Ralph Gee notes:

"Most 19th century provincial editors shamelessly lifted from the Times as copies reached them by stagecoach and railway; but London presses reciprocated, for their plunder to be used yet again by other provincials. This very incestuous process is now easily proved."

Indeed it is. Digitisation has completely opened up papers in a way that the original editorial teams could never have imagined. Long may it continue.

Association of UK Media Librarians

After 24 years of promoting and supporting librarians working in the print and broadcast media, the Association of UK Media Librarians (AUKML) is to fold. On May 11, a farewell party was held at IET London, Savoy Place, to celebrate the group's achievements (due to careful stewardship, the group has a healthy bank balance). Over 60 members and former members came together for one last time.

I've written something about the event, for Cilip Gazette (turn to page 3.) See also Annabel Colley's column in Cilip Update, although this is only available to Cilip members...Pictures will soon be available on a Flickr site.

LIKE 14: Transliteracy

After months of gentle arm-twisting from one of its members, I finally made it to my first London Information & Knowledge Exchange (LIKE) event, last Thursday. Founded in February 2009, the group is a collection of information/knowledge professionals who meet every month to discuss all manner of subjects in a relaxed and informal setting. Unlike more formal associations, membership and meetings are arranged on LinkedIn. Another feature of LIKE is that their evenings involve a good meal, something which has led one devotee to describe the gatherings as "a very good dinner party".

So it was with some excitement that I trotted off to the Perservence, the group's regular haunt on Lambs Conduit Street, London. The topic for LIKE 14 was Transliteracy - how info lit r u?, a talk by Susie Andretta, Senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University.

Transliteracy, just in case you're not familiar with the term, is "a unifying perspective on what it means to be literate in the 21st Century [including] the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital networks" (Professor Sue Thomas, DeMontford University).

Andretta has been studying the concept from the perspective of the practicing information professional. See here for an in-depth explanation. Inherent in the transition is, as she puts it, "the challenges of having to adapt to a constantly changing technological landscape, the multiple literacies that this generates, and the need to establish a multifaceted library profession that can speak the multiple-media languages of its diverse users". Heavy stuff, but it did make me stop and think about what many of us are doing almost every hour of the day.That is, communicating using many different mediums, whether it be tweeting, texting, blogging, Second Life etc.

Following the talk, a well-informed debate took place with views ranging from excitement at the concept to some who bemoaned that fact that there was "so much superciality" associated with much new technology communication.

So, what's not to like? LIKE offers a chance to learn something, debate with fellow information professionals, and have a great dinner.

Survival lessons for news libraries

Searcher magazine features an in-depth article about the fate of news libraries: Survival Lessons for Libraries looks at the current situation and pointers to where we go next. It's a detailed piece of work, and includes Michelle Quigley's News Library Layoffs and Buyouts, a table of all the changes in US news libraries over the past couple of years.

In one section Dan Kennedy, professor of journalism at Northeastern University, states that news librarians have been "made utterly obsolete by technology." It may well be true and its certainly a point that's crying out to be debated, but there again, so does a statement like "carpenters have been made utterly obsolete by flat-packs". Anyway, I'd recommend all those with an interest in news libraries to read the piece.

Also worth taking a look at is 200 Moments that Transformed Journalism, 2000-2009 on the Poyner site. Compiled by David Shedden, its library director, the moments were selected from his New Media Timeline (1969-2010).

New roles

To counter the oft-reported stories about the 'death' of media libraries, take a look at Katy Stoddard's Writing ourselves new roles in the May issue of Library & Information Update. As I've mentioned before, Cilip have shoved all their content behind a paywall, but there's a shorter version on the Librarian of Tomorrow blog.

Is this a News of the World stakeout?

Walking along the banks of the river Wye near Bredwardine, Herefordshire, I came across a deserted shed. Curiosity got the better of me and I just had to investigate. Inside was an old armchair, a couple of beds, and an overpowering smell of sheep droppings. What caught my eye though was a News of the World expenses form lying on one of the rancid mattresses.

Had the shed been used as a stakeout for one of the paper's investigations?

Someone had obviously spent a bit of time there as a cupboard contained a few supplies (love the sound of Heinz's tinned London Grill). The question is, who, or what, were they waiting for?