Subscription Update for Government
Jinfo Blog

By Robin Neidorf

Abstract

Subjects such as data visualisation, information skills development, and managing information to improve how easily end users can find and work with it are of interest to customers in government agencies. We highlight recent items of interest to this market sector from FreePint's Content, Community and Consulting.

Item

Content (Articles, Reports and Webinars)

We often pursue products to review based on customer requests. The recently reviewed S&P Capital IQ fulfils requests we've received from customers, including many information professionals in government agencies.

Recent and coming reviews in the legal sector will also be of interest to information professionals who support legal departments or interests within their agencies.

A peek into the usage data shows that a handful of subjects may be top-of-mind for information professionals in government agencies. These include data visualisation, and managing information to improve how easily end users can find and work with it .

Several of our vendor Q&As have been popular with this group of readers:

• Q&A with Acquire Media - Visualisation Delivers the Insight You Need
• Q&A with EBSCO - Insight and Investment in Visibility 
• Q&A with Reprints Desk - Meeting the Visibility Challenge
• Q&A with InfoDesk - Visibility Within the Organisation

Also popular are other items from the FreePint Topic Series, "Making Information Visible", which ran from January through March 2015:

• Evolve Your Search Into Solve - Stop the Seven Deadly Sins
• Blending Internal & External Resources for an Improved Search Experience
• Leveraging Social Media to Discover Information Needs 
• Putting Users at the Centre of Discovery 
• Why Enterprise Search Will Never Be Like Google 

All the content from that Topic Series can be found from this page, and this report indexes all the content by such themes as technology, user behaviour, big data and more.

The current Topic Series, "Best Practices in Information Skills Development", is also attracting plenty of interest and attention from information professionals in government agencies. 

Two very practical tips articles have been among the most-viewed:

• Bite-Size Training - Making a Difference with Short, Face-to-Face Sessions 
• Create Engaging and Memorable Presentations by Going Beyond PowerPoint 

The live audience for the webinar, "Improving Your Connection, Communication and Collaboration with IT" included a large contingent of information professionals from government agencies. If you missed this session, you can access the recording by logging in with your customer credentials on this page and then using the link and password provided to view.

As information centres reinvent themselves, information professionals in government agencies are taking advantage of the momentum of change to invest in skills. Your registration for the Topic Series, "Best Practices in Information Skills Development" can help you make the most of the opportunity inherent in change.

Community

Two Communities of Practice teleconferences are offered as part of the current Topic Series "Best Practices in Information Skills Development".

Running on 9th and 25th June "Getting Information Skills Development on the Strategic Agenda" is most likely to be of value to information professionals in government agencies. During this session we'll be reviewing high-level results from our survey on skills development and discussing the troublesome gap between investment in skills and the workforce our organisations need now and in the future. 

Also of potential interest is "Turning Content into Curricula" on 4th June. If your agency is at the point of delivering more development resources for information skills, this session will help you and other potential trainers understand how to turn your expertise into teaching activities that engage users and actually work.

FreePint is starting to plan our next in-person Communities of Practice sessions in New York, London and possibly other cities in October. If you'd like to weigh in on those sessions and haven't yet completed the survey sent to eligible customers, please contact me, FreePint's director of research, robin.neidorf@freepint.com.

Consulting

One federal (US) government agency with information centres in more than a dozen cities across the country periodically asks our researchers to present them with new information during their team conference calls. 

Recently, we presented latest updates, analysis and opinions on what's happening in the ever-dynamic news aggregation market. We updated research from our coverage during the Topic Series, "News, and Beyond", which ran last October - December, then fielded questions from staff and gathered suggestions for questions to take to vendors for further investigation.

A FreePint Subscription at the Content level gives access to all FreePint articles, reports and webinars, at the Community level gives access to all FreePint Communities of Practice (as well as all FreePint Content), and at the Consulting level adds a credit for up to six hours of annual consulting time. Find out more.

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