Sound Advice: Online audio archives & repositories for research
3rd May 2011

Recorded sound can evoke strong emotions and enhance the experience and understanding of the researcher and end user, which makes it a powerful tool for museums. It is also a format which is increasingly available online and can provide a valuable source of information to supplement text-based material for the researcher. In his article, Andrew Youngkin gives a flavour of the audio material available.

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Using co-design to innovate in libraries
3rd May 2011

The key element when designing any successful service involving information is to meet the needs of the people who will use it. This sounds simple enough but how do we explore those needs and produce tangible outcomes? Lauren Currie and Joanna Ptolomey explain the process of service design, involving co-designing with the people, which can lead to innovative services.

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Product Review of ProQuest Dialog STM
13th April 2011

There was information before the internet, believe it or not, and the earliest online information system from Dialog has been around since 1967 when it was created by Roger Summit. In 1972 it became the world's first commercial online service. Over the years, the product has been aimed at many industries and sectors including government, corporate, professional and education.

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Who's work is it anyway?
13th April 2011

Preview of the FreePint Research Report: Info Pros and End Users

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Product Review of ZoomInfo
13th April 2011

ZoomInfo provides a suite of products that offer business contact information and profiles for business entities and employees. ZoomInfo addresses the challenge of keeping up with the changing contact information for individuals, and employee information for companies.

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The ALISS project - sharing data to support people with long term health conditions
4th April 2011

Searching the web for information about medical conditions can mean that you are swamped with useless, and often disconcerting, results. This is particularly true when you need help and support with a long-term health condition rather than descriptions of symptoms and treatments. The ALISS project aims to overcome this for people in Scotland by unlocking information currently in databases, lists and directories.

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Managing information about people
4th April 2011

In a security-conscious world it is increasingly difficult for organisations to ensure that one of their major assets – their customer details – are collected without scaring the user and are appropriate for their needs. Karen Loasby looks at the diversity of factors to take into account; from law, security and privacy, to user experience, cost and quality.

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Twitter for business intelligence
4th April 2011

Twitter is increasingly being used by businesses as part of their marketing campaigns; whether it’s for monitoring their brand, tracking their competitors or making product announcements. But to make the most of research on Twitter, an organised approach is needed that enables easy compilation of the findings. Charlene Burke shows how third party tools can be used to formulate advanced searches, track down and follow executives, search for URLs and track keywords.

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A Rose by any other name: a new approach to name authority
4th April 2011

Searching for author names in online systems is fraught with difficulty because there are so many possible variations for each name. So the Names Project promises to provide a much-needed solution for the many institutional repositories which are being developed. Amanda Hill describes the progress being made with this JISC-funded, joint British Library and Mimas project.

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FreePint Research Report: Copyright Policies and Practices 2011
27th March 2011

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